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Serious Dollars for AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)

May 17, 2018 04:56 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff

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May 17/18: Zeus upgrades his shield The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is contracting Lockheed Martin’s Rotary and Mission Systems Division in support of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system. The awarded modification of $12.8 million allows for the procurement of material necessary to support the Aegis 6.0 modelling and simulation. Aegis, named after the legendary protective shield of Zeus, Aegis has become a widely-deployed top-tier air defense system. It is deployed on over 80 serving naval ships around the globe, with many more Aegis-equipped ships planned or under contract. The Aegis combat system software takes input from a number of systems in order to create a unified picture of the threat environment. Aegis equipped ships are key elements in modern carrier and battleship battle groups, providing fleet area defense and communicating an integrated air picture for more effective deployment of naval aircraft. Modeling and simulations are computer representations that simulate the system’s performance to assess the capabilities and limitations of how elements or the BMDS perform under a wider variety of conditions than can be accomplished through the limited number of flight tests conducted. Ground tests enable MDA to repeatedly conduct scenarios that may be too costly or subject to constraints as a flight test. The modification increases the total cumulative contract value to $2.8 billion. Work will be performed in Moorestown, New Jersey and is scheduled for completion by September 2018.

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AEGIS-BMD: CG-70
launches SM-3
(click to view full)

The AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense System seamlessly integrates the SPY-1 radar, the MK 41 Vertical Launching System for missiles, the SM-3 Standard missile, and the ship’s command and control system, in order to give ships the ability to defend against enemy ballistic missiles. Like its less-capable AEGIS counterpart, AEGIS BMD can also work with other radars on land and sea via Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC). That lets it receive cues from other platforms and provide information to them, in order to create a more detailed battle picture than any one radar could produce alone.

AEGIS has become a widely-deployed top-tier air defense system, with customers in the USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, and Spain. In a dawning age of rogue states and proliferation of mass-destruction weapons, the US Navy is being pushed toward a “shield of the nation” role as the USA’s most flexible and most numerous option for missile defense. AEGIS BMD modifications are the keystone of that effort – in the USA, and beyond.