By Marina Malenic
Several industry teams have announced their intent to compete for an upcoming Air Force space launch and test range contract.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] last week said it has teamed up with URS Corporation [URS] and InDyne to pursue the Launch & Test Range System Integrated Support Contract (LISC), which the Air Force expects to award sometime next year. The group will be known as CoRE, or Consolidated Range Enterprise.
Raytheon Technical Services Company LLC (RTSC), a subsidiary of Raytheon [RTN], also announced its intent to bid last week with a team comprised of General Dynamics [GD], ASRC Aerospace Corporation, ARES Corporation, Schafer Corporation and World Technical Services Incorporated (WTSI).
Last year, CSC [CSC] and Honeywell [HON] established InSpace 21 LLC, a joint venture dedicated to providing integrated operations support to the Air Force space community. InSpace 21 is also bidding on LISC.
Boeing [BA] is another potential bidder. A spokesman for the company said yesterday that its officials are “looking forward to the release of the draft request for proposals and will announce our intentions to move forward at that time.”
LISC would provide the Air Force with a single prime contractor responsible for various range operations. It would consolidate the existing operations and maintenance effort at the eastern and western launch ranges and the engineering and sustainment work at the Space and Missile Center in Los Angeles into a single range support contract. The eastern range is headquartered at Patrick AFB, Fla., while the western range is at Vandenberg AFB, Calif.
The winning bidder would take care of launch and test range system operations, organizational and depot level maintenance, logistics management and mission support communications services at both eastern and western ranges.