The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has announced on 5 September that Boeing has again received a $208 million contract for the F-15 Legion Pod infrared search-and-track (IRST) pod.
According to the DoD’s statement, Boeing has been awarded a $208,27 million contract for engineering, manufacturing, development, production, integration, testing and deployment of the F-15 Legion Pod infrared search-and-track (IRST) pod.
All work will be performed in St. Louis, Missouri; and Orlando, Florida, and is expected to be completed by Nov. 30, 2020.
It is worth noting that Boeing received a contract after a first announcement on 25 August 2018, and a retraction of the contract on 27 August.
It was previously reported that The $208 million contract from the U.S. Air Force covers engineering and manufacturing development, in addition to full-aircraft integration of up to 182 Legion Pod IRST systems.
The Legion Pod IRST systems provide high-fidelity detection and tracking of air-to-air targets.
IRST enables the host aircraft to acquire and track airborne targets through the heat generated by the jet engine and through aerodynamic heating of the airframe as it travels through the atmosphere. Being a passive system, the target aircraft does not know that it is being tracked.
According to the Boeing, Legion Pod has completed integration and flight tests on F-15C aircraft, successfully demonstrating its detection and tracking capabilities in representative threat environments. First flight test of the Legion pod with a US Air Force F-15C occured in September 2016.
The Airrecognition.com noted that Boeing will act as prime contractor with its parner, Lockheed Martin, which developed the pod.