By Ann Roosevelt
Lockheed Martin [LMT] sees opportunity in Missile Defense Agency (MDA) competitive procurements that come to fruition in 2011, company officials said.
For example, in October, the company responded to a draft request for proposals for the Intercontinental-range Ballistic Missile Targets competitive procurement, Doug Graham, vice president of Advanced Programs, Strategic & Missile Defense Systems, said in a teleconference yesterday.
“We will be competing for that business,” he said. “We will be offering a variant of our LV-2 target that we believe will provide very robust capabilities” as well as an affordable solution for MDA.
It is expected that MDA would award a contract for the ICBM target procurement in late 2011.
Last year marked the successful maiden flight of the company’s new LV-2 Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile Target, Graham said.
In 2010, Graham said, the Targets and Countermeasures Program provided and launched five target missiles, all of which were successful. Since 1996, there have been a total of 39 successes of 40 target missions.
The company also is under contract to develop the Extended Medium Range Ballistic Missile target for MDA. The target will fly sometime in the next couple of years to add to the MDA target portfolio, Graham said.
Additionally, Lockheed Martin is fielding a team to compete for the Ground Based Midcourse Defense program development and sustainment, as the current contract is expiring.
Incumbent Boeing [BA] has formed a strategic partnership with Northrop Grumman [NOC] in pursuit of the work (Defense Daily, June 16, Oct. 13).
The Lockheed Martin team will “sustain and enhance” the operational GMD weapon system that is fielded today, Graham said.
Raytheon [RTN] is on board as a strategic partner, and “we’ve also brought on board all of the original equipment manufacturers…that are involved in the current system onto our team,” Graham said. That includes companies such as Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB] and Harris Corp. [HRS].
Lockheed Martin also has small business partners such as Alaska Aerospace Corp. (Defense Daily, June 21, July 23).
Graham said the company has a long partnership with the government in the missile defense arena, going back to the 1980s when the first demonstration of exo-atmospheric hit-to- kill of strategic range missiles.
The final RFP amendment for the procurement came Dec. 22, he said, and the team will submit its proposal at the end of the month. MDA is expected to make a decision and a contract award in the next several months.
Another procurement Lockheed Martin is working on is the Next Generation Aegis Missile, “essentially a new high-performance interceptor that will be part of the Phased Adaptive Approach, in particular Phase IV, where they’re looking to be able to engage intermediate and intercontinental range ballistic missiles.” The requirement to engage advanced threats like that early in their trajectories results in a about a 50 percent increase in performance over what you get from sort of an evolved existing systems, which is why MDA decided to compete the new interceptor.
“In addition to just the raw performance, I think the flexibility and mobility is viewed as something extremely important,” he said.
Integration with the Aegis Weapon System is important in this case, Graham said in discussing leveraging the company expertise in missile defense interceptor work. This missile is going to be designed to go into the Aegis 5.1 Mark 41Vertical Launch System that are part of Aegis. It will be designed to support either an at-shore configuration or an at sea.
In mid-November Lockheed Martin submitted a proposal for what’s called the concept definition and program planning phase. An award is expected early this year, he said.
The concept definition and program planning phase is scheduled to run for 36 months and involve a broad range of trade studies to define the most effective and affordable solutions. That phase would be followed by a contract to develop the system starting in the 2013-2014 time frame to support the Phased Adaptive Approach Phase IV slotted for 2020.
As many as three contracts are expected to be awarded for this work, he said.