§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) of 3 February 1995,Official Report, column 888, if he will list all the projects carried out in the United Kingdom in the 1985 US-UK strategic defence initiative memorandum.
§ Mr. SoamesUS-funded work performed in the UK under the 1985 US-UK "SDI" memorandum of understanding is effected by the agreement of Government-to-Government arrangements called letters of offer and acceptance. Since the signing of the memorandum of understanding, 26 letters of offer and acceptance have been awarded amounting to a total value of $129.4 million. The majority of work and funding effort has been sub-contracted to UK industry.
The purpose of two of these arrangements is classified; the remainder are as follows:
- UK SDI architecture study
- European BMC3 architecture
- Electromagnetic railgun
- Countermeasures to SDI components
- Laser impulse coupling, interaction
- European test bed requirements study
- Catalysts for CO2 laser system
- Advanced sensor hardening
- Higher operating temperature IR detectors
- Delay lines for use at 10 micrometers
- UK extended air defence test bed
- Artificial intelligence discrimination
- Data fusion demonstrator
- MESAR radar trials
- Tretraform
- UKAS follow-on study
- Lethality database
- Sensor hardening (follow-on studies)
- Phase conjugation programme
- Target oriented tracking system
- Evolution and test of IR window materials
- Lethality technology
- Threat generation study
- Interceptor avionics