The US FAA in early August plans to award Mitre Corporation's centre for advanced aviation system development (CAASD) a sole-source contract valued at close to $2.8 billion if a second five-year option is exercised.
CAASD is one of three federally funded research and development centres operated by the non-profit Mitre for various government agencies. In addition to the FAA, Mitre also has what it terms as memoranda of agreements to conduct research and technology for the Department of Defense and Internal Revenue Service.
Timing of the new CAASD contract is meant to keep the existing programme funded in advance of the current contract expiring in September, according to a sources-sought announcement issued 11 January.
CAASD studies, analyses and develops formulations for key national airspace system modernisation efforts (NextGen), including automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), system-wide information management, communications, navigation and surveillance as well as performance-based navigation and traffic flow management.
The FAA in December 2009 said it planned by this summer to issue $7 billion in contracts -- as many as three for research and development and two for systems engineering -- under its System Engineering 2020 programme.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
