Planning

Carrier Strike Airborne Early Warning Initial Market Engagement

  • Ministry of Defence

UK2: Preliminary market engagement notice - Procurement Act 2023 - view information about notice types

Notice identifier: 2025/S 000-016248

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-04ff4e

Published 9 April 2025, 9:42am

Last edited 22 April 2025, 2:06pm

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Further to our request to submit any clarifications questions see below clarification questions and answers:

CQ 1 Question:

1a. CQ - What are the requirements of the platform? (Range, Endurance, Weight, Fuel type, Airspace Restriction, DAS, Altitude...etc)

1b. CQ - What are the sensor requirements? (in terms of EO/IR &/or Radar)

1c. CQ - What are to parameters of the sensor that you would like to achieve? (Radar detection range, EO/IR sensor range, GMTI Range)

CQ1 Answer:

The authority expects that the potential solutions could vary greatly with regards to combinations of numbers of platforms, endurance, and sensor performance and do not wish to specify those at present. The key is "sufficient time to enact counter-threat measures" as detailed in the opening statement of the RFI. At this early stage, you have the freedom to propose systems/solutions that is able to maximise this time persistently unbounded by system parameters imposed by The Authority.

CQ2 Question:

Would a platform need to be registered on the UK Military Airc

raft Register to meet the requirement for a demonstration?

CQ2 Response:

The RN is currently undertaking broad market engagement. At this stage, platforms do not need to be registered with the military aviation authority. Decisions on how any future demonstrations may take place will be made on the results of this market engagement.

Scope

Description

The Royal Navy employs an airborne surveillance system that operates from the Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers to provide the Carrier Strike Group (comprised of the aircraft carrier, support vessels, escort frigates and escort destroyers) with sufficient warning of air and surface threats to allow for effective counter threat action.

To sustain the capability, MOD is exploring potential future solutions, that will underpin the defence and security of the UK in the future, and as such is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) to industry. The objective of the RFI is to understand the capacity and capability of the industrial base to support this capability requirement. The implementation options in the RFI are not prescribed, so we are interested in views from all interested parties on the best possible solution.

Please respond by completing the Microsoft Form in the link below by 17:00 on the 6th May 2025.

Link to RFI response form:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=7WB3vlNZS0iuldChbfoJ5a6aZaFlrNdKrj-sA8pUVe1UMTU1WE42RDIwWkJHM1NTVTg4T1lKUUI5Sy4u

Please send any queries about this market engagement exercise to:

dean.cordwell102@mod.gov.uk.

Where relevant and appropriate, this market engagement event may be followed by further engagement exercise which will be notified through normal channels (e.g. Defence Sourcing Portal, Find a Tender)

For the avoidance of doubt, this notice is not informing the market of an imminent procurement. All costs pertaining to the completion of this response are to be borne by the responders.

Please note, procurement dates and values in this notice are subject to governance and should not be viewed as a firm commitment. This RFI is purely to gain market knowledge and is not the launch of a new procurement. Pricing and timelines will be refined through market engagement, at this stage a cost of between £500,000,000 and £1,500,000,000 and a contract start date of between May 2026 and May 2027, with an introduction into service of 2030-20235 is estimated.

Total value (estimated)

  • £1,000,000,000 excluding VAT
  • £1,200,000,000 including VAT

Above the relevant threshold

Contract dates (estimated)

  • 1 January 2027 to 1 May 2032
  • 5 years, 4 months, 1 day

Main procurement category

Goods

CPV classifications

  • 35611600 - Maritime patrol aircrafts

Contract locations

  • UK - United Kingdom

Engagement

Engagement deadline

6 May 2025

Engagement process description

Please respond by completing the Microsoft Form in the link below by 17:00 on the 6th May 2025.

Link to RFI response form:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=7WB3vlNZS0iuldChbfoJ5a6aZaFlrNdKrj-sA8pUVe1UMTU1WE42RDIwWkJHM1NTVTg4T1lKUUI5Sy4u

Submission

Publication date of tender notice (estimated)

1 January 2026

Procedure

Special regime

Defence and security

Contracting authority

Ministry of Defence

  • Public Procurement Organisation Number: PHVX-4316-ZVGZ

NCHQ

Portsmouth

PO2 8BY

United Kingdom

Contact name: Dean Cordwell

Email: dean.cordwell102@mod.gov.uk

Website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-defence

Region: UKJ31 - Portsmouth

Organisation type: Public authority - central government