RESTON, Va., Jan. 12, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- When the U.S. government filed its annual Exchange of Information earlier this month in compliance with two international arms control agreements, it did so for the first time through the exclusive use of the Arms Control Enterprise System (ACES), an enterprise application developed by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC).
The U.S. files the Exchange of Information annually to update the signatories of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and the Vienna Document agreement on Confidence and Security Building Measures and on the numbers and locations of major conventional weapon systems, such as battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters, and combat aircraft. The signatories of those agreements can then conduct inspections to verify the accuracy of the report.
Compliance with international treaties and agreements requires participating nations to annually report the numbers and locations of individual weapons systems and to notify all signatories of certain types of organizational changes or changes in quantities of such weapons throughout the year. Organizations that participate in the process for the U.S. government include the State Department, Joint Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and major military commands, including U.S. European Command, U.S. Air Forces-Europe, and U.S. Army-Europe.
ACES is a modern, centralized, web-based system with a modular, extensible architecture readily accessible anywhere in the world via the Defense Department's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, a secure network for the sharing of classified information. ACES is designed to support compliance with a total of nine conventional and strategic arms control treaties and agreements. In addition to the two agreements reported under the annual Exchange of Information, ACES also is currently used for compliance with the Open Skies Treaty, the United Nations agreement on Transparency in Armaments, the agreement for the Global Exchange of Military Information, and the Wassenaar Arrangement.
ACES was developed for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Systems Engineering Non-Proliferation branch under a four-year $25.2 million General Services Administration contract that ended in May and under a follow-on $16.5 million, one-year time and materials contract with two one-year options. In early 2008, Northrop Grumman intends to release the strategic component of the software, which will be used to track and report nuclear weapons.
"While ACES has been used on a day-to-day basis to track reportable equipment within our own government, and for reporting day-to-day changes to other signatory nations, this is the culmination of that effort, where the information collected over the entire year is exchanged with other nations, and it is the first year the information has been filed using the ACES application exclusively," said Jim Stanley, Northrop Grumman Arms Control Information and Notification program manager. "ACES is more accurate, more efficient and more cost effective than the myriad of legacy systems used in previous years."
Northrop Grumman has a long history of support to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, including development and support of the Compliance Monitoring and Tracking System (CMTS). ACES is replacing the CMTS family of systems and incorporating enhanced capabilities for data management and inspection planning.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a $30 billion global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.