Rockwell Collins Awarded $82 Million Navy Deal for AN/ARC-210 Radio Support

The Cedar Rapids, Iowa, avionics maker received a five-year, firm-fixed-price contract to sustain the Navy's AN/ARC-210(V) radio, including the GEN5 and GEN6 iterations, with work due by July 2031.

First Published: August 5, 2026, 12:24 AM ET

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA — Rockwell Collins Inc., the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, avionics maker, received an $82 million Navy contract to sustain the AN/ARC-210(V) airborne radio, the service’s workhorse communications system, as announced on war.gov.

The firm-fixed-price award, valued at $82 million and designated N00383-26-D-0014, covers logistics, repair and spare support for the radio across its GEN5 and GEN6 iterations, according to war.gov. The five-year deal includes no option provisions and directs all work to Cedar Rapids by July 2031. Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support in Philadelphia awarded the contract as a sole-source requirement to one solicited company, which submitted one offer under the authority in 10 U.S. Code 3204 (a)(1), according to war.gov.

The deal locks in a single supplier for a radio family that carries voice and data across Navy aircraft. Rockwell Collins gains a guaranteed five-year revenue stream, while the Navy trades competitive pricing for continuity on a system already fielded in large numbers. Taxpayers absorb the cost of maintaining a mature but essential platform through 2031.

Work proceeds only in response to awarded delivery orders. Fiscal 2026 Navy working capital funds of $16.4 million fund the first delivery order, N00383-26-F-0001, at the time of award, and those funds do not expire, according to war.gov. Subsequent delivery orders will draw on appropriate Navy working capital funds. No Foreign Military Sales apply at the time of award, though the contract carries standard cooperative logistics supply support arrangement language as a contingency for future foreign requirements.

The award ranks among the smaller defense agreements Rockwell Collins secured this year. The company’s tracked defense contracts in 2026 reached $688,078,051, and this deal was one of eight Department of Defense contracts issued nationwide on August 4, 2026, according to war.gov. The single award represents about 12 percent of the company’s tracked 2026 defense total.

Sustainment contracts of this kind rarely reach an average reader’s attention, yet they underpin the equipment carried on aircraft that patrol coastlines and support operations abroad. The steady flow of repair and spare work keeps the radios in service and keeps engineers employed in Cedar Rapids.

This has happened before. Rockwell Collins has repeatedly won logistics and support work tied to the AN/ARC-210 family, and the company has held a long-running role as the radio’s manufacturer. Repeat sole-source awards for spare and repair support reflect the difficulty of transferring proprietary sustainment work to a second vendor.

Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support will issue delivery orders that trigger the actual work, with the next obligations tied to N00383-26-F-0001. A date for the next major decision on follow-on orders has not been announced.

Cedar Rapids has anchored American avionics for generations, as it has before. Arthur Collins founded Collins Radio Co. there in 1933, and the firm built the transmitters that carried the voices of Apollo astronauts from the moon in 1969, according to britannica.com. The company passed through Rockwell International and later Raytheon before joining RTX, and the radios stamped with the Cedar Rapids name have circled the globe on aircraft ever since, keeping the Iowa city at the center of military communications work.

The total value of contracts awarded to Rockwell Collins Inc.in 2026 reached $688,078,051. Overall, this award was announced among 8 Department of Defense contracts issued nationwide on August 4, 2026.