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Huntsville AL: Northrop Grumman has announced that it intends to bid as prime contractor for the U.S. Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) program competition. The IBCS is an Army transformational program that will establish a network-centric system-of-systems solution for integrating sensors, shooters, and battle management command, control, communications and intelligence systems (BMC4I) for Army air and missile defense.
The focus of this effort will be on providing an open architecture that allows the warfighter to take advantage of any sensor and any shooter plugged into the integrated fire control network. This will allow the Army to take a “best-of-breed” approach to providing capabilities to the warfighter. The IBCS will be the first step toward a Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense capability.
The procurement will be managed by the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Program Office, which was established in August and is part of the Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space in Huntsville, Ala.
“ICBS is an extremely important program for the Army and we are very committed to winning this program and providing the best solution possible,” said Frank Moore, vice president of Northrop Grumman's Missile Defense Division. “Northrop Grumman will not only leverage its air and missile defense and network-centric expertise from across the corporation, but will add high-value companies to form a world-class team to expertly address this challenge. The key for IBCS is to develop an open architecture that easily connects legacy systems with the joint systems of the future, allowing the services to truly operate as one force.”
Northrop Grumman is a leading provider of command and control and battle management systems across the U.S. Department of Defense. The company is the prime contractor for developing and fielding the Air and Missile Defense Workstation (AMDWS), a decision dominance system used successfully in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. AMDWS has been proliferated throughout the Army and provides 3-D situational awareness and understanding.
Northrop Grumman is also responsible for building and fielding the Air Defense Airspace Management cell resident at every Brigade Combat Team, Division and Corps, integrating the common activities of air defense and aviation. Further, Northrop Grumman will leverage its systems engineering and integration expertise derived from fielding the Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar (C-RAM) system to support the IBCS effort.
Northrop Grumman has extensive experience in the U.S. missile defense integration market. For the ground-based mid-course defense system, the company is developing the highly successful fire control and launch control equipment software. The company is the prime contractor at the Joint National Integration Center and is also leading an industry team to develop and test the Kinetic Energy Interceptor system – a mobile boost/ascent/early-midcourse phase missile-defense capability, and is prime contractor for the Space Tracking and Surveillance Program.
