The U.S. Army is expanding Boeing Co.’s role as a lead integrator of its Future Combat System (FCS) modernization program, the Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday.
The report cited a memorandum from Claude Bolton, the army’s assistant secretary for acquisitions.
The expansion of Boeing’s responsibilities would follow the Army’s decision last month to delay for two years to 2014 the launch of its first combat unit to be fully equipped in the program, which has been estimated to cost $92 billion.
The program is the centerpiece of the army’s drive to become lighter, more rapidly deployable and more lethal. It involves networked communications links to 18 manned and unmanned ground systems, and to unmanned aerial vehicles.
Bolton said in the memorandum that the “modification will result in an expansion of the Lead System’s Integrator’s responsibilities,” primarily in developing longer-range elements, the newspaper reported.
Boeing, the number two U.S. defense contractor, is based in Chicago. The other lead systems integrator is San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), which is employee-owned.
The restructured FCS program has a 70 percent or greater chance of success, up from an estimated 28 percent before, chief of staff General Peter Schoomaker said last month.
The Pentagon last May approved the start of the $14.9 billion “system development and demonstration” phase of the FCS program, which led to dozens of subcontractor awards by Boeing and the SAIC. The fate of those contracts was not immediately clear after the restructuring was announced.
Boeing shares closed Monday at $48.76.
