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FAA Contract Will Add Kansas Jobs, Indra Says

Indra Group building

Spain’s Indra Group is expanding its presence in Kansas to support the FAA Radar Replacement Program. 

Credit: Indra Group

The U.S. subsidiary of Spain’s Indra Group announced a $342 million contract under the FAA’s Radar System Replacement program and says it will produce new systems in the Kansas City area.

Indra and RTX Collins Aerospace were named Jan. 5 as contractors the FAA has chosen to replace up to 612 ground-based air traffic control (ATC) radars by 2028, an effort funded by Congress through U.S. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. RTX said it was awarded a contract valued at $438 million.

The radar suppliers will work with Reston, Virginia-based defense and space contractor Peraton, the “Prime Integrator” the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) named in December 2025 to oversee the planned transition to a “brand new air traffic control system.”

In a contract opportunity announcement published on the Sam.gov website in October 2025, the FAA said it planned to establish a Qualified Systems List (QSL) for competitive sourcing of rapidly deployable, commercial-off-the-shelf radar systems, and it reserved the right “to award one or more or no contracts against the QSL.”

Contracts will be awarded based “on a best value tradeoff or lowest price technically acceptable basis per system lot,” the FAA said. It anticipated awarding firm-fixed price (FFP) contracts for systems “with other FFP or time-and-material activities.” Systems will be contractor-maintained and sustained, with the option to transition to government-maintained over time.

To achieve the objectives outlined by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the FAA said it planned to initially award contracts supporting the delivery of 151 radar systems, consisting of 100 “cooperative” secondary surveillance radars and 51 non-cooperative primary radars by September 2026. The Radar Replacement Program calls for replacing “all the legacy radar electronics in the radar shelter and connect to the existing antenna subsystems” by June 2028.

Indra said its proposal to the FAA “includes a phased manufacturing approach aligned with FAA deployment timelines, which will be performed in our factories in the Kansas City area and supported by the global Indra Group, thus significantly expanding Indra’s manufacturing capabilities.”

Last October, the Spanish industrial group announced that it was investing $50 million to build a new manufacturing facility in the Kansas City area, adding to its existing presence in Overland Park, Kansas. Expected to be operational this year, the new facility will produce radars, ground-to-air radios, and other air traffic surveillance and navigation systems, creating 200 jobs over the next three years.

For the FAA’s Radar Replacement Program, Indra said it “will replicate the approach it has already successfully implemented with its Nexcom v3 air-ground communications radios” and transfer advanced technology and manufacturing processes to the U.S. to support long-term domestic production. The FAA in August 2024 awarded Indra a $244 million contract to replace legacy UHF/VHF ground-based analog radios with Nexcom v3 digital radios.

“Our investment in Kansas, the creation of more than 200 high-quality American jobs, and the transfer of advanced radar technology to the U.S. reflect our long-term commitment to America and to the FAA as the world’s leading air navigation service provider,” Indra Group CEO José Vicente de los Mozos said.

“We are fully aligned with the FAA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, Congress, and the [Trump] administration in delivering a safer, more resilient, and future-ready National Airspace System, on time, at scale, and with accountability to the American taxpayer.”

Bill Carey

Bill covers business aviation and advanced air mobility for Aviation Week Network. A former newspaper reporter, he has also covered the airline industry, military aviation, commercial space and uncrewed aircraft systems. He is the author of 'Enter The Drones, The FAA and UAVs in America,' published in 2016.