Lockheed Martin [LMT] Wednesday joined Northrop Grumman
[NOC] in protesting the Air Force’s contract award to Raytheon [RTN] for the service’s Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR).
Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Rashi Ratan said in a statement the company believes it offered the most affordable and capable solution for the program and has strong grounds for the protest. Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote confirmed the company’s protest filing, but declined to elaborate further.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), which handles bid protests, has until no later than Jan. 28, or 100 days from Lockheed Martin’s filing, to reach a decision in the case. The Air Force awarded its contract Oct. 6.
The Air Force awarded Raytheon a $19.5 million fixed-price-incentive-firm contract for the initial engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the program. The contract includes the purchase of three radar systems and total value, including all options, is currently estimated at nearly $72 million. This includes procurement of an additional three radar systems for a total of six systems and product support (Defense Daily, Oct. 7).
The Air Force said earlier in October under this first agreement, there are priced options for defense exportability designs, an 18-month low-rate initial production (LRIP), and three one-year options for interim contractor support. During the EMD phase, Raytheon will design and manufacture a total of three radars that will undergo contractor and government developmental testing and government operational testing.
Three more radars will be built under the LRIP option, for a total of six, to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) in 2020. A follow-on, full rate production (FRP) contract will deliver the remaining 29 systems.
The total value of 3DELRR had been previously estimated at around $1.3 billion, which Denise Saltojanes, the Air Force’s 3DELRR government cost lead, said was probably a number analysts came up with while looking at EMD and FRP. Saltojanes said the follow-on contract for FRP will be based on the actuals that come out of low-rate initial production (LRIP).
Raytheon offered a Gallium Nitrate- (GaN) based radar that operates at C-band in the electromagnetic spectrum. Saab and Dynetics are major subcontractors for Raytheon with Saab contributing primarily to radar software and Dynetics saying it is providing hardware development.
Northrop Grumman offered an S-Band solution called AN/TPS-80 that the company said had the potential to accelerate initial operational capability (IOC) by two years and save more than $1 billion in the process. Raytheon pitched an open architecture-based C-band, GaN solution. Lockheed Martin said it made significant investments in 3DELRR to reduce risk and drive affordability, including the design and production of an operational prototype.
3DELRR is designed to detect and track hostile aircraft and missiles and will replace Northrop Grumman’s AN/TPS-75 air defense radar.