§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will list the British companies chosen to undertake a 22 month study into a possible European Strategic Defence Initiative and its implications within the United States Strategic Defence Initiative.
§ The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)The 22 month study to which the noble Lord refers is in fact known as the "European Architecture Study". The study will examine from a UK perspective, the threats with which a strategic defensive system would have to cope in the European theatre, in conjunction with other available defensive systems; identifying the required mission objectives. The study will be wholly US-funded and will form an integral part of the US SDI research programme.
The British companies who were selected to participate in the study are as follows:
Concepts Groups: PA Defence Systems Admiral Computing Hunting Engineering Systems Integration Hunting Engineering Logica Plessey Theta Analysis Weapons British Aerospace GEC-Marconi Royal Ordnance Scicon Shorts CAP Scientific Thorn EMI Battle Management/C3: Plessey Logica Sensors: GEC-Marconi Barr & Stroud BAe Racal Software Sciences Thorn-EMI MoD research establishments will support the work of these companies and the project will be managed and controlled by the SDI Participation Office in MoD.