Northrop Wins Air Force Contracts

Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. has received contracts for a total of $132 million from the Air Force to upgrade Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System planes. The larger of the two contracts, for $74 million, requires the company to put new computers into the planes. The second is for Northrop to upgrade components in the planes’ radar systems and to replace copper wiring connecting the computers with fiber-optic cables. The work will be performed in Melbourne, Fla., and completed by the end of 1999. The Air Force is expected to purchase 13 of the surveillance planes from Northrop within the next decade. Shares of the company, which also makes the Air Force’s B-2 bomber, rose 37.5 cents to close at $83.25 on the NYSE.