News

Alliant Awarded $7.1 Million from KDI to Manufacture Lithium Reserve Battery

March 14, 1999 by Jeff Shepard

Alliant Techsystems (Hopkins, MN) announced that its Power Sources Center (PSC, Horsham, PA) has been awarded a $7.1 million contract from KDI Precision Products Inc. (Cincinnati, OH) to manufacture the world's smallest lithium reserve battery. Deliveries of the micro-miniature batteries will run through November 2000.The batteries will be the first to be produced on a new fully automated production line dedicated to high-volume manufacturing of micro-miniature lithium batteries that was installed under an $8.3 million contract from KDI awarded in 1996. According to PSC Managing Director Pat Narendra, the new contract is the culmination of a 30-month process to design, develop and test the micro-miniature lithium battery and install the production line.The lithium batteries will be used to power a self-destruct fuze that automatically destroys artillery-launched munitions that fail to explode on their own. They will be installed on all new Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) payloads, as well as 155mm and 105mm artillery projectiles, which comprise the majority of artillery ammunition used by the United States and its allies, according to Alliant Techsystems.