Northrop's War-Planning Network Halts After Congress Balks
- Air Force issues stop-work order as current money runs dry
- Congress declined to approve request to add more funds
Northrop Grumman personnel conduct pre-operational tests Monday, May 13, 2013 on an X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). George H.W. Bush is scheduled to be the first aircraft carrier to catapult launch an unmanned aircraft from its flight deck.
Photographer: U.S. Navy/Getty ImagesThe U.S. Air Force ordered Northrop Grumman Corp. to stop work on developing an upgraded war-planning network for air operations after Congress refused to approve more money for a project that’s doubled in cost and fallen more than three years behind on a key deadline.
The stop-work order, effective Wednesday, pauses development of the cyber-hardened network “until further notice,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement. The action was forced after the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to approve a request to shift, or reprogram, $66 million from other accounts to cover part of an overrun.