Northrop Grumman [NOC] recently said it plans to bid as prime contractor in the competition for the potential $850 million Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Objective Simulation Framework (OSF), which is to integrate MDA’s modeling and simulation architectures.
Boeing [BA], meanwhile, said it is proud of its role in developing modeling and simulation for MDA.
“We’re very interested in the OSF opportunity and are considering all options at this point,” James Schlueter, a Boeing spokesman, told sister publication Defense Daily.
Other contractors with experience in missile defense simulation are expected to compete.
OSF is expected to be awarded in May 2011 as an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract managed by MDA, Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
MDA issued a Draft Request for Proposals in late July and industry days were held in mid-August.
The program goal is to improve MDA’s current modeling and simulation frameworks that consist of the Digital Simulation Architecture (digital) and the Single Stimulation Framework (hardware-in-the-loop).
The current frameworks integrate models from each of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) program elements into a system that accurately represents the performance of fielded BMDS equipment against a variety of threats in realistic environments.
The BMDS is a complex system of sensors, interceptors and a command and control, battle management and communications network.
Integrating the many elements will allow a robust, layered defense to defend against a hostile missile in all phases of flight.
The desired OSF will leverage existing or mature capabilities and develop common interfaces to join digital and hardware-in-the-loop representations into a modular, scalable, reconfigurable and composeable system. The OSF program will also sustain the current frameworks/architectures until OSF is deployed.
“Modeling and simulation capabilities are becoming increasingly important to missile defense and OSF is crucial to MDA’s ability to efficiently perform BMDS-level accreditation before transitioning the capabilities into the operational BMDS,” said Karen Williams, vice president of Air and Missile Defense Systems for Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector.
“Northrop Grumman is ideally positioned to lead this effort. To deliver a flexible, efficient and cost effective framework solution to the MDA, we will draw upon our more than 15 years experience solving the challenges of integrating the BMDS element models into comprehensive end-to-end system simulations,” Williams said in a statement.
Northrop Grumman said it has been a leader of the modeling and simulation community for MDA since 1995. As the prime contractor of the Joint National Integration Center Research and Development contract (JRDC), the company uses its broad and deep system-of-systems experience to lead a world-class team to conduct BMDS-level modeling and simulation, ground and flight tests, war games, exercises, analysis and operational training in various locations.