The NASAMS air defense system will be deployed in April this year and will remain on combat duty for four months.

The Ministry of Defense of Estonia reported this.

Hanno Pevkur, Estonian Defense Minister, and Margarita Robles, Spanish Defense Minister, agreed to deploy the air defense system battery during a meeting in Brussels.

It is emphasized that the support of the Alliance forces is important for Estonia, as the country is currently expecting the arrival of its own air defense systems.

“NATO’s eastern flank has grown significantly over the past year. Given the need to fill this critical gap in our medium-range air defense capabilities, I am very pleased that we reached an agreement with Spain on the deployment of their NASAMS medium-range ground-based air defense system for four months, starting this April,” Pevkur announced.

Also, the Minister of Defense of Estonia announced that the country, together with Latvia and Lithuania, proposed to NATO to create a model of air defense rotation. This process is similar to the air control of the Baltic region, which is currently carried out by the forces of the North Atlantic Alliance.

“It is also significant that due to the deployment of the NASAMS unit in Estonia, we will learn the tactical specifics of a medium-range air defense system. In addition, it will provide our Defence Forces and Air Force with the experience of integrating a medium-range air defense system with other defense systems,” Pevkur said.

The NASAMS air defense system will protect the Estonian Ämari Air Base, a strategic object. A similar unit has been deployed to Latvia. The two systems will be linked and will be part of NATO’s eastern flank air and missile defense.

The procurement of the medium-range air defense system for Estonia is in the final stages, the contract is planned to be completed by the summer of this year.

NASAMS air defense system

NASAMS system is produced by a consortium of the American corporation Raytheon Technologies and the Norwegian group Kongsberg. The SAM includes launchers and Raytheon AN/MPQ-64F1 Sentinel radar stations from the Raytheon and Kongsberg consortium.

Raytheon is responsible for supplying AIM-120 AMRAAM medium-range air-to-air missiles for this system, and Kongsberg supplies the launchers.

Each mobile launcher is equipped with six anti-aircraft missile containers.

The firing range of the NASAMS II anti-aircraft system configuration using AIM-120С AMRAAM missiles is up to 25 km, and the reach in altitude is up to 14-15 km.