L-3 Communications announced Wednesday that its Coleman Aerospace business unit (L-3 Coleman Aerospace) has been awarded a contract from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Sunnyvale, California, to provide systems engineering and flight test support under the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) System Development program.
The initial 11-month contract is valued at approximately $1 million, and the total value of all L-3 Coleman Aerospace contract options under this program, if exercised, could exceed $38 million.
L-3 Coleman Aerospace will support the MKV program with a variety of systems engineering services, including requirements analysis, modeling and simulation, trade studies and system performance assessment.
Flight test support services will include development of test scenarios, test planning and test range interface. Future task orders will provide for continued systems engineering efforts and will include the design, fabrication, integration and launch of boosters for three kill vehicle flight demonstration missions.
The boosters will be based on L-3 Coleman Aerospace's flight-proven target vehicles, providing a low-risk, low-cost approach for initial kill vehicle-only testing.
"Our systems engineering capabilities and Hera launch vehicle will be key assets to the MDA and Lockheed Martin in quickly and affordably demonstrating the MKV technology," said Lou Deeter, president of L-3 Coleman Aerospace.
"We are happy to continue the partnership that we established with Lockheed Martin on the MKV System Definition phase."
