L-3 Wins $73M For HALO Aircraft For Ballistic Missile Defense System Test Requirements

The US Missile Defense Agency has awarded a $73 million worth contract to L-3 Communications for upgrading the High Altitude Observatory (HALO) systems for carrying out the Ballistic Missile Defense System tests requirement.

The contract announced by the Department of Defense on Friday has the basic contract ceiling being increased by $73,223,000 from $564,153,809 to a maximum of $637,376,809.

The $73,223,000 modification will allow the contractor to procure “three used aircraft required to modernize the High Altitude Observatory (HALO) systems used by the Missile Defense Agency to collect electro-optic and infrared imagery during tests of the Ballistic Missile Defense System,” the release states.

The work will be performed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by L-3 Aeromet. The performance period is from July 2018 to approximately June 2021, it said.

Fiscal 2018 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be obligated on various task orders issued for HALO modernization efforts, which will include the added scope for aircraft procurements, the release added.

The HALO is an instrumented Gulfstream II-B optical data collection aircraft providing airborne collection of multispectral, imaging, optical signature data on targets of interest including re-entry vehicles, missile plume phenomenology, and missile/target intercepts, and intercept debris characterization and kill assessment.