Dan Taylor, Technology Editor, Military Embedded Systems

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama. Northrop Grumman has won a $3.3 billion contract from the Missile Defense Agency for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Weapon System (GWS), which is intended to defend against intermediate and intercontinental ballistic missile attacks, the company announced in a statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Northrop Grumman will design, develop, verify, deploy, and sustain the GWS. Most of the work will be performed in Huntsville.

GWS will take the current ground system component of the GMD system and update legacy code as well as incorporate the Next Generation Interceptor fleet into the GMD system.

The GMD system is designed to intercept incoming warheads in space during the midcourse phase of their flight. It is deployed at two military bases in the United States: Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The vast majority of interceptors are located at Fort Greely.