A recent Navy notice said the service intends to conduct a competition for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase for an aircraft carrier-based hypersonic weapon program later this year or early next year.
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) issued a pre-solicitation announcement on July 10 that said it intends to release a final Request For Proposals for the Hypersonic Air-Launched Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) (HALO) weapon system program in the first or second quarter of fiscal year 2024. The RFP will be for a “full and open competition” for the EMD phase of HALO with a contract it intends to be Cost-Plus-Incentive-Fee.
The Navy argued in this notice that the information industry sends the service now aims to assist NAVAIR in identifying potential vendors that meet requirements for and express interest in HALO EMD support.
HALO is a Navy program to deploy a carrier-suitable, long-range, high-speed anti-surface hypersonic weapon system and is meant to succeed the current Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) fielded on the current Navy F/A-18 and Air Force B-1Bs.
This EMD effort intends to specifically incrementally design, develop, and test this weapon system in accordance with performance requirements to support deployment.
The notice said the Navy expects HALO to be fielded by FY ‘29 for Early Operational Capability (EOC) and by FY ‘31 for Initial Operational Capability (IOC) requirements, at the latest.
The EMD tasks will cover design and development of the HALO All-Up-Round, systems engineering including open architecture and digital engineering, program management, system security, product support, and test and evaluation.
The Navy noted EMD also includes activities related to transitioning HALO to production and delivery of test assets to support EOC and IOC.
The Navy said the RFP will only be forwarded to vendors that express interest and meet certain requirements including experience developing and manufacturing a carrier-suitable all-up-round as a prime contractor; integrating external weapons within a carrier-based tactical aircraft; and development, integration and test of a high-speed weapon system meant to hit mobile targets.
Responses to this notice are due by July 24.
In March, Lockheed Martin [LMT] and RTX [RTX] won $116 million in contracts to start developing the HALO weapon, with performance lasting through December 2024. At the time the Navy said these initial contracts could lead to later development and production contracts based on the initial designs (Defense Daily, March 29).