Lockheed lands $688 million contract for Thaad; Zenith Data takes Desktop-4

Electronic News, Sept 14, 1992 by Jack Robertson

WASHINGTON--Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. was awarded the $688.9 million Strategic Defense Initiative contract to develop the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) interceptor and command system to protect against attacks by medium range enemy missiles. Losing out were Hughes Aircraft bidding the LTV Extended Range Interceptor (Erint) missile and McDonnell Douglas bidding a version of its endoatmospheric interceptor.

Lockheed's new Thaad won't start initial flight tests until 1994, although the project covers complete command and communications systems. The tracking and fire control radar for the Thaad system is under a separate competition, with a winner expected to be named shortly between contenders Westinghouse and Raytheon.

Lockheed's Thaad is based on earlier antimissile test vehicles it built for the SDI Homing Overlay Experiment and the Exo-atmospheric Reentry Interceptor Subsystem (Eris) projects. Lockheed said the new Thaad missile will be "significantly smaller" than the earlier SDI test vehicles.

Lockheed will develop the prototype in Sunnyvale, Calif., where 450 new employees will be added. Work also will be performed at Courtland, Ala., with 200 new workers. Its facility at Austin, Tex., will develop the communications relays, with 50 extra people.

Litton Data Systems, Van Nuys, Calif., will build major portions of the battle management/communications and intelligence systems. Lockheed Sanders, Nashua, N.H., will build training devices and test equipment.

Honeywell Space Systems, Clearwater, Fla., will provide missile avionics. Loral Infrared Imaging Systems, Lexington, Mass., will build terminal guidance infrared imager and seeker systems. Rockwell International Rocketdyne, Canoga Park, Calif., will handle the missile attitude control system.

The present contract phase will result in up to 20 test flights over the next four years, after which the Army will decide whether to go into fullscale engineering and manufacturing development.

In another major contract award, Zenith Data Systems beat 21 contenders for a $740 million Air Force Desktop-4 rebid, overturning earlier awards to Sysorex and Compu-Add. Losers had not been debriefed last week, but observers believed protests will be lodged again on the huge omnibus requirements contract. The Air Force is seeking up to 300,000 PC-compatible desktop systems and related peripherals and software.

The Air Force originally split the Desktop-4 award between Sysorex and Compu-Add. Desktop-4, however, was forced into a rebid after the earlier awards were upset in a protest over the Air Force's "fast-track" bidding process. A bevy of protestors alleged the negotiations failed to select the best value computers.

Most contenders reportedly further cut their bids in the rebid. It was unclear how the ZDS winning rebid compared with its original submission, since the firm, as with many contenders, entered multiple bids.

If the award stands up, ZDS would once again get a significant sales boost from a sizeable military procurement. The firm previously built a large business base from winning big requirements contracts for laptop computers for all three services. In addition, ZDS Intel 486-based computers are used by Science Applications International in the Army Lightweight Computer Unit tactical laptop buy.

Desktop-4 covers the ZDS commercial line of Intel 486-based computers, and would be ordered off-the-shelf by a variety of military users. ZDS bid exclusively Intel 486-based computers for the variety of desktop categories in the bid. It will also supply printers, monitors, stand-alone disk drives, and a range of software applications.

In addition to Sysorex and Compu-Add, losers in the protracted Desktop-4 competition included: Apple Computers, Ogden Government Systems, EDS, AST, GTSI, Memorex, IBM, University Systems and IDP. Originally 22 firms responded, but multiple bids resulted in a total of 49 proposals.

The Desktop-3 incumbent omnibus pact is Unisys. The Air Force launched the Desktop-4 bid when Unisys had trouble delivering systems. Unisys, which has since revamped its Desktop-3 computers to meet Air Force deliveries, did not bid on Desktop-4.