President Barack Obama signed the continuing budget resolution that includes defense appropriation funds to complete the Medium Extended Air and Missile Defense System (MEADS) Proof of Concept (PoC) under development by the United States, Germany and Italy.
Congress passed the Continuing Resolution March 21 to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.
MEADS was envisioned to provide an advanced, mobile 360 degree coverage system, initially designed as a successor to the Patriot Weapon System.
“We’re optimistic,” though “the process isn’t over yet,” Marty Coyne, Business Development director, MEADS International in an interview recently. The program is operating under a January bridging contract from the three nations that runs through March 31. “The nations did that because they didn’t want us to lose any of our momentum and stay on the path, but they also knew the U.S. budget process would run through March.”
Authorization to move forward beyond March 31 is needed from the three nations through the NATO MEADS Management Agency.
“FY ’13 is the final year of Design & Development under the original MEADS contract,” Coyne said. “This phase has been relabeled Proof of Concept, but it is the final payment that the United States is obligated for, per the (Memorandum of Understanding) MoU. This payment, combined with the German and Italian investments, will complete the Proof of Concept, conduct the second intercept test…and provide the detailed technical packages for all the nations.”
With the potential coming funding, “we’ll have received 100 percent funding for nine years–FY ’13 is the ninth and final year,” he said.
“This final installment of funding by the United States represents its last financial obligation under the MoU…It’s been four years in a row we’ve been able to meet every milestone on time and within cost. We want to continue that and that’s what we plan on doing.”
The second intercept is slated for the fourth quarter of this year. The MEADS program held a successful first flight test in an over-the-shoulder shot of the MEADS Missile Seement Enhancement (MSE) missile, demonstrating the systems’ 360 degree coverage against a simulated missile attacking from behind.
Once the PoC is complete, the equipment will be divided amongst the nations, he said.
“We have almost three complete sets of MEADS equipment. Each one of those represents a fire unit,” Coyne said. “We call it a minimum engagement because it has a single launcher per each one. There will be nearly three sets of equipment to divide among the three nations.”
“Then, per their objectives for the Proof of Concept, they will take those pieces of equipment, all the software that we’ve done and completed as well as the technical data packages and pursue future options with air/missile defense (AMD) modernization by the three nations,” he said.
There’s still more than a year’s worth of work to do, he said, but the goal is to give the nations options and the equipment is just part of that.
The U.S. Army has created a MEADS Harvesting Team, chartered to evaluate all the technology in MEADS and evaluate which pieces are best options to integrate into the air and missile defense network.
Specifically for the United States he said: “We believe there’s three really good candidates–that’s both of our radars and our launcher,” Coyne said. “They line up perfectly with what the Army wants to do with their AMD strategy. They want lighter, network-centric, plug and fight, 360-degree items which all three of these are.”
MEADS is being developed by prime contractor MEADS International, a multinational joint venture headquartered in Orlando, Fla. Major subcontractors and joint venture partners are MBDA in Italy and MBDA’s LFK in Germany, and Lockheed Martin [LMT] in the United States. Lockheed Martin also produces the PAC-3 MSE missile used by the MEADS system.
In letters and memos, U.S. defense officials and their German and Italian counterparts had warned Congress that terminating program funding would not only loose technology gained under the combined $4 billion in funding but trigger expensive termination fees, and cause friction with allies and fellow NATO members who are examining options for upgrading their missile defenses.
U.S. lawmakers blocked U.S. funds for MEADS in the defense-authorization bill last year, reasoning that they didn’t want to pay for a program the Defense Department didn’t want.
With strong international interest, Raytheon [RTN], prime contractor for the Patriot Weapon System continues to improve the system, make it more efficient and cost effective. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the PAC-3 Missile Segment Upgrade to the Patriot system.
In July, Lockheed Martin received an approximately $69 million contract to prepare the PAC-3 missile production line for the introduction of the MSE version of the missile. A production decision from the Army is expected this year.