The Navy on Monday exercised $6 million to $8 million options in the future guided missile frigate (FFG(X)) conceptual design contract for all five contractors.
Last February the Navy awarded $15 million conceptual design (CD) contracts each to Austal USA, Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII], Lockheed Martin [LMT], Fincantieri’s Marinette Marine, and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works (GD BIW) [GD]. The Navy is seeking to minimize program risk by allowing industry to mature designs more quickly to meet the service’s capability requirements (Defense Daily, Feb. 16).
Photo: U.S. Navy
These new options range from $6.4 million to about $8 million. Austal USA won $6.4 million, GD BIW won $7,95 million, HII got $8 million; Lockheed Martin won about $7 million, and Fincantieri Marinette Marine also got about $8 million. The additional work is expected to be finished by June 2019, when the CD phase ends after 16 months.
The Navy said the companies will be maturing their proposed ship designs to meet the FFG(X) system specifications.
The Defense Department only announced contracts for HII, Fincantieri Marinette, and GD because the other two did not exceed the $7 million threshold for a separate announcement. The Navy said $2.6 million in FY ’18 research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) Navy funds was obligated at award time to each of the companies and will not expire at the end of FY ’18.
The Navy is using the CD work to inform final specifications that will be used in the next step in the frigate process, the Detail Design and Construction (DD&C) Request for Proposals (RFP) that will lead to a contract to a single awardee. The Navy said the CD phase will reduce cost, schedule, and performance risk for the DD&C contract.
After the CD phase is finished next June, the Navy plans to move to the DD&C competition and award for a final single winner in FY 2020. These five CD winners had to both have a parent design previously demonstrated at sea and a domestic shipyard lined up for possible production.
Austal USA pitched an improved version of its Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), Lockheed Martin is offering a version of its Freedom-class LCS, Fincantieri Marinette is offering a variant on the Italian FREMM frigate, GD is working with Spain’s Navantia to offer a version of the F100 frigate, and HII has not publicly stated its offering but has previously presented a version of its Legend-class national security cutter (NSC) design as a patrol frigate.