Every week, we go through each of the juiciest Department of Defense contracts and pick out the largest, most expensive, and most interesting of the orders.
The biggest single contract awarded this week?
$2.053 billion.
But first things first.
Underscoring the Pentagon's focus on the China and the Pacific:
Hawaii gets a new missile base
URS Group Inc. scored a $129 million contract to build a missile test launch site in lovely Kauai, Hawaii. The Navy already has a testing site there at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands beach, and they're upgrading it to accommodate the new Aegis Ashore missiles.
URS will construct some components in New Jersey — like the radar deck house, support buildings, and a launch pad. But most of the work is on Hawaii, involving rudimentary installation of utilities hookups and construction. Maximum cost: $129,981,057.
A THAAD system deploying missile countermeasures
U.S. Missile Defense Agency
The United Arab Emirates is getting missile interceptors
The Missile Defense Agency is buying $2 billion worth of THAAD missile defense systems from Lockheed Martin.
THAAD interceptors are systems which target, intercept, and destroy incoming ballistic and cruise missiles. The United States has units in Hawaii, and Israel also possesses some. This 42-unit order will be added to a previous 96 interceptor order from the UAE, meaning that the United Arab Emirates will now have 138 missile interceptor systems. Cost: $2.053 billion.
A Boeing E-3 Sentry with radar kit
gotfirth / flickr
The Saudi Royal Air Force is getting new radar systems
The Air Force is selling aerial radar system improvement kits to the Saudi Arabian Royal Air Force. Boeing will be making them.
These radar kits will be installed on the Saudis' five Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft (pictured to right). Those planes are used as part of Airborne Warning and Control Systems, screening the sky for incoming aerial threats.
Saudi Arabia bought the planes in 1983, and is upgrading the radar systems to the more modern variant. The contract is worth, in total, $66,814,404.
The F-22 Raptor fighter jet
AN HONORABLE GERMAN / flickr
The F-22 is getting new oxygen systems
After a long process following the discovery of a missive design flaw in the oxygen system of the F-22 Raptor—a problem which claimed the life of pilot Jeff Haney and resulted in the grounding of the Raptor fleet—the Air Force is buying 50 automatic backup oxygen supply kits for the F-22.
Lockheed Martin will produce the backups and also provide installation engineering for them. The buy is for 40 kits and 10 spares, and will set the Department of Defense back $19,154,000.
A Predator Drone
JimNtexas/Flickr
The Navy's drones are getting Linux
Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems was awarded just under $28 million to complete the transition of the Navy's drones to the Linux operating system, a shift likely made in the interest of cybersecurity.
The Linux transition has to do with the drones' tactical control system software, the programs that allow the robots to be controlled from a distance by operators.
The work will be done at the ground control station for vertical take-off drones located at the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Maryland. Exact cost: $27,883,883.
An F-14 Tomcat follows a Tomahawk Block IV in flight.
cryogenic666 / flickr
The Navy is also getting a whole bunch of Tomahawk missiles
The Navy is getting 361 new Tomahawk missiles from Raytheon Co., set for delivery by August 2014.
The cost for the medium-range cruise missiles is close to $338 million. The missiles can be launched from either surface ships or submarines.
Surface ships which can use the Tomahawk Block IV missiles are equipped with the Vertical Launch System (VLS), while subs are equipped with a Capsule Launch System (CLS). This order is for 238 VLS missiles and 123 CLS missiles. The exact cost is $337,840,145.
