THE US FEDERAL Aviation Administration has eliminated all but one of the four competitors for the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and begun negotiations to award the $500 million contract to a team led by Wilcox Electric.
The WAAS will increase the integrity, availability and accuracy of the global-positioning system (GPS) to permit full civil use.
The FAA refuses to confirm that it has selected Wilcox, leading a team consisting of Hughes Aircraft and TRW, but the competing WAAS teams - Rockwell/GTE/Booz Allen & Hamilton, Loral/E-Systems/ARINC and Harris/ Trimble - indicate that they have been dropped from consideration.
The FAA's unusual step of informing the losing teams that they were no longer competitive is likely to result in formal protests, investigation of, which could delay award of the WAAS contract, scheduled for 15 May.
The system is planned to become operational in late 1997, with a network of 29 ground-reference stations monitoring GPS signals and broadcasting integrity data via three Inmarsat communications satellites.
Source: Flight International
