20 Jun 02. BAE SYSTEMS C4ISR has completed the task from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to develop and install improved generators and air-conditioning units for the Ptarmigan Secondary Access Node-Air Portable system – SAN(AP) – to enhance power and climatic control performance.
Following the recent delivery of the last upgraded installations to the user community, all enhanced SAN(AP) vehicles are now back in service – in the United Kingdom and in Germany.
The whole modification programme was completed within five months of receipt of order by the Christchurch-based C4ISR Communications & Defence Infrastructure team, supported by BAE SYSTEMS’ partners in this programme – Dytecna, Fischer Panda and Cool Tec.
20 Jul 02. BAE SYSTEMS Avionics has been awarded a contract to supply 35 Mobile Surveillance Vehicles (MSVs) to the Romanian Ministry of the Interior. The vehicles will be used to help ensure the integrity of Romania’s borders against any illegal incursion as the country prepares to apply for membership of the European Union.
The overall contract, worth in excess of €10 million, has been supported by Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD) backed finance, and also provides for the purchase of BINO MIDI KITE binocular image intensifiers and SOPHIE Hand-held Thermal Imagers, both to be supplied by Thales Optronics Ltd.
BAE SYSTEMS MSVs were selected by the Romanian Ministry of the Interior in 2000 following a competitive tender, and it was resumption of ECGD cover for Romania which enabled the contract to become effective early this year.
The project to supply the MSVs will be managed by BAE SYSTEMS Avionics in Plymouth, with conversion of the VW vehicles, and installation of equipment to be carried out in Germany.
6 Aug 02. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge, Jr., has signed a
memorandum directing the U.S. Army to take prudent and
deliberate actions to bring about an orderly termination of the
Crusader program. The memo was signed July 26. In the memo,
the Army is directed to ensure that current technology
development continues either as part of an indirect fire
technology demonstration or as part of other transformational
programs.
On the same day, Secretary Aldridge provided Congress with the Army’s Indirect Fires Report and a reprogramming request to transfer $32m from Crusader to new variants of the Future Combat Systems (FCS). Congress has approved the reprogramming request
Jul 02. Thales demonstrated the new AMSTAR radar at Army 2002. AMSTAR was developed from the highly successful MSTAR battlefield radar and provides new featuers which makes the system suitable for deployment on the MoDs FRES family of armoured vehicles. Thales told BATTLESPACE that the UK MoD had requested the development of the radar following doubts raised about the Northrop Grumman radar offered for the SIKA vehicle which was based on the Comanche helicopter radar. The radar was displayed on the BAE SYSTEMS Lancer demonstrator vehicle.