The Air Force in its Space Fence procurement employed a deliberate effort to manage technological risk while still being able to acquire a capable system at an affordable price, according to a key Lockheed Martin [LMT] executive.
Lockheed Martin Monday prevailed over Raytheon [RTN] to win the Air Force’s $915 million Space Fence contract (Defense Daily, June 3). Space Fence is a S-band phased array ground-based radar to help the service identify and track space debris that could damage satellites or other space assets. Lockheed Martin Vice President for Advanced Systems Steve Bruce told reporters Monday the company did 72 different cost performance trade studies for the Air Force in the system design phase of the program. Bruce said the Air Force took the results of those studies and modified its specification to get the capability it needed at a cost it could afford.
“Once they were having to spend a lot of money to not get much performance, they would back off on that specification,” said Bruce, who said he believed Raytheon and previous Space Fence contestant Northrop Grumman [NOC] also performed a similar number of studies.
After Lockheed Martin and Raytheon were awarded risk reduction studies, narrowing the field, Bruce said the two companies matured technology and developed working prototypes to demonstrate that their offerings were technologically mature. Bruce said this allowed the Air Force to issue a request for proposals (RFP) that actually called for a fixed-price-inventive-firm-target contract type, which he called “very atypical” of a development program like Space Fence.
“More often than not, it would be some type of cost-plus contract,” where the government would be liable for cost overruns, Bruce said. “So we reduced the cost by changing the requirements and then they reduced the risk through this technology maturing program, which allows them to award what is a very low-risk contract.”
Bruce said the Air Force originally had its sights set on a radar reaching further into space, but scaled back that idea. Bruce said Space Fence is focused on low-earth orbit (LEO), or about 3,000 km into space. The Air Force, Bruce said, is instead focusing on deploying a space-based radar system to look further into space, which he said would be “more affordable” as opposed to Space Fence’s ground-based approach.
Raytheon spokesman Michael Nachshen said Tuesday the company is the world leader in advanced radar technology and has successfully designed, developed and deployed large radars around the world, including in austere locations like Thule, Greenland. Nachshen said Raytheon has been notified by the Air Force on their Space Fence decision and declined further comment pending its post-decision debrief with the Air Force.
Monday’s award is for the first of two possible sites for Space Fence. The first site will be located at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The Air Force has a second option for a site in western Australia contingent on funding and priorities. Construction is set to begin in early 2015 to meet the program’s 2018 initial operational capability (IOC) goal. The total contract value is estimated at greater than $1.5 billion over an eight-year period if all options are exercised. Lockheed Martin said subcontractors for its Space Fence bid included AMEC and General Dynamics [GD].