SAIC's team is comprised of U.S. and European air and missile defense development companies as well as companies with large-scale systems integration capabilities. It also involves defense research organizations who are leaders in the distributed integration of missile defense weapon systems and command and control capabilities.

If selected, SAIC says its team will provide systems engineering support to NATO's ALTBMD program organization in Brussels, Belgium, and will design, develop and operate a test-bed in Europe that will help integrate and test missile defense capabilities from NATO and member nations.

SAIC's European partners include France's Thales Group and European Aeronautics and Defense Space; Germany's Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH; Britain's QinetiQ; and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, as well as SAIC's U.K. subsidiary, SAIC Ltd. The Raytheon Company (U.S.) and ThalesRaytheonSystems, a transatlantic joint venture between Thales and Raytheon, complete the team.

George Singley, president of SAIC's Transformation, Training and Logistics Group, described the project as "one of the most technically complex and militarily important programs NATO will ever undertake.

"Our multinational consortium is committed to effectively integrating TMD assets from individual NATO allies with NATO's command and control capabilities in an architectural solution tailored to the Alliance's unique needs," he said.

SAIC is the largest employee-owned research and engineering company in the United States, with annual revenues of$7.2 billion and more than 43,000 employees in over 150 cities worldwide.