Companies of Italy's Finmeccanica group will be involved with a Russian export program and a NATO ground surveillance project.

The announcement of new four contracts occurred at the Farnborough Air Show in Britain this week.

The Russian defense export agency, JSC Rosoboronexport, reported it plans to market various types of newly built or upgraded Russian aircraft for patrol missions, and the planes will be outfitted with Finmeccanica electronics.

Selex Galileo, with corporate headquarters in Italy and Britain, will supply Rosoboronexport with its ATOS Mission Management System, integrating a communications, navigation and identification suite supplied by Selex Elsag.

WASS will supply light torpedoes for the planes.

"Individually Rosoboronexport and the Finmeccanica companies are key market players; together the synergy of their complementary products and excellences will make them a leader in the patrol aircraft market" Rosoboronexport Deputy General Manager Alexander A. Mikheev said.

Added Selex Galileo Chief Executive Officer Fabrizio Giulianini: "We are thrilled with this new opportunity to promote our operationally proven ATOS airborne surveillance mission system.

"Thanks to this agreement with Rosoboronexport, the inherent adaptability of our system paired with our expertise in system integration will be fully exploited on a wide range of platforms, delivering enhanced and tailored surveillance capability to new customers."

Selex Elsag has been involved in Russian ventures since the 1990s, mainly in regard to radio and mobile business.

According to Rosoboronexport, the patrol aircraft that will be offered to customers around the world will be suitable for surveillance and land/sea border patrol, counter-smuggling operations, and environment monitoring and pollution detection.

The armed variants could be used for law enforcement and anti-piracy missions.

"The aircraft type and the mission system configuration will be defined to meet -- in the most cost-effective way -- the specific operational requirements of each end user," Rosoboronexport said.

Terms and other conditions of the contracts were not disclosed.

For NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance program, Selex Galileo will provide through prime contractor Northrop Grumman fixed mission operational support and transportable general ground station components of the AGS system's ground-based element.

It will also provide components to the system's suite, among them Selex Elsag's wideband data link.

The components will contribute to the AGS' line-of-sight link between the AGS airborne platform and the ground-based components.

The contract from Northrop to Selex Galileo is worth nearly $171 million.

The AGS program involves 13 countries and their domestic industries. It is an interoperability and continuous surveillance system for real-time situational awareness. Its airborne component is based on the Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial system by Northrop Grumman; its ground-based elements will feature fixed mission operational support as well -- as well as transportable and mobile ground stations for mission planning and control activities and data analysis and distribution.

Countries participating are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States.