Ramona Adams
The Defense Department has begun to exchange initial price and technical data with Japan on the ground-based Aegis missile defense system to kick-off an acquisition process that could lead to a formal notification to Congress of a potential foreign military sale, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Japan aims to purchase two Aegis Ashore systems from the U.S. government and start to operate the platform by 2023, the report said.
The system is currently installed on U.S. Navy ships and equipped with command-and-control equipment from Lockheed Martin and missile technology from Raytheon.
A Japanese government procurement official told Bloomberg the country wants to buy Aegis Ashore-based ballistic missile defenses as soon as possible.
The report noted DoD will provide information on the existing system and on two future versions that will include radars being separately developed by Raytheon and Lockheed.
