Boeing Co beat out Lockheed Martin to retain its position as the prime contractor for the U.S. long-range missile shield, the Pentagon said on Friday.

The U.S. Defense Department said it was awarding Boeing a $3.48 billion, seven-year contract to develop, test, engineer and manufacture missile defense systems.

A team led by Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon Co had vied with Boeing to expand and maintain the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, hub of layered antimissile protection.

Boeing partnered with Northrop Grumman Corp to retain the work.

“We believe the government conducted a fair and open competition, making the right decision for the future of the program,” Norm Tew, Boeing vice president and program director of GMD, said in a statement.

Lockheed said it was “honored” to have participated on the bid, a company spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.

The GMD contract’s value to Boeing will have been about $18 billion from January 2001, when it formally became the system’s prime contractor, through the end of this year, Boeing has said.

GMD uses radar and other sensors plus a 20,000-mile fiber optic communications network to cue interceptors in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The shield has been shaped initially to guard against ballistic missiles that could be fired by Iran and North Korea. It is the only U.S. defense against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.  [Reuters]

The military is inching closer to using laser weapons on the battlefield after recent tests in which lasers were used to shoot down a drone aircraft and were fired from an airplane to damage a vehicle on the ground.

The Air Force recently test-fired its Advanced Tactical Laser from a C-130 Hercules, scorching a truck’s hood. And last month the Army and Air Force teamed with Boeing Co. for a demonstration in which lasers on the ground shot down drones at China Lake, Calif., company officials said.

Laser weapon projects in the works include the Navy’s powerful Free Electron Laser; the Advanced Tactical Laser; the Laser Avenger, which was used to shoot down the drones at China Lake; and the Army’s High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator, or HEL TD.

“The technology is there,” said Scott McPheeters, senior research engineer at the Army’s Program Executive Office Missiles and Space in Huntsville, Ala. “What we need to do is get the systems put into more rugged configurations [to handle different environments].”

One of the reasons the Army is interested in lasers is because lasers travel at the speed of light, which means such systems have a quick reaction time, McPheeters said.

Some laser weapons the Army is working on could be ready in as little as six months, but fielding those weapons would take longer due to procurement and production processes, McPheeters said. The HEL TD could take two or three years to put together, he said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but lasers I definitely the wave of the future for air defense.

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] on Dec. 11 responded to a U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) request for proposal on the follow-on core completion contract for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program. The contract covers all remaining development and deployment work for the GMD core element. Boeing’s response will assist MDA in determining its plan for future GMD work.

“We are proud of our role as prime integrator of the GMD system — delivering an operational defense capability to the United States and its warfighters,” said Norm Tew, vice president and program director of GMD for Boeing. “We look forward to the opportunity to continue leading this vital component of the nation’s defense.”

In March 2008, the MDA announced its intention to award Boeing the core completion contract sole source, stating that GMD “work content areas cannot be performed by any source other than Boeing without substantial and unacceptable programmatic risk, duplicative cost, and schedule delays.” Boeing has been the prime contractor for the GMD system since 2001, overseeing an industry team including Orbital Sciences, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Bechtel and Teledyne Brown in developing and deploying the United States’ only defense against long-range ballistic missiles. Boeing has been operating under a bridge contact since January 2009 while the core completion request for proposal was finalized. The contract award for the core completion work is expected in January 2010.

The core completion contract is expected to include additional refurbishments of ground-based interceptors, hardware and software upgrades, and planning and execution of future flight and ground tests.

“We are grateful that MDA has entrusted us with such important work,” said Greg Hyslop, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. “Keeping the contract in the hands of this proven industry team will guarantee a robust capability this country can rely on to defend itself against long-range ballistic missiles.”

The Huntsville-based GMD program has deployed more than 20 operational interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., to defend the United States against long-range ballistic missile threats. An integral element of the global ballistic missile defense system, GMD also consists of radars, other sensors, command-and-control facilities, communications terminals and a 20,000-mile fiber optic communications network.  [Defence Professionals]

Boeing built part of the Arrow II interceptor that successfully shot down a ballistic missile target April 7 in a test of Israel’s national missile defense system.

The operationally realistic test, conducted in Israel by the Israel Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, used an interceptor co-produced by Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and equipped with new capability enhancements.

“This successful test underscores the effectiveness of the cooperative relationship we have forged with IAI on the Arrow program and other international missile defense initiatives,” said Greg Hyslop, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems.

“Boeing is proud to co-produce Arrow II interceptors, which provide the state of Israel with a proven defense capability against ballistic missile threats.”

The event marked the co-produced Arrow II’s second intercept in two attempts, as well as its third successful flight test. The Arrow II is part of the Arrow Weapon System, which Israel and the United States have jointly developed to defend Israel against the growing threat of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.  [Space War]