The US Navy has issued an intention to award a sole-source contract to Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS for the equipment and flight test support services in support of Naval Strike Missile (NSM) Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) Phase II demonstration test.
With this, the US Navy continues the successful testing of NSM on US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).
Kongsberg will supply missiles, ship equipment including deck mounted launchers, installation and integration. The FCT Phase II program also provides for training and a training facility. This NSM FCT Phase II test effort is scheduled to be completed by the final quarter of Fiscal Year 2018 (July-September 2018).
The NSM has been demonstrated in a live fire event from the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Fridtjof Nansen-class frigate during the Rim of the Pacific in July 2014 followed by a firing in September 2014 from USS Coronado of the Independence-class LCS.
“We are very pleased that the US Navy continues and expands the test and evaluation of the NSM missile. The NSM is operational in the Norwegian and Polish Navies from both ships and land based coastal defence. It is an off-the-shelf and non-developmental 5th generation strike missile system that can be rapidly deployed for operational use”, says Harald Ånnestad, President Kongsberg Defence Systems.
The Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM) is a new generation long-range precision strike missile, guided with an inertial navigation system aided by a military GPS receiver and laser altimeter. The NSM with its stealthy design and unique passive infra-red and imaging sensor makes it very hard to detect, increasing the accuracy avoiding collateral damage. The NSM is multi mission (sea- and land targets) with a long stand-off range of more than 100 nm.
