On January 25th, the change of command ceremony took place in the 6th GMF (Group of Missiles and Rockets), in Formosa – Goiás. The Lieutenant-Colonel Alexandre de Almeida Melniski transferred the command and authority of the unit to the Lieutenant-Colonel Elson Lyra Leal. Avibras honoured this event represented by a team led by the engineer José de Sá Carvalho Júnior, Brazil and the Americas Commercial Vice President and Institutional Relations Vice President.

The ceremony was presided over by the Divisional General Luis Carlos Pereira Gomes, Planalto Military Commander, and attended by the Army General Juarez Aparecido de Paula Cunha, the Commander of the DCT (Army’s Department of Technology), the former commanders of the 6th GMF as well as the civilian and military authorities from the region of Formosa.

The Lieutenant-Colonel Melniski will continue his career at the ASTROS 2020 Strategic Project office and, therefore, will keep in close contact with Avibras.

The Lieutenant-Colonel Elson was serving at the Intelligence Centre of the Army when he was assigned to this new position. He already has experience with the ASTROS System, acquired during the period he commanded an ASTROS Battery at the former 8th GACosM (Motorised Coastal Artillery Group) in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro.

The 6th GMF is the only unit of the Brazilian Army which operates the ASTROS System. Over the recent years, the unit has received the modern ASTROS vehicles in their Mk6 version as well as the Mk3M modernized vehicles, thus concentrating the greatest firepower of all Latin America and the impressive strategic dissuasive capacity, besides being the generating centre for training and doctrine on the employment of missiles and rockets artillery.

Avibras wishes the officers great success in the execution of their new functions.