By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- Raytheon said Tuesday it has a $5 million U.S. Missile Defense Agency contract to start initial planning for the European mid-course radar system to be deployed in the Czech Republic.
The proposed advanced radar array base in the Czech Republic will be essential to guide the 10 ground-based mid-course interceptors to be deployed at a base in neighboring Poland to intercept any future intercontinental ballistic missiles that Iran might launch against the United States or Western Europe.
The U.S. government is still involved in negotiations with the Czech government to build the base. But if agreement is reached on the issue, the MDA plans to move a Z-band radar currently deployed in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific Ocean to a location southwest of the Czech capital of Prague.
"Raytheon is pleased to offer this capability," said Pete Franklin, vice president, National & Theater Security Programs for Raytheon Integrated Air Defense Systems. "This radar's extraordinary discrimination capability and interoperability will provide the United States and its NATO partners significant confidence and flexibility in response to these threats."
Raytheon said in a statement that it would also include Czech industrial corporations as partners in the project and in the construction of the base and its facilities.
In all, the radar base project could be worth as much as $400 million through 2013, the company said.
Raytheon described Integrated Defense Systems as the corporation's leader in Joint Battle-space Integration. Raytheon IDS carries out projects for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Armed Forces and the Department of Homeland Security. The Pentagon originally announced the radar project contract with Raytheon on April 15, the company said.
DRS wins Minuteman ICBM upgrade parts contract
DRS Technologies said last week it has won a $23 million order from Northrop Grumman's Space and Mission Systems division in Clearfield, Utah, to make replacement environment control systems for electronic equipment and personnel of the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch and missile alert facilities.
DRS said in a statement that the deal was covered by a current five-year, $101 million agreement the company has with the ECS Replacement Program team, which consists of the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman. The government contracting agency awarding the contract was the Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
DRS said the new deal was the third it has won under that five-year contract, which was signed in 2006. DRS said the job will be carried out by its Sustainment Systems units in St. Louis and Florence, Ky., and that it would be finished by September 2009.
The ECS replacement program was launched to boost the operational effectiveness of the Minuteman ICBM systems as far as 2020 by taking out current existing brine chillers, air handlers, pneumatic control systems, fans, dampers, controllers and alarms at launch and missile alert bases and replacing them with modern parts.
DRS said it would also supervise trainers, training, support equipment, and parts and engineering services for Deployment and Interim Contract Support.
"The Minuteman III ICBM is very important to America's strategic deterrence initiatives, as it is the country's only ICBM currently on call," said Thomas G. Cornwell, president of DRS' Sustainment Systems Segment.
"In light of this, it is no surprise that DRS, as a preeminent supplier of dozens of environmental control systems for multiple applications across the military product spectrum, once again was chosen to assist in this national security endeavor," he said.
The Environmental Control Systems will ensure filtered, circulating and temperature- and humidity-controlled air to 450 Minuteman III launch facilities, 45 missile alert facilities, 19 ICBM Type I trainer facilities, two test sites at the Hill Air Force Base Strategic Missile Integration Complex and four sites at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, DRS said.
