Kongsberg Australia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Zone 5 Technologies (Zone 5) to explore collaboration opportunities to provide affordable, mass producible long-range strike and air-defence and anti-drone missiles for Australia and New Zealand.
"As we have seen in Europe and the US, the current environment requires the ability to produce capable and affordable effectors quickly and at scale. Building resilient supply chains and industrial capacity is critical to ensuring Australia and its allies can sustain capability when it matters. Key design principles for Zone 5 Technologies’ solutions are simplified supply chains and manufacturability at scale," Kongsberg Australia’s Managing Director, John Fry, said.
The MoU establishes a framework for the organisations to collaborate on local manufacturing and supply chain opportunities and builds on Kongsberg’s growing weapons manufacturing capability in Australia.
Zone 5 claims to work on affordable mass munitions, designs and manufactures highly scalable and affordable Deep Strike solutions and Interceptors.
The combat proven ‘Rusty Dagger’ is a long-range strike cruise missile with flexible air, ground and ship launch options. The ‘White Spike’ air defence interceptor is designed for subsonic threats with particular focus on countering drones and is being integrated into NASAMS air defence command and control.
Kongsberg Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kongsberg and a Strategic Partner to the Commonwealth of Australia’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) Enterprise.
It is well advanced in establishing the Kongsberg Missile Factory in Williamtown, NSW, the first manufacturing and maintenance facility for the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) and Joint Strike Missile (JSM) outside of Norway.
Kongsberg’s recent acquisition of California-based Zone 5 will enable deep collaboration and new guided weapon manufacturing opportunities.