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Norwegian multinational group Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace has confirmed plans to build a missile production facility in the United States to meet global demand.
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The 17 September announcement of a new site in Virginia, near US Navy facilities, closely follows expansion in Norway and the recently announced missile factory in Australia.
It’s understood the facility will provide production capacity, sustainment and in-country tech refresh capabilities for Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) and Joint Strike Missiles (JSM).
“The new missile production facilities in the US, Australia and Norway address the strong and long-term demand for our unique technology and the critical need to strengthen collective defence capabilities,” chief executive Geir Haoy said.
“Kongsberg has a proud history in the US and we are delighted to continue to invest in the country to support American interests while creating jobs locally.”
This is the second new missile production facility that the company has announced recently and the decision to locate this facility in the US was heavily influenced by the possibility that the Department of Defense could award a multi-year procurement contract to Kongsberg.
“The US Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force are important customers for Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile and Joint Strike Missile. Their demand signals gave us the predictability we needed to make this investment in the United States,” said Eirik Lie, president of Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace.
“This will allow us to better serve our allies in the US and continue to expand that supply chain locally, building capacity and redundancy for these critical capabilities.”
The company is focused on providing investments to increase the overall US manufacturing capability and further increase capacity to build advanced missile systems such as the NSM and JSM.
“Kongsberg is investing in a big way in the US market by making Virginia the US home of our new missile factory, which will entail hiring more than 180 people. We will also be investing more than $100 million into the Commonwealth of Virginia over the next few years, in terms of property, plant and equipment,” said Heather Armentrout, president and general manager, Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace, the US subsidiary of Kongsberg.
“This is in addition to expansion at our core US production facility in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.”
The new facility in James City County will be equipped to assemble, upgrade and repair both NSM and JSM.
The NSM is an anti-ship missile with superior operational performance and high survivability against all enemy defence systems.
The JSM is an air-launched strike missile designed to fulfil complex missions, such as Anti-surface Warfare (ASuW) and land attack.
The JSM is designed to be deployed internally to the weapons bay of the US Air Force’s F-35A, a characteristic that preserves the low observability features of the aircraft throughout any strike mission.
