Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace

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Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA), one of two operating companies of Kongsberg Gruppen (KOG) of Norway, is a supplier of defence and space related systems and products, mainly anti-ship missiles, military communications, and command and weapons control systems for naval vessels and air-defence applications. Today, the company is probably best known abroad for its development/industrialisation and production of the first passive IR homing anti-ship missile of the western world, the Penguin, starting delivery in the early 1970s (when KDA was part of KOG's predecessor Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk). As of 2004, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace had 1,533 employees.

Space related activities is conducted within KDA itself in addition to its subsidiaries Kongsberg Spacetec (wholly owned) and Kongsberg Satellite Services (50% owned by KDA, 50% by the Norwegian Space Centre), both subsidiaries located in Tromsø. Notable space related products from KDA are the Booster Attachment and Release Mechanisms for ESA's Ariane 5. In the early 1990s KDA was involved, with NASA's JPL and Germany's DASA, in software development of the test/checkout system, as well as spacecraft hardware production, for the NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens space probe. KDA has also delivered the Solar Array Drive Mechanism for ESA's Rosetta space probe.

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[Company website]
["KDA part of historic space project"] – On KDA's involvement in the Cassini-Huygens mission (from KOG's news archive, 17 January 2005)

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