Pentagon canceled Northrop’s classified satellite program due to ‘budgetary concerns’ – By Audrey Decker (Defense One) / April 25, 2024
Its CEO also said the company won’t compete to build cheap, non-survivable drones.
Northrop Grumman’s classified satellite program was canceled because the Pentagon didn’t have enough money to pay for it, the company said.
“On the restricted program, there’s very little I can say given the nature of that program, except to say that the Air Force canceled that program largely due to budgetary concerns and prioritization, but the requirement likely does still exist and so we will see how that plays out over time,” CEO Kathy Warden told investors Thursday during the company’s first quarter earnings call.
The cancellation sliced about $1.6 billion off Northrop’s “unfunded backlog”—that is, prospective orders whose funding has yet to be appropriated, according to the company. Bloomberg first reported that the canceled program was intended to develop a military communications satellite for the Space Force.
