Defense Budget. The House Armed Services Committee is gearing up to debate the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act on April 29. During the release of subcommittee marks last week, staffers told the press to expect additional funding for F-35Bs, F/A-18 Super Hornets, Javelin and Tomahawk missiles, M88A2 Hercules recovery vehicles, Stryker upgrades, as well as $185 million to develop a replacement for the Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine. The potential divestment of the A-10 Warthog also will continue to drive congressional interest, and potentially Defense Department dollars. The full committee markup starts at 10 a.m. and will probably run late into the night because of House votes and an address to Congress by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) is slated to release his mark of the bill on April 27. All of the subcommittee markups and amendments are available here.
Fighter-Bomber Convergence? Advances in sensors, weapons and communications are giving fighter jets the ability to attack adversaries at longer ranges, making close air-to-air combat a thing of the past and reducing the need for fighters to be extremely fast and agile, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). As a result, the next generation of fighters may look more like bombers, creating an opportunity for the two aircraft types to use a common airframe to save the Pentagon tens of billions of dollars, the report says.
Manned vs. Unmanned. The Air Force and Navy differ over whether the next generation of fighter jets will be manned or unmanned. At the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition on April 15, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus predicted that the F-35 will “almost certainly” be the Navy’s last manned strike fighter, saying that “removing a human from the machine can open up room to experiment with more risk, improve systems faster and get them to the fleet quicker.” But at a Defense One event a week later, Gen. Mark Welsh, Air Force chief of staff, expressed doubt that the F-35 will be the Air Force’s last manned fighter, saying that “having a human brain as a sensor in combat” will remain unrivaled for the foreseeable future.
Future FLIR. The Army plans to release a request for proposals on or near May 6 for its 3rd Generation Improved Forward Looking Infrared (IFLIR) program. The program aims to update FLIR sensors used on ground vehicles, including Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance Systems. Raytheon and DRS Technologies, which have worked together on the 2nd Generation FLIR program, recently announced that they will team for the new competition.
Pentagon Appointments. The Senate Armed Services Committee seems likely to move forward the confirmation process for Peter Levine, who is nominated for the position of Defense Department Deputy Chief Management Officer. During an April 21 confirmation hearing, both Democratic and Republican senators expressed confidence in Levine’s experience, which included tenure as SASC staff director. Although the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics has the lead on acquisition reform, one of Levine’s priorities will be to improve the acquisition decision-making process, he says at the hearing. He cited a GAO report that found that, in major defense programs, it can take two years and 2,000 manhours for a program manager to receive approval on a milestone decision. “The program manager shouldn’t have to do that. They’re spending all their time briefing people … to get approval rather than working on stuff for the program,” he said.
New Remote Sensing Directorate. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (AFSMC) activates a new organization: the Remote Sensing Systems Directorate. The Air Force says April 15 the new directorate combines the Infrared Space Systems and Defense Weather Systems Directorates to create synergies by leveraging the diverse capability portfolios. The new directorate is responsible for both the Air Force’s Overhead Persistent Infrared mission area providing missile warning, missile defense, battlespace awareness, technical intelligence and civil support as well as the environmental monitoring mission, including space and terrestrial weather monitoring.
B-1, LRSB To AFGSC. The Air Force realigns its B-1 and its eventual Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) fleets to Global Strike Command (AFGSC) from Air Combat Command (ACC), according to a service statement. Sixty-three aircraft and 7,000 people will transfer to AFGSC from ACC under the realignment. The consolidation of the global strike mission under AFGSC follows the Air Force’s plan to elevate the commander of AFGSC from three-star to a four-star general officer position, which Gen. Robin Rand, currently the head of Air Education and Training Command (AETC), will assume.
Saudi Patriot Procurement. Raytheon, developer of the Patriot air and missile defense system, discloses April 23 that Saudi Arabia is the previously undisclosed customer that awarded the company a $2 billion contract for Patriot. The contract, awarded April 2 and booked in the second quarter as a direct commercial sale, includes fully digitalized new-production Patriot fire units. The deal also includes a full training package and support equipment. Raytheon also secures a big sale when Poland awards the company roughly $5 billion for Patriot in one of its two missile defense procurements.
Spencer Retirement. The Air Force announces Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Larry Spencer is retiring, according to a service spokeswoman. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter tabs Lt. Gen. David Goldfein for appointment to the rank of general and to replace Spencer. Goldfein is currently serving as the director of Joint Staff at the Pentagon. Spencer will become the next president of the Air Force Association (AFA) later this year, the group says in a statement. Spencer replaces retired Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley, who departed AFA earlier this year to become president of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).
Roberson AETD. The president nominates Air Force Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson to become head of Air Education and Training Command (AETC), according to a Pentagon statement. Roberson is currently commander of Third Air Force, U.S. Air Forces in Europe. AETC, headquartered at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, provides basic military training, initial and advanced technical training, flying training and professional military and degree-granting professional education.
New Rolls-Royce CEO. Engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce announces chief executive John Rishton retires July 2. He’ll be succeeded by Warren East, whose appointment, the company said in a statement, follows an extensive international search. East was CEO of ARM Holdings from 2001 to 2013, where Rolls-Royce said, under his leadership, ARM became one of the world’s leading developers of semiconductors with an outstanding record of innovation and a strong commitment to research and development (R&D). East’s salary will be $1.4 million with a pension allowance of 25 percent salary.
Army Study Commission. The congressionally-mandated National Commission on the Future of the U.S. Army names retired Army Gen. Carter Ham its chairperson and Thomas Lamont, former assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, as vice chair. The commission was formed by the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and will undertake a comprehensive study on the organizational structure of the Army. The findings of the panel will be presented to the president and to the congressional defense committees no later than Feb. 1. The commission also includes: retired Sgt. Maj. Raymond Chandler, retired Gen. Larry Ellis, former Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale, Kathleen Hicks of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and retired Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz. Of the commission’s eight members, four were appointed by the president and the other four by the individual chairmen and ranking members of the two congressional defense authorization committees.
ULA Launch Contract. The Air Force awards United Launch Alliance (ULA) a $138 million firm-fixed-price modification for one National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) launch, according to a Pentagon statement. The launch will be an Atlas V in the 541 configuration. The modification is to contract FAA8811-13-C-0003. The award also procures backlog transportation for the GPS IIF-10 and GPS IIF-11 missions as well as mission-specific commodities for the Navy’s Mobile User Objective System-4 (MUOS-4) effort.
X-37B Launch. The Air Force announces it will launch its fourth X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) mission May 20 as part of the AFSPC-5 mission, according to a service spokesman. The mission will test the performance of an experimental propulsion system jointly developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and AFSMC as well as a NASA advanced materials investigation. The super-secret X-37B, developed by Boeing, completed its third mission on Oct. 17, 2014, landing after 674 days on orbit.
Commercial Envy. Capital Alpha Partners defense analyst Byron Callan says Raytheon’s pending acquisition of commercial cyber security provider Websense “suggests that heritage defense firms can’t only address defense markets where there are parallel commercial advances.” In a client note following Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s address on Thursday to the Silicon Valley-based tech sector, Callan says that while defense companies may rightly be skittish about diversifying into commercial businesses, the other side of the coin is “if someone has a better mouse trap, DoD should buy that mousetrap. Heritage firms that don’t think more creatively about this change or make hard strategic decisions may ultimately destroy value in parts of their portfolio.”
…Competition from Silicon Valley. Callan says that Carter’s outreach effort to the tech sector could eventually mean more competition in the coming years for defense contractors, pointing to SpaceX Technologies emergence in the rocket making arena as a competitor to the United Launch Alliance of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. He says there may eventually be lower cost alternatives or complements to existing major weapons platforms, pointing to the possibility of autonomous robotic submarines impacting “assessments for total nuclear submarine needs.”
Border Update. Six months into the federal government’s fiscal year apprehensions are down of immigrants illegally trying to enter the U.S. along the nation’s southwest border compared with the same period a year ago, indicating that total attempts to cross into the U.S. are down, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says. He also says that the 151,805 apprehensions made so far this fiscal year are a fraction of the 1.6 million illegal immigrants apprehended in all of FY 2000 along the southern border.