Contract Award: Kongsberg to upgrade Norwegian Network-Centric Air Defence capabilities

News Report

As announced in a recent press release, Kongsberg has signed a 360 MNOK contract to deliver an upgrade of NASAMS air defence system to the Royal Norwegian Air Force. The NASAMS system is produced by Kognsberg and Raytheon, and the upgrade will be delivered within a 2-year timeframe. The upgrade consists of deliveries of new High Mobility Launchers for increased mobility, upgrade of the existing FDC Command & Control centres and associated training facilities.

The System

The Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS) is a Network Centric Medium Range Air Defence System providing multiple-simultaneous engagement and beyond visual range (BVR) capabilities, closely integrated and adapted to a Country’s adjacent weapons and command and control systems. The system is intended to protect facilities and other assets against airborne threats such as cruise missiles, fighter aircraft, helicopters and/or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The NASAMS employs legacy hardware associated to the proven HAWK air defense system and the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile, as well as new hardware and components. All in, NASAMS air defense system consists of radars linked in a network, command and control systems and launch pads for AMRAAM missiles.

A standard NASAMS unit has a modular design comprising a command post FDC, an active 3D radar AN/MPQ64F1 Sentinel, a passive electro-optic and infra-red sensor and a number of missile canister launchers with AMRAAM missiles.

Normally, four NASAMS units are netted in a battalion network. Each NASAMS battery consists of 3 or 4 fire distribution centers, 3 or 4 surveillance, acquisition, and tracking radar systems, 9 truck-mounted missile launchers with 6 AMRAAM missiles each, and 3 or 4 truck-mounted MSP 500 electro-optical sensor for visual target identification and raid size assessment. This configuration enables NASAMS to engage up to 54 targets simultaneously within a few seconds.

The system is tied together with a uniquely designed ”hard-real-time” communication network to ensure minimum latency over large distances for maximum performance of the AMRAAM missile. This modular design permits mission oriented task force organization of NASAMS, allowing the operators to maximize the effect of the components and tailor the system to the task. The radar and launcher elements can be deployed over a large area separated by up to 25 kilometres, providing an extended coverage with few elements. Dispersed elements increase its survivability against enemy air and ground attacks.

The Context

Since its first introduction in Norway, another four countries in NATO and EU have acquired NASAMS. NASAMS is renowned for its use of the Raytheon AMRAAM missile, but is furthermore operational with command and control of a range of guns and short and medium range missiles, such as e.g. L-70 guns, RBS 70 and HAWK. It has also proven integration with directed-energy weapons (DEWs) and longer range systems, such as e.g. Patriot. A total of eight nations have acquired the KONGSBERG command and control solution adapted to their requirements.

NASAMS is in operational use in Norway, Spain the US and the Netherlands, and in production for Finland. Greece, Sweden and Turkey selected the KONGSBERG command and control solution for meeting their requirements.

The United States selected NASAMS for the defence of the capital Washington DC in the War on Terror. The 24/7 deployment to Washington has accumulated more than 35.000 hours of active mission. NASAMS has proven extremely reliable and demonstrated very high availability.

Comments

“We are very satisfied with the fact that NASAMS has been selected for an upgrade. NASAMS is the back-bone of Norwegian ground based air defence, and is the preferred medium range air defence system in NATO," said Eirik Lie, Executive Vice President, Kongsberg Defence Systems.

References: Kongsberg (1,2), Deagel (3)