ARLINGTON, Va., 21 July 2005. The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), which is in charge of developing ballistic missile defenses for deployment worldwide, awarded contracts Wednesday worth nearly $219 million.
The contracts went to Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Ariz.; Trex Enterprises Corp. in San Diego; Lockheed Martin Space and Missiles Co. in Sunnyvale, Calif.; and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems in Fairfax, Va.
The largest contract went to Raytheon, which MDA is paying a $124.1 million contract modification to continue developing 12 Standard Missile-3 Block IA missiles for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.
U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington is awarding the contract on behalf of the MDA. The contract number is N00024-03-C-6111.
The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System will use specially designed missiles aboard Aegis-equipped U.S. Navy guided-missile cruisers and destroyers to destroy ballistic missiles anywhere over the world's oceans.
Trex Enterprises won a maximum $48.6 million contract to develop improved optoelectronic sensors for ballistic missile defense (see story headlined 'Pentagon eyes improved optoelectronic sensors for missile defense' on the M&AE Web page).
Lockheed Martin won a $40 million contract to develop computer algorithms for the layered Ballistic Missile Defense system through spiral upgrades. The contract number is HQ0006-05-D-0003.
Lockheed Martin experts will focus on improving missile-defense threat tracking, discrimination, and battle-management using surface based radar, missile seekers based visible and infrared sensors, and fusion of visible, infrared, and radar sensor data.
Northrop Grumman, meanwhile, won an $8.2 million contract modification to develop a kinetic energy interceptor midcourse defense concept of operations and architecture for a mobile defense against ballistic missiles. The contract number is HQ0006-04-C-0004.
