The Air Force’s source selection for its Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR) program “heavily rewarded” cost with acceptable technical risk, according to service officials.
“(Raytheon) was technically-acceptable with the lowest evaluated cost price,” Elizabeth Kent, the Air Force’s former program contracting officer for 3DELRR, told Defense Daily Tuesday. “Our source selection criteria heavily rewarded cost. We’re a modified best value in which offers had to be technically acceptable with acceptable technical risk.”
Raytheon [RTN] on Monday prevailed over Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Lockheed Martin [LMT], earning a $19.5 million fixed-price-incentive-firm contract for the initial engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the program. The contract includes the purchase of three radar systems and total value, including all options, is currently estimated at nearly $72 million. This includes procurement of an additional three radar systems for a total of six systems and product support.
The Air Force said in a statement, under this first agreement, there are priced options for defense exportability features designs, an 18-month low-rate initial production (LRIP) and three one-year options for interim contractor support. During the EMD phase, Raytheon will design and manufacture a total of three radars that will undergo contractor and government developmental testing and government operational testing.
Three more radars will be built under the LRIP option, for a total of six, to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) in 2020. A follow-on, full rate production (FRP) contract will deliver the remaining 29 systems.
Kent said Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin would be debriefed next week. She said a specific date had not yet been set.
The total value of 3DELRR had been previously estimated at around $1.3 billion. Denise Saltojanes, the Air Force’s 3DELRR government cost lead, said the estimated $1.3 billion figure was probably a number analysts came up with while looking at EMD and FRP. Saltojanes said the follow-on contract for FRP will be based on the actuals that come out of low-rate initial production (LRIP).
An Air Force official estimated Tuesday the service had about 30 to 40 AN/TPS-75 air defense radars currently in the field. 3DELRR is designed to detect and track hostile aircraft and missiles and will replace the AN/TPS-75, which is developed by Northrop Grumman.
Raytheon offered a Gallium Nitrate- (GaN) based radar that operates at C-band in the electromagnetic spectrum. Andrew Hajek, Raytheon’s 3DELRR program director, told reporters Tuesday GaN enables Raytheon to affordably increase radar detection and sensitivity ranges in C-band, which he said is less congested than some other radar frequency bands. This will provide the military with additional operational flexibility, he said.
Saab and Dynetics were major subcontractors for Raytheon, Hajek said. Saab contributed primarily to radar software, Hajek said, while Dynetics said it is providing hardware development.
Hajek said 3DELRR is one of the first programs designed under the Defense Department’s Better Buying Power (BBP) initiative. BBP is the implementation of best practices to strengthen DoD’s buying power, improve industry productivity and provide an affordable, value-added military capability to the warfighter, according to DoD.
Hajek said Raytheon’s 3DELRR offering is part of a defense exportability features program for DoD, which he said means the Pentagon and the Air Force are planning to design exportability features within the design from the ground up, rather than adding after full scale development. Hajek declined to specify which exportability features were built into the company’s offering.
Dave Allen, the Air Force’s lead engineer for 3DELRR, said there are two reasons for inserting exportability features early into a program. It gets costly, Allen said, to put in features needed to be able to export the system, so if it is done early, there is no need to go back and re-engineer the system. Another reason, Allen said, is production of the United States-version of the system and the international version can be done at the same time.
“So instead of building five U.S. radars only and paying the price of material for five, I can build five U.S. and five export variants and then buy in bulk for 10 radars,” Allen said. “The effect of that is a lower cost U.S. system.”
Hajek said Raytheon successfully completed a preliminary design review (PDR) and the company feels it is in a good position for a successful critical design review (CDR) in five months. Hajek said the Air Force intends to enter FRP at the very start of fiscal year 2019.