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General Dynamics Awarded Engineering Services Contract With Potential Value of $260M - Peerless Technologies a Subcontract Teammate

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 4 /PRNewswire/ -- General Dynamics Electronic Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD - news), yesterday was awarded a contract to provide engineering services to support the measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) exploitation mission of the National Air Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The eight-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract has a potential value of $260 million. General Dynamics was one of two companies awarded contracts under the program, and will lead a 17-company team in providing services.
    MASINT is a broad category of intelligence that covers information outside of traditional signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT) and human intelligence (HUMINT). MASINT includes data from radar, optical, infrared, acoustic, radiation and other sensors and the sampling of gas, liquid and solid materials. The National Air Intelligence Center, part of the Air Force's Air Combat Command (ACC) Air Intelligence Agency, provides aerospace-based intelligence capabilities to the military and national intelligence community.
    The General Dynamics team will develop, modify and integrate software and systems used to collect, process, analyze and exploit MASINT data. In addition, the contract calls for the integration and fusion of intelligence information from signals intelligence, imagery intelligence, MASINT and other sources into a common operating architecture.
    "MASINT is the next generation of intelligence knowledge and has vast, untapped potential. This is an opportunity for our company to bring to bare 45 years of intel-focused technology know-how and plow new ground with the collective strengths of our customer and teaming partners,'' said Craig Gravelle, vice president and general manager of space and surveillance for General Dynamics Electronic Systems.
    The contract covers evaluation and improvement of current capabilities, development and upgrade of databases, creation of new analysis techniques, support for field experimentation and the simulation and evaluation of emerging collection technologies.
    MASINT intelligence data is collected, processed and analyzed by custom systems to detect and define signatures - the characteristics -- of fixed and mobile sources. In addition, MASINT includes advanced processing and exploitation of traditional signals intelligence and imagery intelligence data.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., employs approximately 46,000 people and anticipates 2001 sales of approximately $11.5 billion. The company has leading market positions in business aviation, information systems, shipbuilding and marine systems, and land and amphibious combat systems. More information about General Dynamics is available at http://www.generaldynamics.com

SOURCE: General Dynamics Electronic Systems

April 4, 2001

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