Navy goes ballistic for Aegis

The US Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded

$979,175,217 for continued development and evolution of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System.

Capability improvements planned in the next phase of Aegis BMD include equipment and computer program development and incorporation of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Signal Processor (Aegis BSP) into the AN/SPY-1 radar, which as a system provides an advanced discrimination capability to defeat more complex ballistic missile threats.

Lockheed said in a statement that the Aegis BSP, which will be installed on all Aegis BMD ships beginning in 2010, is an open architecture design, allowing for quick and affordable upgrades as signal processor technology evolves.

In addition, Lockheed Martin will develop an adjunct computing suite that will house several computing devices and software components that continue Aegis BMD's migration to open architecture. This move for Aegis BMD is in parallel alignment with the US Navy's Aegis Open Architecture initiative to transform the (non-BMD) Aegis Weapon System to a fully open architecture system. BMD capability will be included in modernised, open architecture combat systems in Aegis cruisers and destroyers starting in 2012.