Northrop revives protest of $500M Navy contract

Earlier this year: I wrote about how after a protest by Northrop Grumman, the Navy was rethinking $500 million award to L3Harris Technologies to build the next-generation radio jammer.

Apparently the service has since thought about it and again made an award to L3Harris because Northrop has come back with another protest.

Many details on the jammer contract are classified, including what the Navy’s corrective action was and what Northrop is claiming.

But the protest does appear on the Government Accountability Office's protest docket. A GAO decision is expected on Aug. 18.

Northrop and L3Harris have been waging a one-on-one battle to build the next-generation jammer for the EA-18G Growler aircraft. The jammer is a pod that sits under the plane’s wing and lets the aircraft conduct electronic warfare operations.

Each company had contracts for phase one. The Navy has twice now picked L3Harris for further development and early production under phase two. Ultimately the contract could be worth billions.

There is a question about how much more will become public about the protest and proceedings of the procurement. Classified contracts follow a different process than other contracts. They go through the agency for a security review before they get to GAO.

That process is a little convoluted because the agency, not the protestor, then makes the protest filing with GAO and the security review is completed.