EUROPE
LAND
08 Nov 16. SES (Euronext Paris:SESG) (LuxX:SESG) announced today that its Luxembourgish 50% affiliate GovSat has secured a long term commercial satellite communications contract to support the operational phase of NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS). The contract is for an end-to-end service and includes the delivery of satellite capacity in commercial Ku-band – largely coming from the SES fleet – as well as associated capacity management services. These services support the command & control and sensor data communications required by NATO Global Hawk vehicles over the AGS operational area. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)
SEA
10 Nov 16. Airbus Defence and Space has been awarded the Maritime Network Evolution contract with the UK Ministry of Defence. The contract value amounts to £ 36m, and will cover the communications networks of 20 Royal Navy warships, including Type 45 Destroyers and Queen Elizabeth Class carriers, upgraded over the next four years. This solution creates the Internet Protocol backbone of the future Maritime Architecture and extends the life of the military satcom well into the middle of the next decade. It will remove obsolete equipment, remove the dependency of serial services and allow platforms to have the ability to select their own communication bearers for operations. This programme has been achieved without having to compromise any of the key military requirements needed by our Royal Navy warships to defend against any major threat scenario, whilst keeping them at the forefront of modern technology. (Source: ASD Network)
USA
SEA
04 Nov 16. Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, is being awarded a $177,929,800 firm-fixed-priced, cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-16-C-5408 for the procurement of multi-year fiscal 2016-2017 Evolved Seasparrow Missiles Block I production requirements. Under the terms of the modification, Raytheon Missile Systems will provide 186 all up rounds, inert operation missiles, spare components, shipping containers, and provide other production related support. This contract modification includes foreign military sales to Spain, Thailand, and United Arab Emirates. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona (32 percent); Germany (11 percent); Australia (9 percent); Andover, Massachusetts (7 percent); Canada (6 percent); Norway (5 percent); Spain (4 percent); Keyser, West Virginia (4 percent); Netherlands (4 percent); San Jose, California (3 percent); McKinney, Texas (3 percent); Turkey (2 percent); Cincinnati, Ohio (2 percent); Greece (1 percent); Mountain View, California (1 percent); various places below one percent (6 percent), and is expected to be completed by March 2020. Fiscal 2016 weapons procurement (Navy); fiscal 2016 other procurement (Navy); and Navy foreign military sales funding in the amount of 125,219,436 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.
TECHNOLOGY
08 Nov 16. Intelligent systems solutions developer Charles River Analytics has won a contract for a soldier-machine interface for the US Army. As part of the $1m, two-year contract, a new interface will be developed by the company in partnership with 5D Robotics for controlling robotic leader-follower systems in small team operations. The multi-modal interface for natural operator teaming with autonomous robots (MINOTAUR) fuses multiple and robot control technologies to provide a hands-free interface for warfighters teaming with autonomous systems in challenging environments. (Source: army-technology.com)
REST OF THE WORLD
LAND
10 Nov 16. Israeli Ministry of Defense Director General, Gen. (res) Udi Adam, instructed the Directorate of Production and Procurement (DOPP) to purchase hundreds of additional Trophy active protection systems (APS), manufactured by Rafael. The volume is es