L3Harris protests HADES contract
October 18, 2024
Aviation Week and Breaking Defense have reported that L3Harris has filed a formal protest asking the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the US Army’s decision to award a contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation for the High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) contract, rather than to the team of L3Harris, Leidos and MAG Aerospace.
The protest was filed on 16 September, requiring the Army to order a work stoppage until the dispute is resolved. The GAO now has a deadline of 26 December to deliver its verdict.
The initial HADES contract award was for US $93.5 million, but the 12-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract has a ceiling of US $991.3 million. The award of the HADES contract to SNC followed the company’s success in the Air Force’s Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) ‘Doomsday airplane’ programme, and reflects a new “willingness” by the Pentagon to look beyond the usual top-tier defence primes to mid-sized, private companies like SNC.
The US Army has already contracted with Bombardier for one Global 6500 to serve as a prototype, with an option for two more jets over a three-year period.
SNC says that it plans to reuse “about 90 percent” of the ATHENA-S engineering package for its HADES offering, and that work will be undertaken at the company’s facilities in Hagerstown, Md.
HADES-related RAPCON-X offering.
Before the protest, the plan was to deliver the first aircraft to SNC in October-November 2024, with the first aircraft operational about 12-18 months later.
The HADES programme will see up to 14 Bombardier Global 6500 business jets being converted to an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) configuration, replacing a fleet of legacy RC-12 Guardrail turboprops. The baseline HADES configuration will include moving target indication, high-end signals intelligence and other capabilities, perhaps including underwing hardpoints to mount additional sensors or defensive aids.
Lt General Anthony Hale, the US Army Deputy Chief of Staff for intelligence, said that: “HADES is the centrepiece of the Army’s long-promised aerial ISR transformation strategy. HADES allows the Army to fly higher, faster and farther, which directly impacts our ability to see and sense deeper, delivering an organic capability in line with the Secretary of the Army’s number-one operational imperative – deep sensing.”
A number of interim, ‘bridging’ ISR programmes have been commissioned, and these were also used to inform HADES requirements. These projects included the Airborne Reconnaissance and Targeting Exploitation Multi-Mission Intelligence System (ARTEMIS) project, under which Leidos converted a Bombardier Challenger 650, and the Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System (ARES) project, which saw L3Harris converting a Bombardier Global 6000. An ISR service contract was awarded to SNC for the Global 6500-based High Altitude Expeditionary Next ISR-Sensor (Athena-S), which saw two aircraft being converted. MAG Air and L3Harris converted another pair of Global 6500s under the Athena-R (Radar) programme.
L3Harris said it wants “further analysis to ensure the proposal received an equitable evaluation.” The company said that it had “carefully reviewed the information during the Army’s debrief process.” L3Harris stressed that: “Our goal remains to ensure that mission operators receive the lowest risk and most capable solution available for an increasingly complex security environment.”
SNC said that the protest had “no technical merit” and would serve only to delay work on the programme. Josh Walsh, SNC’s vice president of mission solutions and operations, said that L3Harris’s “characterizations” were “inaccurate and incorrect,” and that L3Harris were protesting a minor administrative issue that should not be grounds for the protest and [should not] delay such a critical programme for the Army.” Walsh expressed his confidence that SNC would prevail, and that the delay caused by the protest would only be temporary.
