The Full Form of KDA is Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace.

Kongsberg Defence Systems (KDS) is one of four wholly owned subsidies of Kongsberg Gruppen (KOG) of Norway and the 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 KDA was part of KOG’s predecessor Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk). As of 2005, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace had 1,421 employees.

Space related activities are conducted within KDS itself in addition to its subsidiaries, Kongsberg Spacetec (wholly owned) and Kongsberg Satellite Services (50% owned by KDS, 50% by the Norwegian Space Centre), both located in Tromsø. Notable space related products from KDS are the Booster Attachment and Release Mechanisms for ESA’s Ariane 5. In the early 1990s KDA 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. KDS has also delivered the Solar Array Drive Mechanism for ESA’s Rosetta space probe.

On 22 November 2008 Norwegian Minister of Defence Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen opened a new KDA plant that will produce parts for the aircraft recently chosen as Norway’s future fighter, the F-35 Lightning II.