B-2 Spirit exposes enemy air defenses after upgrade

The US Department of Defense (DoD) said in a statement that the contract to upgrade all B-2 aircraft is worth $28 million and is expected to be completed by July 9, 2020. Although the upgrade was made public, the content of the upgrade was not disclosed.

Meanwhile, US Air Force General Kent Mickelson revealed that it is likely that the US Air Force will focus on upgrading electronic systems and enhancing stealth capabilities to help the B-2 become a super stealth aircraft.

Specifically, one of the most important upgrades for the B-2 Spirit is the modern Defense Management System (DMS). This is a technology that helps provide information to the crew about the location of enemy air defense systems.

If equipped with modern DMS, the B-2 Spirit becomes more dynamic and effective in enemy airspace, giving it better situational awareness and quicker decision making.

"The DMS system is expected to be operational by the mid-20s," Mickelson stressed.

Also thanks to DMS, the aircraft moves quickly to an ultra-high frequency satellite, enhancing communication with the command post. For example, the upgraded communications system could help the crew drop bombs precisely according to instructions from senior commanders, including from the President in the event of a nuclear attack.

The upgrade of the B-2 Spirit is like "killing two birds with one stone", being able to drop both conventional bombs and nuclear weapons. In particular, it speeds up the data traffic used by the aircraft.

The stealth aircraft uses a data link known to experts as LINK-16 and both UHF and VHF data. This allows the B-2 Spirit to communicate with ground control stations, command and control, and can also receive information from other manned and unmanned aircraft.

However, information from nearby spy planes needs to be transmitted through a ground control station. This requires modern defense management technology that will help the B-2 receive real-time video images from airborne vehicles more quickly, efficiently and accurately.

The B-2 Spirit is also being upgraded with a high-tech flight management control processor to expand and modernize the onboard computer system, adding new software.

This work also includes the placement and integration of the flight control processors, the brains of the aircraft, into the multi-tasking integrated processing system. The result is a new fiber optic cable layout model, as opposed to the cable layout on buses.

The reason is that the B-2's computer system, which dates back to the 1980s, is both outdated and unsatisfactory for the increasingly high combat demands of the new situation, especially the data overload and the factors of information speed and reliability.

The new processors will increase the performance of the aircraft's avionics and computer systems by about 1,000 times.