Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) is one of three business units of Kongsberg Gruppen (KONGSBERG) of Norway and 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 Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace was part of KONGSBERG's predecessor Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk). As of 2021, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace had 3,500 employees.
Space related activities are conducted within Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace's Space & Surveillance division and Kongsberg Satellite Services. Notable space related products from Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace are the Booster Attachment and Release Mechanisms for ESA's Ariane 5. In the early 1990s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace 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. Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace has also delivered the Solar Array Drive Mechanism for ESA's Rosetta space probe.
In 1987, Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling CNCmilling machines used to produce very quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union in violation of the CoCom agreement, an international embargo on certain countries to COMECON countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. The incident strained relations between the United States and Japan, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions on the company by both countries.[7]
NOK 7,530 million (2012)
