The Air Force's decision last year to bet on Raytheon to build the multibillion-dollar Long Range Standoff Weapon and later remove Lockheed Martin from the program entirely may have come down to inferior design performance by the latter company.
The firms were nearly two-thirds through their 54-month contracts developing competing designs for the nuclear cruise missile in April 2020 when the Air Force chose Raytheon as the prime vendor and began negotiating a new role for Lockheed in the program. The surprise announcement led some lawmakers to call on the service to explain the decision-making behind the sole-sourced acquisition.
Asked at the time if Lockheed’s design wasn’t mature enough to continue, Air Force spokeswoman Leah Bryant told Inside Defense: “This was driven by a comprehensive evaluation of Lockheed Martin's progress to date, as well as its likelihood of meeting the full program requirements on time.”
The extent of the disparity between Raytheon and Lockheed’s work appears to have been even wider than previously known.
Marie Mak, director of contracting and national security acquisitions at the Government Accountability Office, recently told Inside Defense: “[The] decision to down-select was largely driven by the fact that one contractor had made significant early design progress and the other contractor had not.”
“In fact, it appeared that the second contractor was so far behind it wouldn’t likely make future deadlines,” she continued, citing reviews of the LRSO program leading up to the down select. “The [Air Force] chose to focus their remaining investments on the contractor that showed the most promise.”
Lockheed’s eventual ouster from the program was a result of subpar performance too.
Upon choosing Raytheon as the prime contractor in April, the Air Force said it was merely “reframing” its relationship with Lockheed to focus on specific technology for potential inclusion in LRSO. Bryant told Inside Defense over the summer, though, the service was interested in maturing the company’s LRSO sensor design for possible use in future weapons other than the nuclear cruise missile. She later said the Air Force was no longer pursuing the subsystem at all and clarified Lockheed had no role in the LRSO program whatsoever.
It wasn’t clear why the Air Force opted not to continue investigating ways for Lockheed to participate in the LRSO program or further develop its sensor design.
As the service continued working with its new prime contractor following the down-select, GAO learned the Air Force returned to the second company’s sensor design and again found it wasn’t mature enough, Mak said. As such, the service decided no longer to pursue it.
Meanwhile, Lockheed has filed no complaints with GAO challenging the Air Force’s actions, such as alleging potential anti-competitive behavior, according to the agency’s protest docket. It also hasn’t shared any objections to the service’s management of the LRSO acquisition in response to questions from Inside Defense about its evolving role and eventual dismissal from the program.
Following revelations the Air Force was no longer pursuing its sensor design, the company sent the following statement: “Lockheed Martin values our partnership with the U.S. Air Force and we continue working together to leverage our technical expertise as needed to help the service advance its weapon systems development. We’ve supported our Nation’s nuclear triad for more than 60 years and we look forward to continuing to support future missions.”
At the time of the down-select to Raytheon, the House Armed Services Committee particularly had questions about how a sole-sourced acquisition would offer the best value to taxpayers after the Air Force spent hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure competition.
While the absence of competition could disincentivize a company from seeking ways to keep prices down and move fast, Mak said GAO found no evidence the LRSO prime contractor wouldn’t be able to maintain focus on cost and schedule.
Rather, the early down-select enabled the Air Force to accelerate a milestone B decision by nine months to spring 2021 so the service can end TMRR and shift into the engineering and manufacturing development phase early, Inside Defense previously reported.
It’s unclear if a desire to go faster played any role in the decision to down-select to Raytheon earlier than expected. Despite moving up the onset of EMD, Bryant told Inside Defense the Air Force does not intend to begin production or achieve initial operational capability sooner than previously planned. IOC is scheduled for 2030, when ALCM’s service life will come to an end.
A source recently told Inside Defense, though, the Air Force does have a “stretch goal” to reach IOC one year early.
The down-select to Raytheon may have partially been a result of industrial base considerations, according to Cowen Washington Research Group’s Roman Schweizer, as Lockheed is the prime contractor for the nonnuclear Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile.
“The Air Force is probably managing all of its missile programs to maintain competition down the road,” he told Inside Defense. “You have Lockheed developing a long-range conventional missile; you have Raytheon developing a long-range nuclear missile. Either one could probably be switched or be dual at some point . . . and then you probably have even other munitions being developed.”
Still, Schweizer was surprised Lockheed didn’t meet the Air Force’s technical expectations given the company’s success winning contracts to build advanced weapons for the military.
“The reason I would say it’s surprising is Lockheed is the incumbent on the current long-range, air-launch cruise missile, the JASSM,” he said. “They’ve made changes to it, obviously JASSM [extended range], the anti-ship version, and I think in some ways, I would have expected, unless there was some huge difference, that maybe there was a JASSM derivative for LRSO.”
He noted, though, LRSO requirements are classified and there may have been an unknown element Lockheed struggled with.
The new nuclear weapon, meanwhile, could be in the crosshairs as the Biden administration takes over the White House and Democrats take control of the Senate.
Although it was under the Obama and Biden-led Defense Department that the Air Force received the green light to replace the aging Air-Launched Cruise Missile, the program has faced strong opposition from some lawmakers, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who sits on the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.