The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has initiated a pre-procurement process for a new contract to manage operations, maintenance, and sustainment (OM&S) of the Solid State Phased Array Radar (SSPAR) at RAF Fylingdales.
With the current contract set to expire in April 2026, the MOD aims to award the next contract by late 2025 to ensure a smooth transition of services. The contract is expected to last five years, with options for two additional one-year extensions.
RAF Fylingdales plays a critical role in the UK’s missile warning and defence capabilities.
According to the MOD, “RAF Fylingdales has the unique function of providing missile warning, missile defence, and mission data, and up to SECRET analysis simultaneously to the UK and US, with an aspiration to go ABOVE SECRET in the future.”
The radar station’s primary missions are “missile warning” and “support to missile defence,” which are delivered to key stakeholders, including US Strategic Command (US STRATCOM) and the UK Space Operations Centre (UK SpOC). The site also undertakes a vital secondary mission in “space surveillance,” contributing data to the US Space Surveillance Network (SSN) and supporting UK defence operations globally.
The MOD further highlighted, “Operations also provide data which contributes to the satellite warning service, overflight and re-entry roles the UK SpOC delivers to the MOD and UK forces deployed worldwide.”
To ensure industry readiness, the MOD has provided a comprehensive timeline for the procurement process. Key milestones include the release of a Contract Notice and Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) in January 2025, followed by the Invitation to Tender (ITT) in February or March. The MOD anticipates awarding the contract between September and October 2025, with service transition scheduled from January to March 2026.
The MOD stressed transparency in its pre-procurement notice, stating that these timelines “have been provided in the interest of transparency and to better allow suppliers to make informed decisions in relation to this opportunity.”
Given the critical nature of RAF Fylingdales’ missions, the procurement process will require the winning contractor to handle sensitive information. The MOD noted, “The procurement and any resulting contract are exempt from the DSPCR 2011, on national security grounds, and the winning supplier will be exposed to aspects classified up to SECRET – UK/US Eyes Only.”
IMAGE: Cherubino (talk) (Diskussion), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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The big squark box!
Yet again a very short time line between PQQ and Contract Award, unless prior discussions have already taken place and they already know who is going to get the job.
PQQ should have been issued at least a year ago. As always, the MOD seem to leave it to the last minute and then expect Industry to quickly jump through flaming hoops before the straw finishes burning.
II looks quite grand. Is this the only site of its kind in the UK? Could missile batteries potentially be plugged into here to make it like a super “Aegis ashore” type site?
It is, as a SSPAR.
Others re BMEWS are Thule in Greenland, and Clear in Alaska, two being violations of the ABM Treaty.
No idea, but won’t happen anyway.
Project Lewis will create another radar facility of note but that won’t look anything like this.
Is project Lewis still going ahead? seems like ages ago the radar sale was approved by Congress but nothing happened. I’m still yet to understand how a BMD radar protects the UK when there is zero plan to buy any missiles.
If all it’s doing is radar warning then surely Fylingdales can do that.
Brilliant bit of technology, if we could put one of Cyprus as well that would be grand.
Does it actually do anything useful that makes it worth putting in Cyprus? We can track objects in space but we can’t do fuck all about them so how much point is there any it.
For the same price you can buy an Arrow 3 battery than can track and shoot down things in space.