Huntsville lost out on $832M missile defense award. Now a court could order a do-over

A legal challenge could force a re-do of a next-generation missile defense award – with millions of dollars potentially flowing into Huntsville.

Raytheon Co., a division of RTX, claims in a federal lawsuit that the Missile Defense Agency acted in an “arbitrary and irrational” way when it chose Northrop Grumman to advance development of the glide phase interceptor last year. The company is asking a judge in U.S. court of federal claims to order MDA to cancel the contract’s awarding to Northrop Grumman Corp. and reconsider its own proposal.

GPI is designed to defend against hypersonic missiles during their “glide phase” – the time of atmospheric flight following a ballistic launch. During the glide phase, hypersonic missiles pose a unique threat because they are faster and more maneuverable than ballistic missiles.

Raytheon had planned to work on the glide phase interceptor at its Redstone missile integration facility. The company announced last year that a $115 million expansion of the facility, which will add 26,000 square feet and increase available space by 50%, was being done in part to support its GPI program.

A Raytheon spokesperson declined to say how MDA’s selection of Northrop Grumman for GPI would affect plans for the Huntsville facility, instead responding to a reporter’s questions with text from the April 2024 news release.

Previous contract notices related to Northrop Grumman’s GPI work indicated some of the development took place in Huntsville. Yet according to a November notice of the GPI prototype award, Northrop Grumman will perform the next phases of development in Chandler, Ariz. The dollar value of the award had risen to $832.7 million as of late last year.

A Northrop Grumman spokesperson said the company was unable to respond to questions about production of the glide phase interceptor due to the pending litigation.

The Missile Defense Agency’s selection of Northrup Grumman last year closed the books on three years of development efforts by both that company and Raytheon.

In May, MDA issued a request for prototype proposals to identify a single contractor to prototype a glide phase interceptor. Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin Corp. had received initial awards in 2022 to begin planning the program. Lockheed was eliminated later that year.

Also in May, MDA entered an agreement with Japan’s ministry of defense to jointly develop the GPI.

That is where Raytheon claims the awarding process began to go awry. Details are shown in two court filings from November that recently were made public by the court – though with heavy redactions.

In its complaint, Raytheon alleges MDA “internally changed its evaluation criteria,” though specifics are not publicly given. The agency’s decision was an “arbitrary and irrational” one that “applied unstated criteria” and “treated Northrop and Raytheon unequally,” according to lawyers for Raytheon.

The company also argues its GPI proposal would “provide credible hypersonic missile defense on an accelerated timeline” – by a congressionally mandated deadline of Dec. 31, 2029. It claims Northrop’s solution would not be fielded until 2035

In a motion to dismiss the challenge, lawyers for the United States dismiss the 2035 allegation as “speculative.” They note the MDA’s competition for GPI prototypes occurred not through the traditional procurement process but rather under an “Other Transaction Authority” contract -- and thus is not subject to the court’s jurisdiction over bid protests.

“Raytheon’s allegations offer nothing more that speculation that Raytheon might eventually be considered for a follow-on procurement contract sometime in the future,” deputy U.S. attorneys wrote.

The court is currently considering new arguments in the case that took place under seal earlier this month.

GPI has taken on added significance with the new presidential administration’s focus on missile defense. President Donald Trump’s “Iron Dome” executive order specifically mentioned the threat of hypersonic missiles.

On an earnings call with investors Thursday, Northrop Grumman president and CEO Kathy Warden made reference to the in-development GPI in the context of the “Iron Dome” order.

“We welcome the urgency that the Trump administration is placing on protecting the homeland from escalating global missile threats,” she said. “When you think about an architecture to defend the U.S., particularly with the range that these missiles will need and the advanced threats that are emerging with hypersonic weapons, we think we are very well-positioned to support that architecture.”

According to Northrop Grumman, the GPI will fire from the U.S. Navy’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense destroyers and Aegis Ashore using the standard Vertical Launch System.

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