NATO member countries, such as Poland and Germany, have yet to sign the final contracts to buy new missile defense systems even if they already chose the contractors for such platforms this year, Defense News reported Tuesday.
Jen Judson writes that Germany and Poland expect to sign the procurement agreements in 2016.
Poland tapped Raytheon to produce two Patriot surface-to-air missile systems as part of the country’s Wisla aerial and missile defense initiative.
Poland also plans to buy a new Raytheon-built Patriot variant with a gallium-nitride-based active electronically scanned array radar and an open architecture-based command-and-control system, Judson reports.
Germany selected Lockheed Martin and MBDA Deutschland in June to continue development work on the Medium Extended Air Defense System as part of the TLVS program, according to Defense News.
MEADS is a mobile air and missile defense platform that works against short- and medium-range ballistic missile.
Marty Coyne, MEADS director at Lockheed, told Defense News the system is 85 percent complete and could reach operational phase within five years.