Leonardo DRS said Thursday it has received its first order under a five-year, $600 million deal to supply the mission equipment packages that General Dynamics
[GD] will integrate on Stryker vehicles for the Army’s Interim Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (IM-SHORAD) program, with deliveries to begin in 2022.
The order is worth over $97 million and will cover mission equipment packages for the initial 28 IM-SHORAD systems the Army has ordered from GD, Leonardo DRS spokesman Mike Mount told Defense Daily.
“Leonardo DRS is excited to work with General Dynamics Land Systems and its Mission Equipment Package partners to deliver this important air defense capability to our warfighters. The rapid prototyping effort set the conditions for a very successful production program and we are excited to get started on production deliveries,” Aaron Hankins, senior vice president and general manager of Leonardo DRS Land Systems, wrote in a statement.
The mission equipment package (MEP) for IM-SHORAD includes the Moog [MOG.A] Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP) turret, the XM914 30mm cannon and M240 machine gun and Stinger and Hellfire missiles.
“The MEP also includes an on-board Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar (MHR) to provide persistent 360 degrees of aerial surveillance, identification friend or foe and other mission essential technologies,” Leonardo DRS wrote in a statement.
IM-SHORAD is the Army’s program to field a new mobile platform on its Stryker vehicles capable of taking down unmanned aircraft systems, rotary-wing and fixed-wing threats, as well as cruise missiles.
The Army awarded GD a $1.2 billion contract for IM-SHORAD last fall, placing an initial $230 million order covering integration of the system on 28 Stryker vehicles (Defense Daily, Oct. 1).
Leonardo DRS is working under a five-year IDIQ deal worth more than $600 million to supply the MEPs, covering the Army’s total acquisition objective for 144 IM-SHORAD systems.