Airstrip One

The Deepening of Anglo-American Co-operation on Missile Defence - 4th August 2003, 23.53

BAE and Northrop Grumman recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding in order to co-operate on modelling and simulating missile defence. This built upon the intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding that the British and US governments signed back in June.

In order to deepen this technology transfer, the government has established the UK Missile Defence Centre in which BAE will take a lead role.

According to BAE Systems, the MDC is a joint UK government and industry initiative that will provide an interface between the UK government and the US Missile Defense Agency. It will also as act as a forum to facilitate collaboration between UK/US industrial parties on missile defence.

The MDC will facilitate the exchange of information between the US Missile Defence Agency and the UK in order to generate the best technical advice for policy makers considering future options for the defence of the UK and Europe. The MDC will also act as a platform for UK industry to showcase its capability to the US Missile Defense Programme via a series of co-ordinated technical programmes of work.

BAE were fairly chuffed about it.