BAE Systems wins Woomera outsource contract

BAE Systems Australia Limited has won the ten-year, $65 million contact to provide infrastructure support for the Woomera township, airfield and range in far-north South Australia.

The contract also allows BAE Systems to market the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), including the Instrumented T&E Range (ITR), to Australian and overseas companies and government organisation as a missile, aircraft and electronic warfare test range. BAE Systems was selected in preference to ADI Ltd, which was teamed with Raytheon Australia Ltd to bid for this contract.

The WPA covers 127,000 square kilometres of largely uninhabited desert and scrub with little or no electro-magnetic interference, which makes it ideal for testing electronic warfare, missile guidance and satellite-based global positioning systems, Bob McKenzie, head of the Defence Support Centre Woomera (DSCW), told ADM. It is also large enough for safe testing of long-range guided weapons, he said.

BAE Systems leads a team of local contractors which will carry out administration, waste and cleaning and other infrastructure support services at Woomera township on behalf of Defence. The company has teamed with Eurest Support Services, Wagnitz Building Services, Cowell Electric, Outback Electronics and GHD to provide the skills and experience necessary to provide garrison support, clerical and administration and high-technology trials support services at Woomera.

Contract negotiations will begin shortly and the company will assume responsibility for the township and range from about November this year, McKenzie said. The contract is expected to result in a reduction in the overall cost of providing these services by some $7 million

DSCW will retain a presence there to provide oversight of the company's operations; the department will retain primacy of access to the range and will have final approval of range use applications and schedules, he said. The RAAF's Aircraft research & Development Unit (ARDU) at RAAF Base Edinburgh, SA, will also retain ownership of the flight test telemetry and instrumentation equipment currently located on the range, but this could be available to approved users on a case by case basis, according to a senior RAAF source.

A number of government and commercial users are evaluating or have selected Woomera as a rocket and missile launch site and test range McKenzie told ADM. These include EADS and BAE Systems who are considering trials of their Taurus KEPD and Storm Shadow missiles, respectively; NASA, which has evaluated Woomera as a test site for the International Space Station's X-38 Crew Recovery Vehicle (CRV); and Japan's National Aerospace Laboratory, which plans trials at Woomera early next year of a scale model of its experimental supersonic transport aircraft, the SST-X. Resumption of commercial space launch activities by US firm Kistler Corp, and the start of launch operations by Space Lift Australia and Space projects Australia, is also a strong prospect.

The range complex itself may need some extra investment to enhance its value to potential users, according to Mike Brownhill, BAE Systems' Director of Support Services. Any investment, including additional test instrumentation and telemetry, must make commercial sense and no decision will be made until after contract negotiations are completed, he told ADM.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide