UK MOD Places New Order for Thales’s STARStreak Missiles

Thales strengthens its position in Advanced Weapon Systems
Thales UK today confirmed that it has signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence (MOD) for a further 200 STARStreak short-range surface-to-air missiles, a key component of the UK’s Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) capability.

The multi-million pound contract was announced by the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. David Cameron MP, in a speech to the Northern Ireland Investment Conference in Belfast.

Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, Philip Dunne MP said: “We saw during the Olympics last year how important our air defence capability is. This contract for 200 extra STARStreak missiles will not only provide our Armed Forces with a highly capable weapon, but it also secures hundreds of highly skilled defence jobs in Northern Ireland and should provide confidence to the export markets of the STARStreak system.”

The order has been placed to increase STARStreak stocks as part of the Government’s transformation agenda for the Armed Forces, Force 2020, to equip both the Regular and Reserve forces with the STARStreak systems.

David Beatty, Managing Director of Thales in Belfast, said, “Not only will this contract sustain jobs at our facilities in Northern Ireland, but it also demonstrates very clearly to our export customers the ongoing importance and trust that the UK MOD places in the STARStreak system and our design, manufacturing and support capabilities”.

The STARStreak missile systems, and its Air Defence Alerting Device, were deployed in the UK by the British Army during London 2012, where they were considered essential to the delivery of a safe and secure Olympic Games.

Thales: a market leader in integrated weapon systems

Thales is constantly improving its systems in response to evolving military requirements. Today, air defence systems must be highly interoperable and operationally effective. Thales is developing and delivering complex distributed network architectures and command and control systems to coordinate different types of weapons (including very short range, short range, and extended air defence) and engagement between different types of missiles (STARStreak II, VT1, Aster, etc).
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