Formation of New European Joint Venture SOSTAR GmbH
Friedrichshafen, 22 February 2001
NATO urgently needs its own advanced all-weather stand-off reconnaissance system for crisis and conflict management. Therefore, already in 1993, the NATO Council decided to initiate an operational reconnaissance system, the "Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS)" programme. In order to meet this demand, the NATO partners Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain requested industry to implement the new radar system SOSTAR (Stand-Off Surveillance and Target Acquisition Radar) in a joint venture. The future European company SOSTAR GmbH will have its headquarters at Dornier GmbH, a corporate unit of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). The following companies are involved: EADS (28 per cent), THALES (28 per cent), FIAR (28 per cent), Fokker Space (5 per cent) and Indra (11 per cent). This was reported by Dornier GmbH on Thursday in Friedrichshafen.
Dr. Stefan Zoller, CEO of Dornier GmbH and Head of the Business Unit Defence Electronics: "Europe has considerable gaps in the field of long-range reconnaissance. In a common move by the participating European governments and the most competent industrial partners, Europe's technical capabilities in the field of reconnaissance radars will now be pooled in SOSTAR GmbH. A co-operation with the USA and the U.S. industry is possible and also desirable in a second step."
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SOSTAR is an operational and tactical air-borne ground reconnaissance system for battlefield surveillance and target acquisition for NATO. The main activities and technological challenge of the company are the development and the operational demonstration of a multi-functional state-of-the-art reconnaissance radar.
Johann Heitzmann, Member of the Executive Board of Dornier GmbH and Head of the Airborne Systems Division: "The SOSTAR-X project will place Europe's radar technology on a higher technical level, close existing gaps and safeguard competitiveness and jobs in future reconnaissance systems. The total project volume amounts to approx. EUR 85 million for demonstrator definition, development and construction. We expect an order volume share of approx. EUR 24 million spread over the years 2001 to 2005."
In a first step, the "SOSTAR-X" demonstrator programme will send precise real-time ground reconnaissance and target data from the aircraft to stationary and mobile ground stations via radio communications (data link). The main assemblies of the system are:
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The new radar system to be developed. It contains the "active-array antenna technology" of EADS and THALES. This is based on the gallium-arsenide technology for novel electronic scanning of radar antennas.
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The mission system with three console workstations in the aircraft, i.e. for acquisition, processing and operation control.
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The data link system for the transmission of information from the aircraft to the ground station.
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A ground station for information processing, evaluation and distribution.
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The mission equipment installed in the aircraft of the type Fokker 100 for the demonstration of the requested performance data in flight tests.
Dornier GmbH is a corporate unit of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). EADS was formed from the merger of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG, the French group Aerospatiale Matra and the Spanish Construcciones Aeronáuticas (CASA) and is one of the world's three leading aerospace companies.
Friedrichshafen, February 22, 2001/006-01
For further information:
Business Unit Defence Electronics
Michael Hartwig
Tel. ++7545-8-9124
Fax: ++7545/8-5888
E-Mail: hartwig.michael@dornier.dasa.de
