Northrop Grumman Australia has successfully delivered the Triton Network Integration Test Environment (NITE) to the Commonwealth of Australia ahead of schedule, marking another milestone in the Australian MQ-4C Triton program.
Developed by Northrop Grumman and based at Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Edinburgh, NITE will support Chief Information Officer Group (CIOG) to configure and test the array of Triton network interfaces and systems prior to the delivery of the first aircraft to Australia in 2023. Critically, NITE enables CIOG to design and test Triton’s network architecture on Defence wide area networks.
“This program will derisk the first Triton aircraft arriving into Australia and leverage the expertise and lessons learned from Northrop Grumman and the US Navy,” said Christine Zeitz, general manager, Northrop Grumman Asia Pacific. “We are establishing sovereign capability to support the Triton program which once established will revolutionise maritime ISR in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Despite challenges presented by COVID-19 restrictions, Northrop Grumman’s engineering teams in the United States and Australia worked closely together to achieve the delivery milestone, leveraging experience learned through supporting the U.S. Navy’s Triton roll-out.
Beyond the successful delivery of the NITE capability, Northrop Grumman is working closely with the U.S. Navy to progress Triton toward initial operating capability and global deployments. The U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman achieved the first flight of the multi-intelligence variant on July 30.
