Washington: Northrop Grumman has won a more than USD 3.2 billion contract to design, manufacture and deliver the next-generation Ground-Based Midcourse Interceptor for the US Missile Defence Agency, the Defence Department announced.

"Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation [of] Huntsville, Alabama is being awarded a ... contract with a maximum amount of USD 3,286,745,005," the Defence Department said in a press release on Friday.

The Defence Department said in the release that Northrop Grumman will design, develop, test and field the next Ground-Based Midcourse Defence Weapon System (GWS) program.

"The GWS contract covers the systems engineering, design, development, integration, testing, and fielding of GWS software and hardware meeting war fighter needs, new requirements and evolving threats with greater reliability, availability, maintainability and testability than the current system," the release said.