TIPS Industries Submit Results of NATO AGS Study

Northrop Grumman, BRUSSELS, Belgium: The TIPS industries, working with the TCAR team, have submitted a study commissioned under a 22 million euro NATO contract, the first in a series of contracts for the recently launched Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) program.  
 
The contract addressed issues such as overall system and radar-sensor development, program risk and cost, as its main priorities. The submission came during the Conference of National Armament Directors meeting on October 26.  
 
“Completion of this study is yet another important milestone that confirms this program is both affordable and executable,” commented Alan Doshier, vice president of Northrop Grumman ISS International, Inc., speaking for the TIPS industries. “Our team is confident of its abilities to deliver this program. We have further refined the baseline mixed fleet, and addressed TCAR integration while reducing program costs and risk. Second, in the course of performing this study, we've demonstrated that the NATO's AGS Team — industry, NATO and national governments — is now one team with one mission, focused on executing the program.”  
 
“Working together with TIPS as one team,” adds Hansjoerg Roschmann, speaking for the TCAR industries, on behalf of the TCAR industries. “The study has given us the opportunity to develop strategies needed to develop and integrate the radar efficiently.”  
 
“Our industry team is committed, the TIPS and TCAR consortia are healthy,” added Gianpiero Lorandi, Galileo Avionica's Head of Avionics Systems on behalf of TIPS Industries. “The Risk Reduction contract was an excellent first step toward realizing this critical capability to NATO commanders. This decision of nations to invest in the Risk Reduction Study again demonstrates their commitment to providing NATO forces with this essential transformational capability.”  
 
NATO's decision to proceed with the program, based on the TIPS mixed fleet equipped with the TCAR sensors, meets the NATO requirement for the AGS core capability. The NATO AGS system will provide situational awareness through a shared common ground picture that will be available to NATO and national decision makers. The TIPS mixed fleet of manned and unmanned systems will provide the Alliance with a core component for the NATO Response Force, providing a critical capability designed to meet its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and command-and-control requirements for the 21st century.  
 
The mixed-fleet solution will also support a variety of new mission requirements for NATO including nation building, homeland security and humanitarian relief.  
 
The TIPS Industrial Team  
 
-EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defense and related services. In 2004, the Group generated revenues of over 31.8 billion euro and employed a workforce of about 110,000.  
 
-Galileo Avionica embodies the avionics and airborne radar capabilities of Finmeccanica, Italy's largest high technologies company and national defense leader.  
 
-General Dynamics Canada is Canada's largest defense 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. Indra is deeply involved in complex and critical defense programs for the ministries of defense of countries around the world.  
 
-Northrop Grumman Corporation, a global defense company, is the prime contractor for the E-8C Joint STARS and E-10A airborne ground surveillance aircraft, the Global Hawk HALE UAV and the MP-RTIP radar program. The company's Northrop Grumman ISS International, Inc. subsidiary manages their work on the TIPS team.  
 
-Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group, serving defense, aerospace and security markets. The group employs 62,000 people worldwide and generated revenues of 10.3 billion euro in 2004.