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Industry will present its offer for the MEADS development phase on schedule

Le Bourget, 01 June 2003

The companies involved in the three-year MEADS risk reducing phase - EADS/LFK (Germany), MBDA-I (Italy) and Lockheed Martin (USA) - will deliver their development offer on schedule in June 2003 via MEADS International to the NATO agency NAMEADSMA. "The offer lays an important foundation upon which our customers can base their decisions regarding the continuation of this major transatlantic programme, as it will contain the first reliable estimations concerning development, acquisition, and operating costs," declared Werner Kaltenegger, CEO of EADS/LFK, in a meeting of experts which took place alongside the 2003 Paris Airshow. "In addition, the first assemblies will be completed on schedule this year - including the prototype of the new fire control radar - and extensive simulations will be performed to demonstrate the capabilities of the ultramodern MEADS air defence system."

In the framework of a three-year risk reducing phase and under contract to the NATO agency NAMEADSMA, MEADS International is working on the overall design and key components of a future ground-based air defence system. MEADS is the acronym for Medium Extended Air Defense System.

The USA has now undertaken, in its "time phased release plan", to release particular technologies essential to TBM defence for this joint project, ensuring the MEADS work can be completed on the basis of a partnership on an equal footing. The project is being financed by the USA (55 percent), Germany (28 percent) and Italy (17 percent). The German share in the risk reducing phase amounts to roughly $ US 60 million. The apportionment of expenses to be met by the project's nations also corresponds to the involvement of their respective companies - BAD S/LFK (Germany), MBDA-I (Italy) and Lockheed Martin (USA) - in the programme. The project's European companies control their activities through the joint venture euroMEADS GmbH which, like Lockheed Martin, has a 50 percent holding in MEADS International Inc.

MEADS has considerable advantages over other currently available air defence systems. It can be used both for the protection of mobile forces on out-of-area missions and also in support of homeland defence. It is highly mobile and, in particular, fulfils the present-day requirement for air transportability. The radars deployed provide a 360 degree coverage. The open system architecture of MEADS allows other air defence components to be integrated.

MEADS can be configured in a modular way, allowing it to be adapted to the respective air defence capabilities as required. A fire unit can be expanded from it's basic deployment capability - a command and mission vehicle, a fire control radar unit and a launcher equipped with twelve missiles - to combat a specific threat. A fully equipped unit will then consist of one air surveillance radar, two fire control radars, two control and mission vehicles, six launcher vehicles, each with twelve guided missiles, and three supply vehicles, each carrying one pallet of twelve missiles. Several such fire units can be controlled from a single group operations centre.

In addition, MEADS has a broad mission spectrum and can be deployed against manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters, ARMs, high and low altitude cruise missiles and TBMs. Furthermore, the operating and personnel costs for MEADS are considerably lower than for other systems currently in operation. The investments in this air defence system will therefore be worthwhile in the medium and long term as its development and acquisition costs will be more than offset by the savings its operation will bring. EADS/LFK is playing a central role in the design and development of the complete MEADS system. Furthermore, EADS/LFK is investigating the possibilities of further developing the PAC-3 missile and is leading the development work on the launching system.

EADS/LFK is also responsible for development of the active antenna for the fire control radar, along with the development of the software architecture, the man-machine interface and the software components of the command centre.

EADS /LFK-Lenkflugkörpersysteme GmbH is a business unit of EADS European Aeronautic Defence and Space. With revenues amounting to EUR 30.8 billion, EADS, which was founded in July 2000, is the world's second largest aerospace company. EADS has a workforce of approximately 103,000.

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