U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said “I can confirm that we are, in fact, in the process of finalizing a package that includes advanced air defense capabilities”, The Guardian reports.
NASAMS, designed and manufactured by the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace in cooperation with U.S. firm Raytheon, is used by the U.S. to protect the sensitive air space around the White House and Capitol in Washington DC.
A standard NASAMS unit has a modular design including a Fire Distribution Center command post, an active 3D radar MPQ64F1 Sentinel, a passive electro-optic and infra-red sensor, and a number of missile canister launchers with AMRAAM missiles. Normally, four NASAMS units are netted in a battalion network.
In a battalion configuration comprising of up to 12 launchers and up to 72 missiles loaded, all missiles can be fired against individual targets in less than 15 seconds.
