Boeing and Lockheed Martin has filed a formal protest today asking the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the decisio...
Boeing and Lockheed Martin has filed a formal protest today asking the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the decision to award the Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) contract to Northrop Grumman.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin said the selection process for the Long Range Strike Bomber was fundamentally flawed.
The cost evaluation performed by the government did not properly reward the contractors’ proposals to break the upward-spiraling historical cost curves of defense acquisitions, or properly evaluate the relative or comparative risk of the competitors’ ability to perform, as required by the solicitation.
That flawed evaluation led to the selection of Northrop Grumman over the industry-leading team of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, whose proposal offers the government and the warfighter the best possible LRS-B at a cost that uniquely defies the prohibitively expensive trends of the nation’s past defense acquisitions.
A Northrop Grumman statement said it is disappointed by Boeing's decision to disrupt a national security program and looks forward to the GAO reaffirming the Defense Dept's decision, so it can continue work on the program.
U.S. Air Force selected the Northrop Grumman for the $80 billion deal to build 100 LRS-B aircraft last week, who also build the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
The program could become replay of the USAF tanker program, which was earlier awarded to a Northrop-Airbus team offering the A330 MRTT in 2008. Boeing challenged the decision and later won the deal in 2011, which became the KC-46A tanker program.
