Raytheon proposing XM satellites for FAA bid (and Lockheed's pissed!)
Monday, June 11, 2007 at 1:21 PM
Tags: 2, XM
The Federal Aviation Administration is looking to upgrade their ground-based air traffic control system, and three companies - Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and ITT - are bidding for the $15 billion-plus project.
Raytheon has taken an unusual approach with their bid, and actually went beyond the FAA's request, by proposing a faster, and less expensive, system using the infrastructure from partners Verizon and XM Satellite Radio.
While all three bids are using both ground stations and GPS satellite signals for air-traffic-control data, Raytheon's system offers up XM's XMWX Weather architecture to make weather data directly available. Raytheon would also utilize Verizon's 30,000 cell towers for the ground system.
The FAA said cost and speed are the deciding factors for the modernized air-traffic system, which they said needs to go online no later than 2020. Raytheon said its system could provide universal coverage from almost the first day.
According to Wall Street Journal sources, Raytheon's proposal took Lockheed by surprise as they had been considered a favorite due to participation in a pilot program in Alaska.
The winner of the contract would help set standards for air traffic control for the next 30 years. The FAA plans to pick a single contractor in August.
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Comments
I'm not a subscriber. What were Lockheed's comments?
Posted by: Andy ? | June 11, 2007 4:01 PM
Officially? Not much. Here's a snippet from the WSJ article:
Lockheed officials declined to provide details about their bid or address whether they had overhauled it in response to Raytheon's entry. "It is not appropriate to publicly share our team's competitive offering before the FAA completes its evaluation," said Lockheed spokeswoman Anna DiPaola.
Posted by: Ryan Saghir ? | June 11, 2007 4:14 PM
Wow. if this goes through, then Verizon will get bigger and XM will very likely have a guaranteed future.
I don't see a down side. :)
Posted by: TomXP411 ? | June 12, 2007 1:35 AM
$15 BILLION?
Even with just a piece of that, XM will be all set for the next 30 years. I like the sound of that.
Posted by: xoxo | June 12, 2007 2:47 PM
"Wow. if this goes through, then Verizon will get bigger and XM will very likely have a guaranteed future.
I don't see a down side. :)"
Verizon already has a massive government contracts division and is quite large... but this would be a huge deal for XM. It is very rare that the FAA sticks with something for 30 years but I do hope Raytheon wins this particular bid.
Posted by: Gov.Contractor | June 13, 2007 2:51 PM