The Missile Defense Agency has awarded a $2 billion "sole-source letter" contract to Lockheed Martin Space Systems for 42 Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system interceptors, according to a Pentagon statement released late yesterday afternoon:
The government intends to combine this procurement with the Foreign Military Sales for the United Arab Emirates procurement of 96 interceptors, previously synopsized as an [undefinitized contract action] under basic ordering agreement HQ0147-12-G-9000, in order to gain synergy cost savings. This UCA covers the combined procurement of a minimum of 138 interceptors. This work will be managed in Sunnyvale, Calif., with final assembly performed in Troy, Ala. The performance period extends from June 4, 2012 through July 31, 2018. . . . Definitization of the UCA is anticipated no later than Nov. 30, 2012.
Inside the Army reported last month that Senate defense authorizers had added $100 million for THAAD interceptors on top of the administration's $461 million fiscal year 2013 request.
In authorizing a total of $561 million for THAAD interceptor procurement, Senate authorizers followed the lead of the House Armed Services Committee, which in April added $127 million for the program to buy 12 more interceptors than defense officials had requested in the budget. ITA further reported:
Senators authorized $1.5 billion for Army and "related" missile defense programs as part of an overall $9.7 billion missile-defense package requested by the administration, according to the committee's statement on the markup of the FY-13 bill.
Meanwhile, the THAAD program was mentioned briefly in an interim report from NATO defense contractors in preparation for the alliance's NATO summit in Chicago earlier this month. The study fleshes out how NATO's stated goal of increasing the sharing of defense assets among member nations would work in a notional ballistic missile defense framework that would include Russia.
"If THAAD were procured by a NATO country, it would be a candidate for pooling and sharing interceptor missiles," the document reads.
Lockheed Martin is part of the NATO Industrial Advisory Group, which prepared the report.