Northrop Grumman [NOC] believes it will benefit from a company location near a major airport in suburban Baltimore when it performs its full-scale Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long Range Radar (3DELRR) prototype demonstration.
Business Development Director for Ground-Based Tactical Radars Mark Smith said yesterday Northrop Grumman’s location by Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport (BWI) provides an “aircraft-rich” environment that will help the company demonstrate realistic performance. The company has an electronic systems division located in Linthicum, Md.
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| Pictured is Lockheed Martin’s 3DELRR prototype. Lockheed Martin is competing with Northrop Grumman and Raytheon for the $1.3 billion contract. Photo: Lockheed Martin. |
“We have a built-in benefit of having large numbers of aircraft (and) lots of different types: military, commercial, general aviation,” Smith said. “We can show some quite realistic radar performance results.”
Northrop Grumman is gearing up for its 3DELRR prototype demonstration, which the company expects to take place mid-July. Ground-Based Tactical Radar Programs Director Mike Meaney said yesterday the company will demonstrate a complete, production-ready radar system in its operational environment and will demonstrate all the different phases that Air Force operators will be using the radar in.
3DELRR, the Air Force’s future main air defense radar designed to detect both aircraft and missiles, is a program valued at approximately $1.3 billion. 3DELRR will replace the AN/TPS-75 radar, which has been in the service since the 1980s.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Raytheon [RTN] are Northrop Grumman’s competitors for 3DELRR. Saab Sensis, a subsidiary of Saab, is a subcontractor on Raytheon’s offer. Lockheed Martin completed its PDR in late April. Raytheon said recently it continues to meet its 3DELRR milestones.
Meaney said Northrop Grumman performed its preliminary defense review (PDR) over a four-day period in early April. Meaney said PDR was successful and that the company received official close out and clearance of its PDR design from the Air Force. Smith said, as part of its PDR, Northrop Grumman presented and discussed all of the program’s phases: capabilities, hardware, software and schedules.
The Air Force is expected to release its request for proposals (RFP) for the next phase of the program in August or September. The service will eventually downselect to one contractor for the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase, which is expected to be awarded in the second quarter of 2014. Northrop Grumman said in February it expects a Milestone B evaluation by the end of 2013 (Defense Daily, Feb. 19). Air Force spokeswoman Erika Yepsen said today the service expects to perform the Milestone B assessment in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014.
All three companies were awarded $35 million EMD contracts last August. The Air Force said firm fixed-price and/or fixed-price, incentive firm contracts are planned for the EMD periods (Defense Daily, June 20).