with final assembly and test done at the Thales Air Defence facilities in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The weapon went into full production in 2008. The final cost for the MBT LAW contract since the beginning of the NLAW-programme, including the assessment phase, development, and manufacture-license, ended up at approximately £400–437 million. Team MBT LAW UK, which provided components for the system, included: Thales Air Defence (final assembly); BAE Systems Avionics (inertial measurement unit); NP Aerospace (plastic and composite mouldings); FR-HiTemp (control fins and actuators); Raytheon Systems (electronics assemblies); Skeldings (special purpose springs); Thales Missile Electronics (proximity fuze); MetalWeb; BAE Systems RO Defence; EPS Logistics Technology; Express Engineering; Portsmouth Aviation; ICI Nobel Enterprises; Leafield Engineering. The missile's warhead is made in Switzerland by Saab Bofors Dynamics Switzerland Ltd. More than 24,200 units have been produced. Depending on which source, it costs: £20,000 (2008); US$30,000 (2022); US$33,000 (2022); US$40,000 (2022). Each unit has a shelf life of around 20 years. Operation The NLAW is a man-portable, soft-launch, and confined-spaces (saltwater countermass) system, allowing the missile to be fired from almost anywhere; the operator can safely fire through any window of a room no bigger than 4 x 2.5 x 2.5 m (high). The missile is first shot out of the launcher with a low-powered ignition system, after which its main rocket ignites and propels it to the target. Guidance uses a predicted line of sight (PLOS) system. For a moving target, the operator maintains tracking for at least 2–3 seconds, the software embedded in the missile's INS system makes a record of operator's aiming movement, and computes the flight path which will intercept the target. After launch, the missile flies autonomously along the pre-programmed flight path, controlled by an inertial guidance system. The system weighs , with a rocket weight of ; the mass of the warhead is . It is unnecessary for the operator to consider the target distance (so long as it is within range), or to stay exposed whilst the missile is in the air (fire-and-forget). Against tanks and other armoured vehicles, the overfly top attack (OTA) mode is used; the missile flies about one metre above the line of sight, detonating the warhead above the target's weaker top armour via proximity fuze and magnetic sensors. The direct attack (DA) mode is used against non-armoured targets, detonating the warhead on impact via contact fuze as the missile flies on