Qintetiq wins $2bn NASA deal

22nd Nov 2010 07:26

Defence group Qinetiq has nabbed a $2bn five-year deal to provide engineering services to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The contract, with US space agency NASA, is a cost-plus-award-fee contract to begin next March and will run for five years. The maximum potential value of the award is approximately $1.96bn, consisting $159m up front and a single award $1.8bn IDIQ (indefinite delivery indefinite quantity) arrangement.Detailed talks are underway over the scope of work expected under the initial increments of the IDIQ. Margins on this contract are expected to reflect the relatively stable long-term revenue and good cash profile associated with this type of agreement,Qinetiq added. The work will be undertaken by Qinetiq's US Services business and its partners and is likely to include design and development of ground systems and equipment for handling, test, checkout, servicing, and other ground processing of launch vehicles, spacecraft, and payloads alongside flight systems engineering and support engineering for space flight hardware and software.