Anthony Cappacio and Julie Johnsson write USAF could name Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) or a team of Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) as the LRS-B builder after financial markets close on Tuesday.
The contract is estimated to be worth around $80 billion and will use a fixed-price-incentive fee structure for the first 20 of the military branch’s 100 planned aircraft purchases, the publication reports.
LRS-B will be designed to have a strike technology, targeting sensors, jamming equipment and a communications system that can survive nuclear electromagnetic pulse.
The Air Force aims to start operational use of the LRS-B platform in the mid-2020s as a replacement for its B-1 and B-52 bomber fleets.