A Bombardier Global 6500 aircraft. (Bombardier via US Army)
WASHINGTON — The Army is cleared to proceed building out its new spy plane with the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), after the government watchdog agency denied L3Harris’s contract protest.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its decision on December 23, noting that the protest is covered by a “protective order,” and a report on the rationale behind the denial will be publicly released once it’s redacted. The forthcoming report should shed additional light on the company’s complaint into how the service awarded the High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) deal, but for now L3Harris said it is weighing its options.
“We will review the GAO’s decision and determine our next steps,” a company spokeswoman wrote in a short statement. “We remain confident L3Harris offers the lowest risk and most capable solution as demonstrated through more than 600 sorties and 6,000 flight hours on the US Army’s ARES and ATHENA programs.”
The Army did not immediately respond to questions from Breaking Defense about the program and if the stop work order has now been lifted. Following initial publication, an SNC spokesperson said the company is pleased with the GAO’s decision and is looking forward to resuming work.
“Throughout this process, we remained committed and fully confident in the superiority of our solution and the Army’s selection of SNC for the HADES contract,” said Tim Owings, the executive vice president for SNC’s Mission Solutions and Technologies business. “We are honored to continue our partnership with the Army to develop and deliver the best solution to the warfighter at the speed demanded for operational excellence.”
In August, the service selected SNC to convert Bombardier’s Global 6500 business jets into an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform under its HADES program. An industry team up featuring L3Harris, Leidos and MAG Aerospace had also bid on the program to replace the legacy fleet of RC-12 Guardrail turboprop aircraft. By October, L3Harris filed a protest with the GAO.
“We carefully reviewed the information during the Army’s debrief process, which led us to challenge the HADES decision and request further analysis to ensure the proposal received an equitable evaluation,” an L3Harris spokesperson said in a statement at the time. “Our goal remains to ensure that mission operators receive the lowest risk and most capable solution available for an increasingly complex security environment.”
The Army halted HADES integration work while GAO sorted through the protest, but in November it officially accepted the first business jet slated for integration during a ceremony in Wichita, Kansas.
“Once we’re in a position to begin integrating the aircraft, that will be the next step … the integration of the equipment in the back,” Andrew Evans, the director of the Army’s ISR Task Force, told reporters at the time.
“The airplane itself is what we describe as the workhorse to HADES, it’s what enables HADES to get in position, to collect … to have the endurance necessary to provide meaningful station time,” he added. “But the magic of a HADES is what will happen in the back of that aircraft.”
That magic includes moving target indication, high-end signals intelligence and other capabilities, possibly including launched effects. The service is also gleaning feedback from “bridging” aerial ISR assets designed, in part, to inform HADES requirements. Those efforts included:
- An ISR-as-a-service contract to SNC for the High Altitude Expeditionary Next ISR-Sensor (Athena-S) centered on two converted Global 6500s;
- Another pair of converted Global 6500s by MAG Air and L3Harris under the Athena-Radar initiative;
- A Leidos-owned Bombardier Challenger 650 dubbed the Airborne Reconnaissance and Targeting Exploitation Multi-Mission Intelligence System (ARTEMIS); and
- The L3Harris Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System (ARES) that uses a Bombardier Global 6000.
Evans and Lt. Gen. Anthony Hale, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence, said the goal is to create commonality across those aircraft and port back lessons into the HADES design.
“Every day the enemy is working in the electromagnetic spectrum, they’re utilizing EW [electronic warfare] capabilities, they’re utilizing unmanned aerial system capabilities that we haven’t seen before, and then they’re increasing the use of new weapon systems,” the three-star general said.
“Whether it’s [in] Ukraine or whether it’s somewhere in Africa, our adversary is using these places as battlefields and testing areas to develop and continue to emerge technology and so … getting after what we see in one theater is going to come to another theater,” Hale later added.
If all goes as planned, the service plans to have that initial HADES ready for the force by the end of 2026 or early 2027, and is possibly eyeing more than a dozen aircraft under a one-per-year buy depending on budgets and the threat analysis.
This article was last updated on 12/26/2024 at 1:51 pm EST with statements from both L3Harris and SNC.
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