McDonnell-Douglas Subsidiary to Develop Navy's Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft

The Department of Defense announced Monday that McDonnell Douglas, a Boeing subsidiary, has been awarded a $3,889,979,744 cost-plus-award-fee contract to develop the US Navy’s Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA).

This milestone will launch the MMA program into the system development and demonstration (SDD) phase of the acquisition program. During the SDD phase, the program will focus on developing a system that will significantly transform how the Navy’s maritime patrol and reconnaissance force will man, train, operate and deploy. Ultimately, the MMA will replace the US Navy's aging fleet of P-3C Orion aircraft, thereby securing the Navy’s future in long-range maritime patrol.

"Today’s MMA decision represents an important milestone for the warfighter and the acquisition team," said John Young, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition. "Our P-3 fleet has made major contributions to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq while also performing their core maritime mission. It is becoming urgent to replace the P-3 with a new airframe and the enhanced capability offered by MMA. Both industry teams produced high quality proposals, and the acquisition team has worked with industry to make a good decision, on schedule."

"MMA offers a modern, highly reliable airframe which will be equipped with improved maritime surveillance and attack capability, allowing a smaller force to provide world-wide responsiveness while potentially on a smaller support infrastructure," said Young.

MMA will be a key component in the Navy’s Sea Power 21 Sea Shield concept by providing persistent anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capabilities, supporting Sea Power 21’s Sea Strike doctrine through provisions of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. The platform will also play a key role in the Navy’s FORCEnet architecture via development of the common undersea picture. These operational capabilities will be key factors in providing a sustained forward presence, sea domination, and distributed and networked intelligence.

FMI: www.boeing.com