Three industry teams have received $31.4 million in contracts to help the U.S. Air Force develop prototypes and risk reduction strategies for its future Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft, Defense News reported Friday.
Aaron Mehta writes the military service awarded $9.9 million to Boeing (NYSE: BA), $10 million to Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) and $11.5 million to Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) under the JSTARS recapitalization program’s pre-engineering, manufacturing and development phase.
Boeing proposed a modified version of the company’s 737-700 commercial plane to replace the existing JSTARS.
The consortium of Northrop, General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) subsidiary Gulfstream and L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL) plans to base their platform on Gulfstream’s G550 business aircraft.
Lockheed will collaborate with Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) and Bombardier, which is offering a business jet-based offering for the program.
Mehta said the Air Force could determine the winning team in 2017 and aims to make the upcoming JSTARS fleet operational by 2023.
