Date: Issue 84 - August 2018
Through its statement sent to the Public Disclosure Platform (PDP) on June 29, 2018, Aselsan announced the award of a contract worth US$30 million with a foreign customer for the integration of the AselPOD Electro - Optical [EO/IR] Targeting System to the air platforms. This has been the third export order of AselPOD received by Aselsan.
Aselsan initially signed an AselPOD export contract worth approximately US$25 million with Pakistan on June 10, 2016 for the delivery of 16 pods [this figure is stated as 8 according to Pakistani sources]. The AselPODs procured within the scope of the contract were started to be delivered in early 2017 and were integrated to the JF-17 aircrafts at the inventory of Pakistani Air Forces (PAF), in Pakistan. To this end, in addition to the integration activities, the production of the pylon (the external load station under the body) to which the pod is mounted was also accomplished by Pakistan. As part of the integration activities (power, communication and image transfer as well as interoperability of the navigation systems at the pod and the aircraft), the interface related with the aircraft provided by the Pakistani Air Forces was prepared and delivered by Aselsan for the AselPOD. Certain required software based updates were also accomplished with the support of Aselsan. The integration activities were launched as of June 15, 2016 and an empty AselPOD was sent to Pakistan to this end.
In the international tender launched, Aselsan competed with the Lockheed Martin’s (LM) SNIPER XR and Thales Group’s DAMOCLES Targeting Pods and the Pakistani Air Forces selected AselPOD as it was pleased with the performance of the AselPOD and appreciated its features.
In May 2017, Aselsan signed a second AselPOD export contract worth US$24.9 million with Pakistan, containing 16 more pods. In the meantime the firing tests executed in Pakistan with the AselPOD EO/IR Targeting System integrated to the JF-17 aircrafts were successfully completed in June 2017.