Australia's Defence Materiel Organisation is undertaking an independent review of the Northrop Grumman multirole electronically scanned array (MESA) radar that equips the Royal Australian Air Force's Wedgetail airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, following concerns about its performance. Air Vice Marshal Chris Deeble, director of the AUD3.5 billion (USD2.2 billion) Wedgetail programme, told a parliamentary committee on 22 October that the inquiry would be headed by the Defence Scientific and Industrial Organisation and supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory. AVM Deeble said he had written to Boeing, prime contractor on the Wedgetail programme. He said: "The questions I have asked of them are about what they believe the [radar's] current baseline performance to be; what action they will take to remediate any shortfalls in performance; and, if there are residual shortfalls, how we will work together to understand what those shortfalls are and how we would go about resolving them?" He added that the radar "is at a critical juncture". A Boeing spokesperson declined to comment.
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