ThalesRaytheonSystems and Leonardo: a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen cooperation on NATO's air command and control system (ACCS)

MASSY, 10th September 2019 – ThalesRaytheonSystems and Leonardo will strengthen the cooperation on all aspects of the ACCS scope. The companies will work together in the areas of on-site system support, deployment of ACCS to new sites and retrofitting existing sites. It will also allow ACCS to benefit from Leonardo's latest innovations in the fields of C2, communications, radar signal processing and ballistic missile defence.

Through this agreement, ThalesRaytheonSystems, Leonardo and their industry partners will be in a position to offer NATO and national operators the very best technologies available on the market. The new arrangements will allow for more responsive, more innovative management of ACCS evolutions. ACCS has been operational in Italy since March 2015 and ten other NATO member countries are in the process of moving to the new system. The missile defence component has been operational since 2012 and certain Alliance countries have been using the deployable component since 2015.

The Air Command and Control System (ACCS) helps NATO member countries to assert their territorial sovereignty and protect their populations and armed forces from air and missile threats. To help them in this mission, ThalesRaytheonSystems is delivering ACCS, a single unified and interoperable air command and control system that will enable member countries to manage all types of air operations, both over the territory of European NATO countries and during external deployments. Once fully deployed, the NATO ACCS will cover 10 million square kilometres of airspace.
More than 40 companies from 15 member countries have taken part in the ACCS programme since it began. Leonardo is a long-standing programme partner and supplier of the essential data fusion component, which supports more than 50 different types of radars in service with NATO members.