The Navy last week picked ATK (ATK) and teammate BAE Systems over competitor Lockheed Martin [LMT] for a $109-million contract for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase of the Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System (JATAS).
The JATAS provides advanced missile warning capability, aircrew warning of laser-based weapon systems and hostile fire indication (HFI) for small arms, rockets, and other unguided threats. It will interface with the existing AN/ALE-47 Countermeasures Dispensing System. The service awarded the contract on July 20.
“The ATK–BAE Systems industry team brings tremendous engineering and operations expertise that is focused on making JATAS a success,” said Mike Kahn, President of ATK Missile Products Group. “Our collective experience in the design, development and production of combat-proven aircraft survivability equipment brings together the very best capabilities of our industry to successfully execute and deliver JATAS for our customer.”
Lockheed Martin and the ATK team both competed under a Technology Demonstration (TD) phase contract in October 2009 in preparation for the downselect award by the Navy. Lockheed Martin yesterday said it was “disappointed” about losing.
The ATK team will begin the 48-month EMD phase focusing on transitioning the design from development prototypes to production representative systems. Work is expected to be completed in September 2015. Other members of the JATAS industry team include DRS [DRS] and Goodrich [GR].