November 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace
WASHINGTON - Raytheon and Airbus are protesting two recent awards for eight missile tracking satellites issued to SpaceX and L3Harris, putting into question the Space Development Agency's tight schedule to get its initial constellation on orbit in 2022.
The news was first reported by Aviation Week.
Under the Oct. 5 award in question, SpaceX and L3Harris were issued contracts to design and develop four satellites equipped with wide field of view (WFOV) overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors. The eight satellites would form tranche 0 of SDA's tracking layer, which the military is building to track hypersonic weapons from space.
L3Harris received $193 million, while SpaceX received $149 million.
Airbus U.S. Space & Defense first filed its protest of the award Oct. 28, while Raytheon filed its own protest on Nov. 3. A stop work order has been issued for SpaceX and L3Harris.
“SDA is working with the GAO to achieve fast, accurate and equitable resolution to the protests received from Airbus and Raytheon on the agency's Tracking Tranche 0 contracts," an SDA spokesperson said in a statement. “SDA is committed to full and open competition whenever practicable and the agency understands protests are a potential and not uncommon part of that process.”
The tracking layer is one of several capabilities being built into the agency's planned mega-constellation known as the National Defense Space Architecture. SDA is using a spiral development approach to build out that constellation, by adding more satellites every two years. The first tranche, which would include the eight missile tracking satellites in question, will include about 30 satellites set to launch in 2022. By the end of 2026, the agency wants to have hundreds of satellites in orbit.
While Raytheon declined to comment, Airbus U.S. Space & Defense told C4ISRNET in a statement that concerns over the government's evaluation process for the proposals led the company to protest the award.
“While determined highly competitive, Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc. was ultimately not selected by SDA for award. Our post-award debrief review identified concerns about the government's evaluation process, and as a result, we have filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO),” an Airbus U.S. spokesperson said in a statement. “Airbus U.S. believes its proposal based on the ARROW commodity satellite bus and the Airbus OneWeb Satellites' operational manufacturing facility in Florida fits SDA's evaluation criteria for commercial commoditized buses manufactured at scale.”
At the time of the awards, SDA Director Derek Tournear told C4ISRNET the awards were the result of a full and open competition, with the selection based purely on technical merit. Tournear praised both SpaceX and L3Harris in that interview, emphasizing both companies' plans to meet the agency's aggressive schedule.
“SpaceX had a very credible story along that line — a very compelling proposal. It was outstanding,” he said. “They are one of the ones that have been at the forefront of this commercialization and commodification route.”
In addition, “L3Harris had an extremely capable solution. They have a lot of experience flying affordable, rapid, small satellite buses for the department,” he said. “They had the plant and the line in place in order to produce these to hit our schedule.”
March 20, 2024 | International, Land
Media are invited to a virtual briefing by senior government officials with the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF) regarding An Act to Amend the National Defence Act and Other Acts. The briefing will be not for attribution and not for broadcast.
June 19, 2019 | International, Other Defence
RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Defense Intelligence Agency's National Media Exploitation Center awarded Engility Corp, a subsidiary of Science Applications International Corp. (NYSE: SAIC), a single-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract worth potentially $106 million. As part of the new contract, SAIC will continue to provide media management and analysis work, and will expand these services to include all of the DIA Science and Technology Directorate. “Partnering with the DIA is a privilege we take seriously,” said Michael LaRouche, executive vice president and general manager of SAIC's National Security Customer Group. “Expanding our services to the entire Science and Technology Directorate offers our team of intelligence and data analytics experts a great opportunity to bring value and technological innovation to even more missions.” The IDIQ carries a potential 10-year period of performance. The contract supports NMEC's training, document and media management, program support, and related intelligence operations. The team assists NMEC with document and media exploitation processes like data acquisition, ingest, processing, reporting, and timely dissemination to ensure the chain of command is immediately informed of any changes or developments based on media gathered by the U.S. military and intelligence community. The contract award comes on the heels of SAIC's $2.5 billion acquisition of Engility, completed in January 2019, as part of its strategy to expand its intelligence community portfolio. About SAIC SAIC® is a premier technology integrator solving our nation's most complex modernization and readiness challenges. Our robust portfolio of offerings across the defense, space, civilian, and intelligence markets includes high-end solutions in engineering, IT, and mission solutions. Using our expertise and understanding of existing and emerging technologies, we integrate the best components from our own portfolio and our partner ecosystem to deliver innovative, effective, and efficient solutions. We are 23,000 strong; driven by mission, united by purpose, and inspired by opportunities. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, SAIC has pro forma annual revenues of approximately $6.5 billion. For more information, visit saic.com. For ongoing news, please visit our newsroom. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this release contain or are based on “forward-looking” information within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by words such as “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “guidance,” and similar words or phrases. Forward-looking statements in this release may include, among others, estimates of future revenues, operating income, earnings, earnings per share, charges, total contract value, backlog, outstanding shares and cash flows, as well as statements about future dividends, share repurchases and other capital deployment plans. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risk, uncertainties and assumptions, and actual results may differ materially from the guidance and other forward-looking statements made in this release as a result of various factors. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause or contribute to these material differences include those discussed in the “Risk Factors,” “Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Legal Proceedings” sections of our Annual Report on Form 10-K, as updated in any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other filings with the SEC, which may be viewed or obtained through the Investor Relations section of our website at saic.com or on the SEC's website at sec.gov. Due to such risks, uncertainties and assumptions you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. SAIC expressly disclaims any duty to update any forward-looking statement provided in this release to reflect subsequent events, actual results or changes in SAIC's expectations. SAIC also disclaims any duty to comment upon or correct information that may be contained in reports published by investment analysts or others. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190619005487/en
May 8, 2023 | International, C4ISR
Craig Martell said his team took the reins of the Global Information Dominance Experiments to “understand what’s the right way to get after JADC2.”