Lockheed To Disclose ADS-B Contract Team

Lockheed Martin is expected soon to make a surprise announcement about its bid for the FAA's forthcoming ADS-B contract, said to be valued at around $2 billion over its lifetime. The surprise will be Lockheed's recruitment of Sensis and Rannoch as team members; both are leading ADS-B ground station manufacturers that previously have been strong competitors. Until recently, Sensis and Rannoch had separately been aggressively courted by other aerospace giants, including Raytheon, which was erroneously reported last week in some publications as announcing that Rannoch had joined its team. Under the FAA's new performance-based contracting approach, aimed at saving the agency's dwindling capital resources, the contract winner will finance, build, own and operate as many as 500 ground stations nationwide, and sell its ADS-B signals to the FAA under a turnkey agreement.