The U.S. Joint Forces Command and Northrop Grumman Corp. of Los Angeles have agreed to extend through 2012 an agreement to cooperate on the improvement of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for coalition forces in Afghanistan, according to an April 28 Northrop Grumman press release.

Northrop Grumman and Joint Forces Command first signed the agreement in 2007 and have since worked together on various modeling and simulation programs to make military demonstrations more operationally realistic, the release said. One of the next exercises Northrop Grumman will participate in is Empire Challenge 2010 in July and August, in which various inter- and intra-government agencies collaborate to demonstrate interoperability of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, the release said.