Three big nuclear Navy contract wins, two for the Trident II missile and one in maintaining and modernizing the Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine, were announced on the Pentagon’s website.
The announcement of multiple military contracts came Sept. 30, hours before the government shut down.
GSE Dynamics, a Norfolk, Va.-based engineering and manufacturing company, was one of several vendors to win a $1.1 billion firm-fixed price opportunity to support four public shipyards in “discrete production, non-discrete production and other production work” in maintenance and modernization of nuclear submarines, the Pentagon notice said. If all options are exercised, the contract could extend through August 2033 with a potential cumulative worth of $1.9 billion, but the contract will extend at least through August 2030.
The other two contracts are for the Trident II program. One contract worth $647 million went to Lockheed Martin Space in Titusville, Fla. The other was a $500 million small business indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract awarded to Systems Planning and Analysis in Alexandria, Va.
The contract for Lockheed is for Trident II D5 “missile production and deployed systems support,” the notice said, and is a modification to a previously-awarded contract. The contract has optional line items that could increase the award to $745.6 million if exercised. Work is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2030. The notice said fiscal 2025 weapons procurement for the Navy has $120.4 million in funds obligated on this award, and “no funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.”
The second contract for Systems Planning and Analysis is for the Trident II Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile and Strategic Weapons System engineering and support functions, which includes tasks like systems engineering, risk assessment and enterprise data management. Work is expected to be complete Sept. 30, 2035, and the $500 million value is the final value including all optional line items.
The Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile is a three-stage missile deployed on U.S. Ohio-class and U.K. Vanguard-class submarines and will be carried aboard U.S. Columbia-class and U.K. Dreadnought-class submarines in the future. According to Lockheed Martin, the aim of the Trident missile is to ensure the Columbia-class submarine’s strategic weapons system is credible until 2084.
During a deployment, the missile would be tipped with either legacy W88 warheads – a Trident can carry up to eight — or the W76 warhead designed by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The newest versions of the warhead, the W76-2, are manufactured at the Pantex Plant in Texas.