The U.S. Marine Corps expects to begin testing a new man-portable target detection and acquisition device in fiscal year 2023.
USMC awarded Northrop Grumman an eight-year, $252 million contract in February to manufacture and support the military branch’s Next-Generation Handheld Targeting System.
The service said Wednesday it intends for the NGHTS to include features of four predecessor devices, interoperate with a target handoff system and increase the ability of users to pinpoint a target farther than the distance their previous platforms could reach.
NGHTS, currently in the low-rate initial production phase, will have a lightweight design for service personnel to carry the unit in their field packs.
Maj. Patrick Heiny, lead for USMC’s fire support coordination team, said NGHTS will be the branch’s first target locator that weighs below 10 pounds and takes up 60 percent less volume than legacy platforms.
Marines aim to deploy their new targeting system sometime in fiscal 2024.