TRW Awarded $564 Million Missile Defense Deal

TRW Inc. of Cleveland won a seven-year, $564 million follow-on contract to develop and deliver Battle Management Command, Control and Communications products for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense Segment program (formerly the National Missile Defense program) by prime contractor, Boeing Co. of Seattle, TRW announced Aug. 6.

The contract award builds on TRW's missile defense work, which includes providing spacecraft, lasers, target launch vehicles, theater missile defense work and the nation's premier missile defense test facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., said Donald Winter, president and chief executive officer of the TRW Systems division.

The entire BMC3 system was tested July 14 and met all expectations, said Gary Abercrombie, TRW's BMC3 program manager.

Under the new contract, TRW will provide the battle management command and control system, the in-flight interceptor communications system, the communications node equipment, the network/system manager and the BMC3 test exerciser.

Boeing will provide the long-haul communications portion of the total BMC3 system. TRW will also continue developing, integrating and testing BMC3 products for future deployment, Abercrombie said.

BMC3 is considered the brains of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense Segment system. It provides a wealth of data ? including battle management displays and situation awareness information ? that enable commanders to plan, select and adjust integrated systems to help negate an incoming ballistic missile threat.

TRW has developed more than one million lines of code for BMC3, including pre-prototypes, and is heavily involved in testing both this element and the overall system.

TRW's BMC3 product office is in Huntsville, Ala., and engineering support offices are in Colorado Springs and Arlington, Va. TRW Systems is based in Reston, Va.