July 11, 2012 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: Finmeccanica; issued July 10, 2012)

Finmeccanica Wins New Order Worth EUR 140 Million As Part of NATO’s Alliance Ground Surveillance Programme

SELEX Galileo, a Finmeccanica company, has been awarded a contract worth €140 million by prime contractor Northrop Grumman Corporation as part of NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) programme.

The AGS programme is the flagship of NATO’s new defence strategy for security allies. Thirteen NATO countries are participating in the programme via their domestic industries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States. The capability developed and acquired by this group of nations will be made available to the whole alliance as a NATO-owned capability, with NATO responsible for the system’s operations and maintenance.

SELEX Galileo has been awarded approximately 12 percent of Northrop Grumman’s overall NATO AGS contract. This will see the company leading the Italian element of the programme and also taking responsibility for Romanian and Bulgarian participation.

Interoperability, connectivity and continuous surveillance are the three key concepts of the AGS system capability, which will supply real-time information for airborne ground surveillance and situational awareness. This valuable intelligence will support the entire spectrum of NATO’s operational missions and those of its member nations.

The solution chosen by NATO includes an airborne component based on the Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAS platform produced by Northrop Grumman Corporation and ground-based elements comprised of fixed mission operational support as well as both transportable and mobile general ground stations. The ground-based parts of the system will deliver mission planning and control activities and data analysis and distribution. The system architecture also comprises training and logistical support elements.

SELEX Galileo will be responsible for the fixed mission operational support and transportable general ground station components of the AGS system’s ground-based element. It will also contribute to the telecommunications suite, supplying the wide band data link produced by SELEX Elsag, another Finmeccanica company. This solution will provide a line-of-sight link between the AGS airborne platform and the ground-based components.