Lockheed Martin has assisted the U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency in a series of ballistic missile defense tests in the Atlantic Ocean during the Formidable Shield 2017 naval exercise that involved eight NATO member nations.
Formidable Shield aimed to showcase interoperability between NATO allies using the organization’s command-and-control reporting structures and datalink architecture, Lockheed said Tuesday.
Jim Sheridan, vice president of Lockheed’s naval combat and missile defense systems unit, said the test series showed that the company-built Aegis Combat System could integrate with other platforms of international navies within an integrated air and missile defense environment.
A Navy ship that features the BMD 4.0.3 Aegis Combat System participated in one event and simulated the launch of a Standard Missile-3. weapon to intercept a short-range ballistic missile target using remote track data from a Spanish F-100 class frigate.
During the same event, another Navy ship deployed SM-2 missiles to engage. cruise missile targets while tracking the SRBM at the same time.
The Navy joined another demonstration where its vessel with a BMD 4.0.3 Aegis Combat System launched an SM-3 interceptor against a medium-range ballistic missile target.