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Lockheed protests Navy’s BAMS award

Lockheed Martin has filed an official protest against the Navy’s decision to award Northrop Grumman the contract to build a long-range drone aircraft.

“Information provided to us during our debrief indicated that we offered a technically compliant and awardable solution at significantly lower cost, leading us to request a Government Accountability Office review,” Lockheed said in a statement released shortly after the protest was filed Monday morning.

The Navy announced April 22 that Northrop’s RQ-4N Global Hawk won a three-way competition to build the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aircraft, a key element of the service’s move to upgrade its oceangoing patrol planes.

Lockheed was paired with General Atomics in offering the Predator UAV, a version of the Predator B UAV.

Also in the BAMS hunt was Boeing, which offered an unmanned version of the Gulfstream G550 business jet.

The April 22 contract is initially worth $1.16 billion. The service plans to buy more than five dozen aircraft, priced at about $55 million apiece.

With the protest, Northrop postponed a press briefing on the Global Hawk BAMS scheduled for Tuesday morning in Washington.

Boeing officials were initially unavailable for comment.

Lockheed said in its statement that the company “protests contract awards infrequently, and only when we believe that the benefits of our offerings were not fully considered during the evaluation process.”

Company officials declined further comment on the protest.

A company official said the last time a major protest was filed was in November 2006 after the U. S. Air Force awarded Boeing the Combat Search and Rescue-X (CSAR-X) contract to build a new helicopter. That program, in which Sikorsky was a third competitor, is still mired in protests.

The Navy issued a quick response professing confidence in its choice of Northrop Grumman.

“The government is confident the source selection process considered all proposals fairly, equally and in full compliance with the stringent Federal Acquisition Regulations. The selection was based on an evaluation of the best overall value to the Government in meeting the criteria set forth in the solicitation,” the Navy statement said.

The GAO has up to 100 days to respond to the protest.