$31.1M for XM-7 Spider RED Land Mines

XM-7 Spider System(click to view full) Joint venture partners Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) in Plymouth, MN and Textron Systems Corp. in Wilmington, MA received a $31.1 million firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for the Spider XM-7 Landmine System. The Spider program was established to develop alternatives to persistent (M14/M16) antipersonnel landmine (APLs) within Korea along the DMZ. Spider is more like a “remote explosive device” than the typical fire-and-forget land mine, as it always has a man-in-the-loop to trigger it, engaging with one or more munitions and even using non-lethal payload options if available. Spider systems can be easily recovered and readied for a new deployment if they have not been fired, and they will deactivate after the battle so that they do not pose a threat or residual hazard. It is the successor to the Matrix system deployed in Iraq, and part of the USA’s Non-Self-Destructing Anti-Personnel Landmine Alternatives (NSD-A) program. Work will be performed in Plymouth, MN (55%), and Wilmington, MA (45%), and is expected to be complete by Nov. 30, 2007. This was a sole source contract initiated on March 6, 2006 by the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ (W15QKN-06-C-0154).