Thu, Sep 01, 2005
NATO Contract Calls For Development Of European Theater Missile
Defense System
Northrop Grumman, EADS
and Indra say they've formed an international team to pursue a
systems engineering and integration contract that is a key part of
the new NATO active-layered theatre ballistic-missile defense
program.
This NATO ballistic-missile defense program will be the first to
link the assets of member nations into a multi-layered system that
will effectively protect deployed alliance forces against short-
and medium-range ballistic- missile attack.
The winning team for the NATO systems engineering and
integration (SE&I) contract will design and operate an
integration test bed in Europe that will help NATO prepare its
member-nations' assets for inclusion into this unified theatre
ballistic-missile defense system. Award of the contract is due in
the second quarter of 2006.
"The proliferation of missiles of all ranges presents a
significant threat to NATO nations and alliance forces," said Gary
Abercrombie, vice president of missile-defense programs at Northrop
Grumman's Mission Systems sector. "The Northrop Grumman/EADS/Indra
team offers NATO unprecedented missile-defense integration
experience that's imperative to help NATO tie these systems
together and build this much needed defense. Together, the Northrop
Grumman- led team of highly experienced engineers will meet the
complex integration and interoperability challenge of blending
these NATO assets into a seamless system to protect its
forward-deployed forces."
"We are excited about this opportunity to team with Northrop
Grumman and Indra, and bring the full capabilities of EADS to the
challenge of NATO ballistic missile defense," said Dr. Stefan
Zoller, chief executive officer of EADS defense & Security
Systems Division. "We have a strong focus on transatlantic
cooperation projects and expect to expand this further within our
defense and security strategy."
"The active-layered theatre ballistic-missile defense is a
critical program where NATO and nations' resources must be
addressed to generate an effective and very complex system
architecture," said Regino Moranchel, Indra's managing director.
"Superb blending of the Northrop Grumman team's capabilities and
successful experiences as partners and as individual contractors in
major NATO initiatives provide the best base to generate the most
adequate proposal to satisfy NATO's and nations' interest."
If chosen, the team will use the integration test bed as a
platform to integrate, test and verify the proposed architectures;
develop and evaluate theatre missile-defense concepts of operation;
and test and evaluate the different architectural capabilities as
hardware and software become available. In addition, the team will
ensure integration and interoperability among the various NATO
components of the architecture from both a technical and
operational perspective. The test bed will also be used for
performance verification, using detailed modeling and simulation
tools to ensure that the actual missile defense performance will
meet the requirements.
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