Northrop Expected To Take a Backseat To Boeing in NASA Rocket Bid

In a reversal, Northrop Grumman Corporation's chances for playing a prominent role in landing NASA's upcoming rocket contract, have disappeared, according to individuals in the know. Boeing is expected to lead the bidding team with Northrop playing only a secondary role. A deal signed by a partnership of Northrop and Boeing with Nasa in 2004, covering U.S. manned space-exploration efforts, had been termed by the Wall Street Journal as a 'marriage of equals.' But after a joint Northrop-Boeing $8.1 billion bid for the next-gen of manned spacecraft was rejected last year, relations between the two companies soured. The new rocket contract is considered particularly important as it is expected to be NASA's core launcher for manned spaced exploration for at least 20 years. A bid put forth by a team led by Alliant Techsystems is considered the favorite to land the contract, ahead of the Boeing-led team. In other Northrop related news, the company reported Tuesday it had won a $267 million contract to develop Defense Knowledge Online, a single point of entry for all Defense Department Web sites.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Reuters
Commentary: Northrop to Bid on $40 Billion Air Force Contract • DoD's FY-08 Budget: The Largest in US History • How Boeing Defense Got Its Groove Back
Stocks/ETFs to watch: Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC), Boeing (BA), Alliant Techsystems (ATK). Competitors: Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), General Dynamics Corp. (GD). ETFs: iShares Dow Jones US Aerospace & Defense (ITA), PowerShares Aerospace & Defense (PPA)

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