By Ann Roosevelt
Lockheed Martin [LMT] and NANA Development Corp. recently said they are partnering in the competition for the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Development and Sustainment Contract.
This is the second company Lockheed Martin has added. In June, the company said Alaska Aerospace Corp. would be on the team.
The firms will apply their proven experience to ensure the reliability and readiness of the GMD element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System, which defends the United States, its deployed military forces, friends and allies against a limited attack by intermediate- and long-range ballistic missiles, the company said in a statement.
The GMD Development and Sustainment Contract will entail development, manufacturing, test, training, operations support and sustainment support.
MDA issued an amended draft request for proposals (RFP) for GMD Development and Sustainment May 14 and has said it will issue a final RFP this summer. An award is expected in 2011. In addition to Ft. Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg AFB, Calif., GMD Development and Sustainment Contract work will be performed in Huntsville, Ala., Schriever AFB, Colo., and at Eareckson AS, Alaska.
In January, Lockheed Martin said it was interested in competing for the GMD work, as did Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Boeing [BA]–the incumbent. In June, Northrop Grumman and Boeing formed a strategic partnership to pursue the development and sustainment work.
Mathew Joyce, GMD vice president and program manager, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, said, “This represents a win-win for the GMD program and the state of Alaska. NANA Development Corporation’s family of companies will be a key contributor to an open government-industry partnership that will ensure responsiveness and mission focus.”
NANA’s Sivuniq and Akima Logistic Services will work together to provide logistics management, engineering and supply support services at Fort Greely and Huntsville.
“Our NANA companies will draw upon our expertise as the Fort Greely base operations support contractor for the Army in providing consistent and transparent integrated logistics support for GMD in partnership with Lockheed Martin,” said Helvi Sandvik, president, NANA Development Corp. “The NANA family of federal facilities management and logistic companies has a track record of success in supporting the U.S. military and federal government by reliably providing essential services in a cost-effective manner; delivering on- time and on-budget.”
NANA companies have been in residence working to develop and support Fort Greely for the past seven years.
Team member Alaska Aerospace will provide operations and maintenance support at Ft. Greely, and Vandenberg AFB, where GMD Ground-based Interceptors are deployed. The company developed, owns and operates the Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, which provides government and commercial satellite launch services and target missile launch services for missile defense testing.
Headquartered in Anchorage, NANA Development Corp. was founded in 1974 as the business arm of NANA Regional Corp. Inc., an Alaska Native Corp.