APPENDIX 7
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Minister for Defence Procurement on Advanced Short-Range
Air-to-Air Missiles (18 January 2002)
I am writing to inform you that we have reached
agreement with the missile manufacturer MBDA UK Ltd (formerly
Matra BAe Dynamics) to bring the new Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air
Missile into service with the Royal Air Force. As you will know,
we had planned for ASRAAM to enter service in April last year
but were obliged to reject the missile because it failed to meet
the performance standards specified when it was ordered.
The missile's performance fell short in four
of the ten Key User Requirements, covering target acquisition
and tracking, lethality in key engagement conditions, and performance
against countermeasures. You will, I am sure, appreciate that
I am unable, for security reasons, to divulge here the exact nature
of the shortfalls and the technical solutions to them.
In April last year, my predecessor as Minister
for Defence Procurement, Baroness Symons, called for a clear and
robust route map to achieve the full operational capability required.
MOD officials, in particular those in the Defence Procurement
Agency, have worked constructively together since then with MBDA
and I am delighted that we have now achieved precisely what Baroness
Symons called for.
The first batch of ASRAAM missiles will be delivered
to an interim standard beginning later this month. These missiles
will offer our pilots a significant improvement over their current
Sidewinder missile. Delivery of missiles at a higher interim standard
will start in mid-2002. Thereafter, there will be a continuous
development programme, involving further software upgrades, leading
to the achievement of full operational capability. We hope to
achieve this by the end of 2003 but certainly by no later than
2005.
MBDA will be carrying forward this work under
its existing contract and at its expense. MOD has, however, recognised
that MBDA will have to carry out additional trials, and we have
agreed that the company can minimise their costs by tying in this
work with the Service Evaluation Trials that MOD was already planning
to carry out. I am particularly pleased that the arrangements
we have agreed will not incur any additional costs to the MOD.
The robust stand adopted by my predecessor last
year, and which I have been only too happy to embrace, has undoubtedly
paid dividends. The ASRAAM missile is now entering service and
will provide a major advance in our short-range air-to-air combat
capability, giving our pilots the decisive edge in air superiority
well into the future. This, I hope you will agree, is an excellent
outcome.
| 
