On October 26, 2017, KONGSBERG has signed a contract worth 109 MEURO (approx. 1.000 MNOK) with the Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Lithuania to supply a NASAMS air defence system.
Lithuania announced 21 October 2016 an agreement with the Norwegian Ministry of Defence on procurement of NASAMS components; today’s contract includes new additional equipment, training and integrated logistics support package, as well as refurbishment and integration of government supplied components for a complete NASAMS system.
«We are pleased that the Lithuanian Armed Forces has chosen NASAMS. NASAMS, produced by KONGSBERG and Raytheon, is the most sold air defence system in NATO in recent years, and will be the backbone air defence system for many nations in decades to come», says Eirik Lie, President, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS.
KONGSBERG, in partnership with Raytheon, is offering one of the most modern and flexible medium-range air defence systems in the world: NASAMS – Surface Launched AMRAAM System.
Characteristics:
- Open architecture provides growth potential
- Single and multiple engagement capability
- Unprecedented fire capability
- Beyond visual range capability with active seeker missile
- Strategic and high mobility
- Low manpower requirements
- Network Centric Warfare principles of operation
- High survivability against electronic countermeasures
- Look down/shoot down capability
- High value asset defense, area and army defense, vital point and air base defense
Unlike many international air defense systems either in use or in development, NASAMS is truly a netted and distributed system.
Integration of sensors
The proven, fielded, reliable and highly capable NASAMS system contains a BMC4I (Battle Management, Command, Control, Computers, Communications, and Intelligence) Air Defense capability through the integration of sensors and launchers. It employs the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AIM-120) as the primary weapon. Targets are detected and tracked by a high-resolution, 3D pencil beam radar. Multiple of these radars and the associated Fire Distribution Centres (FDCs) are netted together via radio data links, creating a real-time recognized air picture.
NASAMS can fire on target data provided by external sensors. Advanced emission control features of the radars minimize the risk of revealing the NASAMS unit’s own position. The FDC automatically performs track correlation, identification, jam strobe triangulation, threat evaluation and weapon assignment. The AMRAAM missiles used within NASAMS are identical to those used on fighter aircraft, yielding considerable rationalization returns for the user.
NASAMS in operation
The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) was the first customer to introduce the NASAMS (Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) program. Because of their success during NATO live flying exercises, NASAMS batteries are taken extremely serious by NATO aircrew. From 2004, NASAMS is earmarked by the Norwegian armed forces to be deployed in support of international crisis management operations.
NASAMS is under continuous development and every new program is adapted to the latest available technology. Currently, NASAMS is in use in 6 different nations.