Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has been awarded type approval by the U.S. Coast Guard for the Sperry Marine VoyageMaster II Simplified Voyage Data Recorder (S-VDR).

The Coast Guard type approval certifies that the Sperry Marine S-VDR meets the International Maritime Organization (IMO) carriage requirements and International Electrotechnical Commission performance standards for “black box” recording devices on cargo ships. Similar to the cockpit recorders on aircraft, the S-VDR provides a permanent record of data from the ship’s sensors and audio recordings from the bridge for use in post-incident analysis.

The S-VDR is a simplified version of the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR), which is currently required for all new ships constructed since 2002. The S-VDR standard was adopted by the IMO to provide for retrofitting recorders on older ships, many of which were built with older analog devices that cannot easily be interfaced to the VDR.

The S-VDR carriage requirement applies to all cargo ships larger than 20,000 gross tons as of July 1, 2006, and will be extended to smaller ships from 3,000-20,000 gross tons on July 1, 2007.

Sperry Marine’s S-VDR product has received similar type approval from the German certification authority Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt & Hydrographie.

Sperry Marine, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., and with major engineering and support offices in New Malden, United Kingdom and Hamburg, Germany, provides smart navigation and ship control solutions for the international marine industry with customer service and support through offices in 16 countries, sales representatives in 47 countries and authorized service depots in more than 250 locations worldwide.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a global defense company headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif. Northrop Grumman provides technologically advanced, innovative products, services and solutions in systems integration, defense electronics, information technology, advanced aircraft, shipbuilding and space technology. With approximately 125,000 employees and operations in all 50 states and 25 countries, Northrop Grumman serves U.S. and international military, government and commercial customers.

For commercial sales inquiries, contact Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine by phone, +1 (434) 974-2656 or by e-mail, sales_commercial@sperry.ngc.com. For military sales inquiries, call +1 (434) 974-2134 or e-mail sales_military@sperry.ngc.com. Visit our Web site at www.sperrymarine.northropgrumman.com.