BAE SYSTEMS AWARDED MAJOR SUB-CONTRACT FOR ROYAL NAVY MESSAGING ENHANCEMENTS

BAE SYSTEMS C4ISR has been awarded a major sub-contract by EDS Defence within the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence's Naval Afloat Messaging Coherency (NAMC) programme. This will provide a coherent formal military messaging facility to Royal Navy vessels at sea and enable access to Information Exchange services provided by the shore-based Defence Message Handling Systems (Navy) [DMHS(N)], which was also supplied by BAE SYSTEMS.

BAE SYSTEMS will be supplying its Summit-iX Information Exchange software product to EDS Defence for incorporation into the NAMC solution. Summit-iX is also employed within the DMHS(N) and is currently being delivered to the Royal Navy's new Type 45 destroyers.

Summit-iX represents the United Kingdom's first implementation of NATO's new messaging standard STANAG 4406 Edition 1 and, to ensure inter-operability with ships and submarines using the existing older standard, features the proven BAE SYSTEMS' MPS2000 product integrated within it.

NAMC is a key element in the process of rolling out a consistent information infrastructure into the Royal Navy. Supporting the creation of network-enhanced capability, it will be fitted to current Royal Navy aircraft carriers, Type 42 destroyers, Type 23 and Type 22 frigates, and to some Royal Fleet Auxiliaries, replacing a number of legacy systems. This will allow the Royal Navy to gain the benefits of coherence with its existing systems, planned future systems and under-pinning shore based support infrastructures.