MEADS edges towards first test firing

September 8th, 2009 | DSEI 2009 | Posted by Tom Kington

The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program under development by the U.S., Germany and Italy will wrap up a system level critical design review next August, although flight tests have slipped a year to 2012, managers said on Tuesday.

While final design reviews for the major end items and subsystems were concluded in July, “challenges” to the system’s surveillance radar and shifting interpretations of requirements by partners had pushed back the first test flights from 2011, said Gregory L. Kee, head of the NATO Medium Extended Air Defense System Management Agency (NAMEADSMA).

Set to replace the Patriot system, the air transportable MEADS will offer theatre and homeland missile defense against tactical ballistic missiles, UAVs and aircraft. The Initial Operating Capacity date for the U.S. is 2014.

Speaking at the DSEi 2009 show in London, Kee said that a contract for the system to use Germany’s Iris-T missile as well as the PAC-3, which was originally expected by end 2008, would now be signed “well before the end of 2010.”

Progress to integrate the system with NATO’s Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence program (ALTBMD) has been made. Kee said he had been given permission by partners to talk directly to the ALTBMD office in March 2009. “We are at dialogue level. They have shared interface specifications with us and we are comparing them with our design,” he said

Tags: MEADS, test firing

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