A test of the nation’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, is conducted by 30th Space Wing officials, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, and U.S. Northern Command. (Jose Davila/Air Force)
WASHINGTON — The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Boeing a contract worth up to $5 billion for system integration, test and readiness work under its Ground-based Midcourse Defense program, responsible for defending the US homeland from intermediate- and long-range ballistic missile threats.
The GMD SITR award gives Boeing work under MDA’s new structure for the future of the GMD program, which broke the GMD program into multiple contracts to encourage industry competition after years of Boeing being the prime contractor.
Under the contract award, announced Aug. 30, Boeing will be responsible for “engineering, integration including physical and logical integration of the GMD Element and components and GMD integration with the Missile Defense System.
“In addition, SITR is responsible for day-to-day systems operations and readiness, performs routine maintenance functions, performs analysis related to GMD Element health and availability, and executes failure/fault checklists, as appropriate,” the announcement continued.
The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system targets incoming ballistic missiles during the midcourse phase of flight, or after the rockets stop firing. The GMD system includes the Ground-Based Interceptor program along with ground support and fire control systems components.
Boeing has long held the development and sustainment contracts for the GMD program. But with Boeing’s contract winding down next year, MDA has decided to break GMD work into three separate contracts: the SITR contract, another for weapons system development and a third award for the next-generation interceptor.
The $3.3 billion GMD weapons system contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman at the end of July. Northrop, through a partnership with Raytheon Technologies, is competing against a team of Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne for the next-generation interceptor contractor.
With yesterday’s award announcement, MDA issued a $506.7 million task order to Boeing. The contract runs through August 2027, according to the DoD announcement.
“Boeing’s proposal offered decades of experience in weapon systems integration, anchored by the unique expertise of our people,” Cindy Gruensfelder, vice president and general manager for missile and weapon systems at Boeing said in a statement. “We’re proud to support this critical missile defense capability for the nation.”
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