BAE Systems has issued a series of contracts for the UK Royal Navy's Type 45 anti-air warfare destroyer. An Alenia Marconi Systems Integrated Systems, and BAE Combat and Radar Systems team has received a £50 million ($72 million) deal to supply the data transfer system and the combat management system, which controls sensors and weapons, for the first three ships. A team lead by Thales Communications will supply the fully integrated communications system and Raytheon Systems UK supported by Raytheon Marine in Germany and SML Technologies will supply the navigation system, worth £12 million. Lockheed Martin has won the US Navy's S-3B Prime Vendor Support contract, worth $3 million over five years. The company will provide in-service engineering, integrated logistic support, depot-level maintenance and materiel management for the US east coast-based S-3 squadron. PVS, the first contract of its kind for a carrier-based aircraft, is intended to increase aircraft availability at lower cost. Raytheon has won a $62.3 million contract for Tube Launched Optically Tracked Wire Guided (TOW) missiles. The company will build 2,251 TOW 2A missiles and 375 TOW 2A practice missiles for Belgium, Japan, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Harris has received a $1.3 million Boeing contract for the AH-64D Apache Longbow cockpit memory transfer and storage unit (MTSU). The MTSU data storage device was developed for the Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche. Israel's Tadiran-Spectralink and US firm Signal Engineering have won a US Navy contract for 15,000 PRC-149 search-and-rescue radio beacons. The hand-held units, with embedded Trimble GPS, use the Cospas/Sarsat SAR satellite system. Volvo Aero has won a UK Ministry of Defence order to overhaul five Rolls-Royce Gnome engines from Westland Sea King helicopters.
Source: Flight International
