The much awaited $80 billion Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) contract has been awarded to Northrop Grumman by U.S. Air force, beating a...
The much awaited $80 billion Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) contract has been awarded to Northrop Grumman by U.S. Air force, beating a Boeing-Lockheed Martin bid.
U.S. Air force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) and early production contract award of U.S. Air force's next generation bomber that will maintain its superiority in the coming decades.
The EMD phase is a cost-reimbursable type contract with cost and performance incentives. The incentives minimize the contractor’s profit if they do not control cost and schedule appropriately. The independent estimate for the EMD phase is $21.4 billion in 2010 dollars.
The second part of the contract is composed of options for the first 5 production lots, comprising 21 aircraft out of the total fleet of 100. They are fixed price options with incentives for cost. Based on approved requirements, the Average Procurement Unit Cost (APUC) per aircraft is required to be equal to or less than $550 million per aircraft in 2010 dollars when procuring 100 LRS-B aircraft. The APUC from the independent estimate supporting today’s award is $511 million per aircraft, again in 2010 dollars.
The Air Force program office conducted design efforts with industry over the last three years to ensure requirements for the aircraft were stable and allowed for the use of mature systems and existing technology while still providing desired capability.
The stealthy LRS-B is designed to have an open architecture allowing integration of new technology and timely response to future threats across the full range of military operations. This open architecture also provides the opportunity to retain competition across the life cycle of the program.
However USAF officials has not released crucial details about the aircraft, including its size, weight, payload, engine choice and also the subcontractors.
