Raytheon, Sotera battle for $100M electronic warfare contract
By
Nick Wakeman
Raytheon and Sotera Defense Solutions are squared off against each other over a $97.9 million electronic warfare contract with the Army. They've traded protests, as Sotera won first, and then Raytheon. The battle continues.
This is a battle between David and Goliath, and so far, Goliath is winning.
First, the Army picked Sotera Defense Solutions Inc., a mid-size company, over Raytheon, one of the market's behemoths, as the prime on the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool contract.
Sotera won the $97.9 million in late June, according to a FedBizOpps.gov notice.
By July 22, Raytheon filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office. On Aug. 21, GAO dismissed the protest after the Army apparently told GAO that it was pulling back the award to Sotera, and taking a second look at its award decision.
That review led to Raytheon winning the contract on Dec. 2.
Now, it’s Sotera’s turn to protest, filing documents with GAO on Dec. 11. A decision is due March 21.
The five-year contract is to build a software tool to help plan and manage the Army’s electronic warfare systems. The Army wants to develop a framework to integrate current electronic warfare capabilities as well as bring on future capabilities.
The Army wants the capabilities to be networked together so that it has a unified capability across the force. The tool will give electronic warfare officers mission planning capabilities.
The contract is structured for five years, and will have a “capability drop” each year from 2014 to 2019.
Neither Sotera nor Raytheon executives were available for comment.