A new business relationship is growing between MBDA and Thales UK Belfast, the core Team Complex Weapons (Team CW) air defense missile development program, consisting of the Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM) for the Future Local Anti-Air Defense System (FLAADS).
MBDA’s CAMM is currently being developed by the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MoD) as part of the Royal Navy’s Sea Ceptor weapon system. CAMM will be designed for exportability and a CAMM-based weapon system provided by MBDA can be tailored for an overseas customers’ single service or cross service operations.
FLAADS is the MoD program aimed at delivering a new air defense system not only for the Royal Navy but also for the British Army to replace its Rapier deployable air defense system.
Over the last year, the two companies have been exploring opportunities to work together on CAMM, drawing on the missile design and manufacturing capabilities in Northern Ireland, the companies said in a statement. The effort has been part of the continuing activity to develop the U.K. Complex Weapons (CW) supply chain and to realize the complementary skills of Thales and MBDA.
More than $1.5 million in work has been placed with Thales Belfast on the project and has also opened up opportunities for approximately $12.2 million more in manufacturing work for the next phase of the project.
Thales is involved in a number of aspects of the CAMM Demonstration project with work now covering the assessment and modeling of the thermal management within the missile, structural analysis work, and the use of precision manufacturing capabilities to make a number of the missile components.
MBDA Executive Group Director Technical and Managing Director UK Steve Wadey said: “This is a significant milestone between MBDA and Thales Belfast, demonstrating a new business relationship utilizing CW capabilities across the U.K. in the most effective way for the benefit of our customers.”
Alex Cresswell, Thales executive vice president for Land and Air Systems, said, “The companies are now planning to build on this successful start in the next few months by putting in place a single overall enabling contract to facilitate the efficient placement of future work. This illustrates the commitment of both MBDA and Thales to work together to benefit our complex weapon customers.”
The companies now are exploring a number of areas of likely cooperation across other projects and throughout the product lifecycle. In the area of In-Service Support (ISS), for example, the companies are working together to see what additional value can be delivered to the United Kingdom by exploiting the opportunity created by the British Army re-basing decision to bring all of its current air defense assets together at Thorney Island.
In addition, MBDA and Thales UK’s Basingstoke site have also taken significant steps forward over the last six months using two pilot projects, focused on missile safety and arming units and intelligent fuzes, to transform the traditional transactional customer-supplier relationship into one where both parties are actively working together. In January 2012, MBDA selected Thales Basingstoke to supply the CAMM laser proximity fuze under an approximately $16.8 million contract.