TIPS Team Welcomes NATO AGS Downselection

NATO has selected the TIPS Industry consortium to provide its long needed Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) system.
Six companies, EADS, Galileo Avionica, General Dynamics Canada, Indra, Northrop Grumman, and Thales, have been working together as TIPS to capture the NATO AGS program.

On behalf of the TIPS Team CEOs, Scott Seymour, Northrop Grumman corporate vice president, and president of the company’s Integrated Systems sector, said, “We are proud and honoured by NATO's selection of the TIPS mixed fleet solution. We are especially pleased with the overwhelming vote of confidence from the Alliance. It shows nations appreciated that TIPS offered the best opportunity to quickly achieve a NATO core capability.

“TIPS will provide NATO with a truly transformational capability that will be essential for NATO Response Force operations,” Seymour continued. “For more than three years, the TIPS industries have worked together to achieve this result. We look forward to defining the programme with NATO and will maintain close contact with our industrial partners and Alliance members as we work toward contract award for the design and development phase.”

The TIPS NATO AGS system will provide situational awareness through a shared common ground picture that will be available to NATO and national decision makers. TIPS will present the NATO Response Force (NRF) with a critical core capability by 2010 and will meet NATO’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and Command and Control (C2) requirements for the 21st century. The state-of-the-art radar technology provided by the Transatlantic Cooperative AGS Radar (TCAR) program, which will be integrated on both the manned and unmanned platforms, draws on the expertise of both US and European radar industries, the majority of whom are also TIPS industry members.

The response of the other national industries to the news has been equally positive and industries expressed their continued support for the TIPS solution as the most cost effective and best value solution to the NATO AGS core capability.

TIPS now looks forward to working closely with NATO to define the way forward. Current NATO plans anticipate a proposal phase later this year and a contract award for the design and development phase in early 2005.

With revenues of €30 billion (2003) and more than 100,000 employees, EADS is the largest aerospace and defence company in Europe and number two worldwide. Among other activities, EADS comprises a wide experience of systems integration for ISR systems, general command, control and communications and military transport aircraft conversions.

Galileo Avionica embodies the avionics and airborne radar capabilities of Finmeccanica, Italy's largest high technologies company and national defence leader.

General Dynamics Canada is Canada's largest defence company with a global reputation for providing integrated mission solutions to land, sea and air systems.

Indra is the leading Spanish company in Information Technologies (IT) with a very active presence in the defence market and is the 5th European IT Company by market capitalization, with revenues amounting to €1 billion and more than 6500 employees. Indra is deeply involved in complex and critical defence programs for the Ministries of Defence of countries around the world.

Northrop Grumman Corporation, a $26 billion global defence company, is the prime contractor for the E-8C Joint STARS and E-10A/MC2A airborne ground surveillance aircraft, the Global Hawk HALE UAV and the MP-RTIP radar program. Northrop Grumman ISS International, Inc, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corporation, manages the company’s work on the TIPS team.

Thales is an international electronics and systems group, serving defence, aerospace and security markets. The group employs 62,000 people worldwide and generated revenues of 10.6 billion in 2003.

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