Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have each received $220 million concept development contracts from the US Air Force to design the Space-Based Radar (SBR) system of reconnaissance satellites to provide high-resolution, all-weather radar imagery.
The contract runs to April 2006 and the selection of the system's single contractor will be made in 2012 after further phased contracts, worth over $30 million, to deploy "increment one" of the SBR System.
Both companies received initial contracts in January. SBR is designed to provide global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance with surface moving target indication, synthetic aperture radar and high resolution terrain imagery.
Source: Flight International