All Together Now: Integrating the US Army’s Disparate Air and Missile Defenses
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The US Army awarded a Northrop Grumman-led team a $577 million, 5-year, cost-plus-incentive-fee/ cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to develop the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS).
Northrop Grumman beat out a team led by Raytheon. The two teams competed in the preliminary design phase of the program.
IBCS is intended to transform the Army’s disparate air and missile defense systems — each with independent sensing, command-and-control and launching capabilities — into an integrated defense capability. The system will enable the Army to manages all of its air and missile defense systems from 1 command-and-control center.
Northrop Grumman’s winning IBCS design is based on a non-proprietary, open architecture approach…
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The Northrop Grumman design uses a network-centric system-of-systems approach for integrating sensors, weapons, and battle management command, control, communications and intelligence systems (C4ISR).
It uses common software and creates standard interfaces that will allow soldiers to take advantage of expanded sensor and weapon system combinations through an integrated fire-control network.
Northrop Grumman’s team includes heavy hitters Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Harris, as well as Schafer, nLogic, Numerica, Applied Data Trends, Colsa, Space and Missile Defense Technologies, Cohesion Force, Millenium Engineering and Integration, RhinoCorp, and Tobyhanna Army Depot.
The air and missile defense systems that will be integrated via IBCS include:
- Patriot anti-air missile system,
- Surface-Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (SLAMRAAM),
- Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS),
- Sentinel radar, and (if the U.S. Department of Defense approves)
- Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD),
- Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).
It is worth noting that 4 of the systems that IBCS will integrate – Patriot, JLENS, SLAMRAAM, and THAAD – are developed by Raytheon.
The Integrated Air and Missile Defense Project Office, Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space in Huntsville, AL manages the IBCS program. Northrop Grumman will also headquarter its IBCS program in Huntsville and expects to field the IBCS by 2014.
