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Just 5 in 2013? (Feb 1/12)

Northrop Grumman’s E-2C Hawkeye is a carrier-capable “mini-AWACS” aircraft, designed to give long-range warning of incoming aerial threats. Secondary roles include strike command and control, land and maritime surveillance, search and rescue, communications relay, and even civil air traffic control during emergencies. E-2C Hawkeyes began replacing previous Hawkeye versions in 1973; they fly from USN and French carriers, from land bases in the militaries of Egypt, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, and Taiwan; and in a drug interdiction role for the US Naval Reserve. Over 200 Hawkeyes have been produced.

The $17.5 billion E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program aims to build 75 new aircraft with significant radar, engine, and electronics upgrades in order to deal with a world of stealthier cruise missiles, saturation attacks, and a growing need for ground surveillance as well as aerial scans. It looks a lot like the last generation E-2C Hawkeye 2000 upgrade on the outside – but inside, and even outside to some extent, it’s a whole new aircraft.

• From E-2A Hawkeye to the E-2D
• E-2D Advanced Hawkeye: Program
  • American Budgets
  • Industrial Partners
• E-2D Advanced Hawkeye: Contracts & Key Events, Full History [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
  
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Patriot system
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Contract & error. (Jan 17/12)

The USA’s MIM-104 Phased Array Tracking Radar Intercept On Target (PATRIOT) anti-air missile system offers an advanced backbone for medium-range air defense, and short-range ballistic missile defense, to America and its allies. This article covers domestic and foreign purchase requests and contracts for Patriot systems. It also compiles information about the engineering service contracts that upgrade these systems, ensure that they continue to work, and integrate them with wider command and defense systems.

The Patriot missile franchise’s future appears assured. At present, 12 nations have chosen it as a key component of their air and missile defense systems: the USA, Germany, Greece, Japan, Israel, Kuwait, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan and the UAE. Poland, Qatar, and Turkey have all indicated varying levels of interest, and some existing customers are looking to upgrade their systems.

• The Patriot Missile Family
• Patriot Engineering Services Contracts, FY 2004 – Present
• The USA’s Patriot Programs
• Other Patriot-Related Contracts & Events, FY 2006 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
  
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THAAD: In flight
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Radar development; $3.48 billion order for UAE; US orders 2 radars. (Dec 30/11)

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is a long-range, land-based theater defense weapon that acts as the upper tier of a basic 2-tiered defense against ballistic missiles. It’s designed to intercept missiles during late mid-course or final stage flight, flying at high altitudes within and even outside the atmosphere. This allows it to provide broad area coverage against threats to critical assets such as population centers and industrial resources as well as military forces, hence its previous “theater (of operations) high altitude area defense” designation.

This capability makes THAAD different from a Patriot PAC-3 or the future MEADS system, which are point defense options with limited range that are designed to hit a missile or warhead just before impact. The SM-3 Standard missile is a far better comparison, and land-based SM-3 programs will make it a direct THAAD competitor. Thus far, both programs remain underway…

• The THAAD System: Further Details
• The THAAD Program
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
  
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GMD launch, 2001
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Team Boeing wins the $3.5 billion contract. (Dec 30/11)

The USA’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program uses land-based missiles to intercept incoming ballistic missiles in the middle of their flight, outside the atmosphere. The missiles are currently based at 2 sites in the USA: 4 at Vandenberg AFB in California, and 20 (eventually 26) at Fort Greely in Alaska.

The well-known Patriot missiles provide what’s known as terminal-phase defense options, while longer-reach options like the land-based THAAD perform terminal or descent-phase interceptions. Both can be used against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), but their sensors and flight ranges are best suited to defense against shorter range missiles launched from in-theater. In contrast, GMD is designed to defend against ICBMs. It depends on tracking that begins in the boost phase, in order to allow true mid-course interception attempts in space, before descent or terminal phase options like THAAD and then Patriot would be tried. In order to accomplish that task, GMD missiles must use data feeds from an assortment of long-range sensors, including the naval SBX radar.

Patriot PAC-2
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UAE closes $3.48 billion THAAD missile deal. (Dec 31/11)

It’s becoming clear that Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, have stepped up their defense spending in recent years. Even though Iraq is no longer a missile/WMD threat, Iran’s regular and Revolutionary Guards air forces remain relatively weak, and Iran’s ballistic missiles based on North Korean designs lack accuracy, missile and nuclear proliferation is producing reactions. Uncertainty creates perceptions of risk, and perceptions of risk lead to responses aimed at reducing that risk. That’s why arms spending is an incomplete but very concrete way of tracking a state’s real assessment of threats and priorities.

Gulf states recognize that even a lucky conventional missile could wreak havoc if it hit key oil-related infrastructure, or damaged the larger and more nebulous target of business confidence. The spread of nuclear weapons would change the calculus completely. A 2007 US National Intelligence Assessment [redacted NIE summary, PDF] believed that Iran’s nuclear program had stopped, but others, including the United Nations and Israel, were more skeptical. By 2010, that skepticism had spread to US intelligence, which repudiated an assessment that seems set to join the infamous 1962 NIE of no Soviet missiles in Cuba [1].

The Gulf states’ response to these developments covers a range of equipment, but anti-ballistic missile capabilities appear to be rising to the top of the priority list.

C2BMC in action
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$980 million, 5 year main contract. (Dec 23/11)

C2BMC puts the “system” in the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System. At least that’s how the US Missile Defense Agency describes the Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) element. Basically, C2BMC synchronizes individual missile defense systems, sensors, and operators, which is essential to the layered missile defense approach the agency is working to develop. Since no one system is foolproof, layered system is designed to destroy enemy ballistic missiles by tracking and engaging them in all phases of flight, from boost, mid-course, and terminal phases of ballistic missiles. Tying all that together is a real challenge, since these systems weren’t all designed from the outset to operate together.

Some elements of the USA’s current missile warning and defense architecture include DSP and SBIRS satellites, Aegis BMD ships, Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Patriot anti-air missile defense, and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, along with flexible dual-use elements like the Patriot PAC-3, other sensors that might be plugged into the network, and other elements that will be developed in future…

• What C2BMC Does [updated]
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
  
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CEC Concept
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Improved chips & crypto for CEC. (Dec 20/11)

Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) may well be the most revolutionary capability available to the modern US Navy. It’s far more than a mere data-sharing program, or even a sensor fusion effort. This DID FOCUS Article explains those mechanics and implications. It will also track ongoing research, updates, and contracts related to CEC capabilities from 2000 forward.

The concept behind CEC is a sensor netting system that allows many ships to pool their radar and sensor information together, creating a very powerful and detailed picture that’s much finer, more wide-ranging, and more consistent than any one ship could generate on its own. The data is then shared among all ships and participating systems in the air and on the ground, using secure frequencies. It’s a simple premise, but a difficult technical feat. With huge implications…

• Co-operative Engagement Capability: How It Works [updated]
• CEC: Contracts and Key Events, 2000 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
  
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SBX-1, Pearl Harbor
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6-month extension for Boeing. (Dec 13/11)

As rogue state proliferation by the likes of North Korea made missile defense a growing priority for nations including the USA, Japan, and Israel, the USA began to look at the linchpin of any defense: powerful radars that could both track ballistic missiles, and guide interceptors. The USA has its BMEWS tracking system, but that would not serve. America’s Safeguard ABM system was dismantled long ago – though Russia still maintains its counterpart System A-135 network around Moscow. Something new would be needed.

Enter Raytheon’s new XBR radar, based on an SBX-1 platform that looks a lot like a mobile oil drilling rig. Basing the radar at sea offers numerous advantages. One is the obvious ability to move the radar as threats materialize, allowing much greater coverage with fewer radars. Another is the ability to protect allies, without having to invest in expensive systems whose regional capabilities and value to the USA could be put at risk by the decisions of a single foreign government. In exchange for this freedom from political interference, of course, the designers must contend with nature’s.

Boeing SBX system is linked to its land-based GMD (Ground-based Mid-course Defense) missile system but can also operate with other naval and land elements…

• The XBR Radar & SBX Platform
• Contracts & Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
  
  
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In December 2010, the US Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors in Moorestown, NJ cost-plus-award-fee contract modification, with a total increased value of $184 million, “to allow for continued performance of future weapon system concept exploration” for the MDA.

The initial $20 million is HQ0276-10-C-0001 contract line item number 0025, for work through Dec 31/12. The remaining $164 million will be divided into 7 x $20 million option periods, and 1 $24 million option period. Work will be performed in Moorestown, NJ.

MEADS: air view
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1st full firing test goes well; Is there a buyer in the house? (Nov 17/11)

The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program aimed to replace Patriot missiles in the United States, the older Hawk system in Germany, and Italy’s even older Nike Hercules missiles. MEADS will be designed to kill enemy aircraft, cruise missiles and UAVs within its reach, while providing next-generation point defense capabilities against ballistic missiles. MBDA’s SAMP/T project would be its main competitor, but MEADS aims to offer improved mobility and wider compatibility with other air defense systems, in order to create a linchpin for its customers’ next-generation air defense arrays.

The German government finally gave their clearance in April 2005, and in June 2005 MEADS International (MI) formally signed a contract worth approximately $3.4 billion to design and develop the tri-national MEADS system. In February 2011, however, events began to signal the likely end of the program. This DID FOCUS Article covers that program, and has been converted into a free-to-view article:

• MEADS: The System
• MEADS: Mobility and Employment
• MEADS: The Program [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events, 2004 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
  
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