EUROPE

SEA

03 Dec 13. The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded a contract to QinetiQ to upgrade and provide maintenance for software – designed to help in the decision making process for submarine escape and rescue systems – for the UK Royal Navy. The contract follows the UK MoD’s request to QinetiQ GRC to review the software and assess its usability and future development. As part of the contract, the company will recode and maintain the submarine escape, rescue, abandonment and survival (SMERAS) assessment model software in a modern development language. (Source: naval-technology.com)

AIR

03 Dec 13. Elbit Systems EW and SIGINT- Elisra Ltd. (Elisra), was selected for the integration and delivery of Elisra’s Passive Airborne Warning System (PAWS-2) onboard the Gripen fighter. The system was selected following a comprehensive in-depth evaluation and testing of the system in various scenarios as well as in a comparative live fire test. PAWS-2 is part of the Elisra family of IR based combat-proven Missile Warning Systems, all in serial production and in operational service. The system is based on years of both operational and technical experience and provides a unique combination of a superior off-the-shelf protection capability enriched with IR-CENTRIC® growth potential to cope with ever growing future requirements expected during the life-cycle of the Gripen fighter system.
BATTLESPACE Comment: The Release does not make it clear which variants or customers have this EW system. If across the board it will cause problems in selling Gripen to Middle east customers.

02 Dec 13. Exelis received a contract valued at more than $7.5m to provide transportable ground control approach capabilities to support Sweden’s Deployable Airfield Unit (DAU). With this contract, the company continues to extend its leadership in the growing field of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and analytics to serve the needs of customers in global markets. The Exelis GCA-2000 solution will significantly improve the DAU’s situational awareness and ability to quickly deploy and manage airspace operations. This will be Sweden’s second transportable, solid-state, electronically scanned system with three radar functions – primary surveillance, precision approach, and secondary surveillance – in a single, standalone unit. The GCA-2000 also provides Sweden with global compatibility and NATO standardization with systems operating at 11 other sites across Europe.

02 Dec 13. KONGSBERG signed a bridging-phase contract leading to phase 3 with Norwegian Defence Logistics Organization (NDLO) for further development of the JSM (Joint Strike Missile). The contract is valued at NOK 480m. The JSM development phase 2 has been finalized and to ensure competence and progress between JSM phase 2 and phase 3, the Norwegian Armed Forces have signed a bridging phase contract prior to parliamentary proceedings and approval of the entire JSM development phase 3. (Source: ASD Network)

TECHNOLOGY

29 Nov 13. Purple Secure Systems awarded a place on the Government’s
Digital Services Framework Agreement. Purple Secure Systems has recently been awarded a place on the Government’s Digital Services Framework. This is a new framework which allows any Government department to tap into a pool of SMEs with an Agile capability. The move within Government is an attempt to reduce the overheads associated with many of the tasks they perform, through drawing on agile digital services from pre-qualified suppliers who provide better value for money.

USA

LAND

04 Dec 13. The U.S. Army TACOM Contracting Command recently awarded General Dynamics Land Systems a $28m contract for research, development and testing in preparation for the Stryker Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) upgrade program. The Stryker ECP upgrade program is an engineering-development effort focused on integrating a group of system improvements into a single upgrade program for the Stryker eigh