MBDA has received a £175 million contract from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for further In-Service Support to the Sea Viper weapon system, securing a key capability of the Type 45 fleet.
Called ‘Sea Viper Unified Support Environment Period 1’, the contract will cover the continuing in-service support to the Sea Viper weapon system, including the Aster missile that protects the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers, for the next 5 years.
The Unified Support Environment (USE) is the principle of providing in-service support to UK MoD Weapon Systems and Missiles in a portfolio environment. The USE approach is designed to reduce support workload and administrative costs, and has already been successfully applied to several other MBDA programmes, including ASRAAM, Brimstone and Storm Shadow.
The work will sustain around 50 MBDA UK jobs, primarily at Stevenage, Portsmouth, and Bristol and will also involve a large number of UK companies in the supply chain as well as MBDA France and MBDA Italy.
Source: MBDA
CUBE Defense Analysis 