Northrop Grumman has successfully completed a major U.S. Air Force review of a new software upgrade for the B-2 stealth bomber.
The upgrade, part of the USAF's Flexible Strike Phase 1 program will increase the jet's mission capabilities and reduce its maintenance costs.
The preliminary design review (PDR) is the company's opportunity to show the Air Force that it understands the required interactions between the aircraft and its weapon systems, and that the new software will manage those interactions correctly. PDR was conducted Feb. 26-27 at Northrop Grumman's B-2 facility in Oklahoma City.
"We're simplifying the software used by the B-2 to manage its weapons," explained Dave Mazur, vice president and B-2 program manager, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "Today we have several standalone programs that each manage a specific type of mission. We're replacing that software with a single program that can manage all of those mission types."
For the Flexible Strike Phase 1 program, the company plans to replace multiple operational flight programs (OFP) – embedded software that allows B-2 to communicate accurately with the equipment that holds and dispenses its weapons – with a single OFP.
The FS program is the first B-2 modernization effort to take advantage of the enhanced communications infrastructure Northrop Grumman created for the first increment of the B-2 EHF satellite communications program. Those improvements included faster processors, a fiber optic network and increased onboard data storage, all of which help the bomber manage more information at higher speeds.
The long range bat winged B-2 can penetrate deeply into access-denied airspace without getting detected by enemy radars. It can fly more than 6,000 nautical miles unrefueled and more than 10,000 nautical miles with just one aerial refueling, giving it the ability to reach any point on the globe within hours.
