Lockheed Martin has assembled a team of major U.S. and European contractors to pursue a new NATO missile defense study program.

The team chasing the NATO active layered theater ballistic missile defense feasibility study includes TRW, Aerospatiale Matra Missile, Alenia Marconi Systems, Astrium, BAE Systems, EADS Defense and Civil Systems and Military Aircraft, Fokker, LFK, and Matra BAe Dynamics. Lockheed Martin will coordinate between the companies and NATO.

The 19-nation alliance is funding the project from next year. It will seek ways to combine air and missile defense assets to protect NATO member countries from ballistic missile attack. Intelligence officials in the U.S. and Britain have highlighted the increasing ballistic missile threat, although other member countries, notably France, still are skeptical about the seriousness of foreign developments.

The team will examine various aspects of missile and air defense, including active and passive defenses, early warning from space using ground and airborne sensors, counterforce attack operations, counter air operations, and the battle management and command and control systems needed to make the systems work.

By Robert Wall