SHiELD STRAFE. The Air Force on Aug. 23 awarded Northrop Grumman a $39 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) Turret Research in Aero-Effects (STRAFE) program, according to a DoD statement. Northrop Grumman will develop and deliver an advanced beam control system for integration as part of a complete laser weapons system into a tactical pod on an Air Force fighter aircraft. STRAFE will increase the knowledge and understanding of aero-optic disturbances in a supersonic environment by collecting data during engagement scenarios. DoD expects work to complete by Aug. 31, 2021. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition with three offers received. Lockheed Martin says it bid for this contract while Boeing says it did not.
EELV STP-3. The Air Force on Aug. 19 issued a draft request for proposals (RFP) for its Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) launch mission. The mission is for Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) payloads. Few details were available at time of publication, but the Air Force expects an RFP to be posted on Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) no earlier than Sept. 4. The Air Force expects the mission to be a best value source selection.
GH Ground Controls. The Air Force awarded Raytheon, through a subcontract with Northrop Grumman, a deal valued up to $104 million to modernize the ground segment for Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial systems (UAS), according to a Raytheon statement. Raytheon is partnering with Northrop Grumman, prime contractor of Global Hawk, as the ground integrator for Global Hawk contracts. Raytheon provides modernized ground controls to enhance capabilities, safety and cyber security of Global Hawk operations worldwide. Raytheon will develop and install building-based mission control stations at Beale AFB, Calif., and Grand Forks AFB, N.D.
McKinley NDIA. Retired Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley announced his retirement as president and CEO of NDIA effective at the end of the year. McKinley spent two years at the head of NDIA after retiring from the Air Force in 2012. He previously served as chief of the National Guard Bureau from 2008-2012.
GOES-R. NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite R-Series (GOES-R) satellite arrived in Florida on Aug. 23 in preparation for a Nov. 4 launch, according to prime contractor Lockheed Martin. The first of four next-generation geostationary weather satellites, GOES-R will provide an improvement in quality, quantity and timeliness of weather data collected compared to the current GOES satellite system that monitors weather over North America. GOES-R will launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Lockheed Martin spokesman Gary Napier said GOES-S is slated for launch in 2018, GOES-T in 2019 and GOES-U in 2024.
Mars 2020. NASA awarded ULA a $243 million contract to launch the agency’s Mars 2020 rover, according to a NASA statement. Launch will take place on an Atlas V from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and is targeted for July 2020. Contract value covers launch service; spacecraft spacecraft power source processing; planetary protection processing; launch value integration and tracking, data and telemetry support. The rover will will conduct geological assessments of its landing site on Mars, determine the habitability of the environment, search for signs of ancient Martian life and assess natural resources and hazards for future human explorers. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
Patriot Oversight. The Government Accountability Office found that the Army should establish more and better oversight of its Patriot missile modernization effort, on which it plans to spend about $2.9 billion between fiscal years 2013 and 2021. Two major software upgrades are in the offing called Post Deployment Build-8 (PDB-8) and PDB-8.1, which are intended to improve communications and system capabilities against threats. The Army plans to begin operational testing for PDB-8 and PDB-8.1 in fiscal years 2016 and 2019, respectively, the GAO says. “Although the Army estimated in 2013 that costs for Patriot upgrades would meet the threshold to be considered a major defense acquisition program (MDAP), the Army chose to incorporate the Patriot upgrade efforts into the existing Patriot program, which made certain oversight mechanisms inapplicable,” GAO says. “Further, it decided not to put a mechanism in place to track or report the upgrades’ progress against initial cost, schedule, or performance estimates, similar to those generally required of MDAPs, which GAO considers essential for program oversight. Operational testing for PDB-8 and PDB-8.1 provides the Army with an opportunity to increase oversight. If performance shortfalls indicate a need for further development, the Army will have an opportunity to track progress on these upgrades to provide the oversight tools decisionmakers need to make important investment decisions.”
… Recommendations. GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense direct the Army to establish oversight mechanisms, similar to those for MDAPs, if additional development is required for upgrades operationally tested with PDB-8 and PDB-8.1. The Defense Department partially agreed, focusing its response on plans to track other MDAPs, but it did not clarify how or if it would track current PDB-8 and PDB- 8.1 progress, GAO says, but maintained the Pentagon should provide oversight for any additional PDB-8 and PDB-8.1 development.
DoD Reform. Vice Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Paul Selva is in favor of current efforts to reform Defense Department acquisition and structural processes established under the two-decade old Goldwater-Nichols Act. But only if the reforms are aimed at specific, identifiable problems, he tells the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday. “The reforms that are being posed now are about looking down into Goldwater-Nichols … and seeing if we got anything wrong. The places where those reforms are being posed now; I think it is a healthy discussion and debate,” Selva says. “Ideas should be examined and debated and then implemented. I’m not suggesting delay. I’m suggesting careful analysis. There are some really good ideas out there, but we get at them by making sure they don’t do damage to a process that has served us well for a number of years. If you are suggesting a reform, what problem are you trying to solve? Otherwise what you get is layers of reforms on top of a process that simply add layers. If we’re not trying to solves a problem, leave it alone. If you have a specific problem you are trying to solve, let’s figure out if it is the right solution.”
Terminator Conundrum. Selva also weighed in on the issue of artificial intelligence and the philosophical enigmas it poses, primarily the possibility that if the U.S. does not make Terminator-like robots that can decide to kill on their own, others might. “I don’t think it’s impossible that somebody will try to build a completely autonomous system. I’m not talking about a cruise missile or a smart torpedo or a mine that requires a human to target it and release it and it goes and finds its target. I’m talking about a wholly robotic system that decides whether or not, at the point of decision, it is going to do lethal harm.”
… International Convention. Like other controversial weapons such as land mines, cluster munitions or the use of torture, Selva says the U.S. government should consider existing law and wartime conventions and figure out where autonomous robots fit within those constructs. Potential adherents to an autonomous killer-robot convention would then have to make the moral or strategic choice of whether to ratify. “We do need to examine the bodies of law and convention that might constrain anyone in the world from building that kind of a system,” Selva says. “I’m cautious when I say we have to have a set of conventions and rules of the road, that govern behavior in this space, because it is highly likely there will be violators. But until we understand what we want the limits to be, we don’t have a baseline from which to determine if someone is moving down the path of violating a convention that could create something like a Terminator. That adds incredible amounts of complexity.” If the United States decides to maintain its current stance that a man must remain “in the loop,” it runs into the “Terminator conundrum” where U.S. robotic systems are directed by humans and adversaries could use killer robots. “I’m wholly conscious of the fact that even if we do that, there will be violators. In spite of the fact that we don’t approve of chemical or biological weapons, we know there are entities – both states and non-states – that continue to pursue that capability in our world. In spite of the fact that we say we will not kill women and children, we know there are entities – state and non-state – that don’t care.”
Army F-35. The Army has long enjoyed a comfortable remove from the fiscal and political minefield that is the F-35, but this week awarded a contract that involves it tangentially with the program that it alone as a service avoided. The Army awarded Okland Construction Co., based in Salt Lake City, a $24 million contract to design and build Joint Strike Fighter operations, maintenance, and administration, and a six-position maintenance hangar facility at Luke AFB, Ariz. Estimated completion date is May 18, 2018. The contract funds are pulled from the Army’s fiscal 2016 military construction account, a pool of cash fast shrinking to pay for higher-priority modernization programs.
IED Work. Booz Allen Hamilton received a $379 million under the General Services Administration (GSA) Alliant contract to provide the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency (JIDA) with rapid development and fielding of counter-threat technologies, delivering urgent mission information technology solutions within the combatant commanders’ latest time of value in support of operations throughout the globe to eliminate or neutralize enemy insurgent networks that threaten U.S. interests and employ improvised threats, including improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Most of the work – which runs through 2021 – will be performed in and around Washington, D.C. Contractor personnel also will embed as needed with globally deployed U.S. forces. JIDA lays out $15 million at the time of award, but the contract has a ceiling of $379 million.
Bridge Builder. DRS Technologies won a $400 million indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract to build the new Joint Assault Bridge (JAB) system. JAB is a tracked vehicle built on a modified M1 Abrams platform designed to carry, deploy and recover a heavy “scissor” bridge that provides gap-crossing capability for combat vehicles to cross wet or dry chasms. DRS Technologies’ Sustainment Systems business unit, based in St. Louis, will be responsible for the overall production, management of the M1A1 chassis assembly, hydraulic bridge launcher production and the entire system integration. Production will occur in West Plains, Mo., and Anniston, Ala. “The ability for combat vehicles to navigate easily on the battlefield is critical to the success of our armored vehicle warfighters,” Joe Matteoni, vice president and general manager, DRS Sustainment Systems, says in a prepared statement. “This is an important program for our ground combat units, and DRS Technologies and Israel Military Industries Systems are proud to support our heavy armor combat teams by providing this technology to assist them in achieving their missions,” he says. DRS has a public-private partnership with Anniston Army Depot for the management of the chassis assembly and worked with Israel Military Industries on the engineering and design of the JAB system.
Navy Frigate. The Navy selected Lockheed Martin’s COMBATSS-21 as the combat management system for its frigate ship program. COMBATSS-21 is the combat management system in operation on the Freedom variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The five-year, $79.5 million contract covers fiscal years 2016-2021.The system provides commonality across the surface combatant fleet, delivering an affordable path to rapid capability insertion and life-cycle costs. COMBATSS-21 (COMponent-BAsed Total-Ship System—21st Century) is built from the Aegis Common Source Library (CSL), and shares a pedigree with the Aegis Baseline 9 software developed for the Aegis cruiser and destroyer fleet, as well as international ships, the Aegis Ashore system, LCS and the Coast Guard National Security Cutters. “We look forward to providing this combat management system to the frigates and potentially other platforms across the U.S. Navy, as it will bring commonality across the fleet of surface combatants and is a step toward realizing the vision of distributed lethality,” says Rich Calabrese, director of Mission Systems at Lockheed Martin. “Using the CSL enhances life-cycle affordability by reducing costs for integration, test and certification—and delivers an open combat system architecture in line with the Navy’s objective architecture, driving affordability and increasing interoperability across the entire fleet.”
… Open Architectures. The CSL allows surface combatants to rapidly and affordably integrate new capabilities across the fleet. This means that ships using a CSL-derived combat system can incorporate new sensors, weapons and capability upgrades to keep pace with evolving threats. The benefit of the surface combatant CSL is that these updates become available for rollout across other ship classes. “We can build capability, get it into the CSL and then deploy it in a ship class when the Navy determines the need,” Calabrese said. “In this way, capability developed on a forward fit program may be applied to ships already in service.”
GD IT Contract. The U.S. Army awarded General Dynamics a $13.3 million delivery-task order modification to an earlier contract for combined mission command network operations and maintenance services for the Army Communications Information Systems Activity Pacific. Army Fiscal 2016 operations and maintenance funds of $9.4 million is obligated at award time. The work will be performed in South Korea and has an estimated completion date of April 12, 2020. The contracting activity is Army Contracting Command based in Yongsan, South Korea.
Army IT Contract. Glacier Technologies won a nearly $9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee U.S. Army contract for administrative support, data management, data collection, information technology services, and logistics support for test and evaluation support services. Bids were solicited via the internet and only one was received. Each order will determine the work locations and funding under the contract. The estimated completion date is Dec. 20, 2016. The contracting activity is Army Contracting Command at Fort Hood, Texas.
Classified Information Facility. The U.S. Army awarded Herman Construction Group Inc. a nearly $16 million firm-fixed-price contract for the design build of a sensitive compartmented information facility. The Defense Department solicited bids for the contract over the internet and received 15. Work will be performed at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., with an estimated completion date of July 11, 2018. The full award was obligated at award time. The contracting activity is the Army Corps of Engineers based out of Los Angeles, Calif.
Air Force IT Cyber Contract. The U.S. Air Force awarded Integrity Applications, Inc. an $8.6 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for white lightening software, hardware, and technical documentation. Under the contract, Integrity will provide research and develop concepts to identify the attributes and characteristics which allow for analysis of operational status, as well as capabilities and modes of operation, all in support of the cyber operations mission. The award results from two offers in a competitive acquisition. The Air Force obligated $680,000 in Fiscal 2015 and 2016 research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) funds at award time.. The contracting activity is the Air Force Research Laboratory based in Rome, N.Y.
Cyber Company Funding. ThreatQuotient, a provider of enterprise-class cyber threat intelligence platforms, secured $12 million in Series B financing led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Existing investors Blu Venture Investors and the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) join NEA to fund the company. This new funding will be used to bolster product development and accelerate global expansion in sales, channels, and partnerships to scale ahead of demand. NEA managing general partner Peter Barris is appointed to the ThreatQuotient board of directors as part of the funding, joining NEA general partner Harry Weller. The company also announced it secured a $3 million growth capital facility from the Silicon Valley Bank.
…And More Cyber Funding. Dragos, Inc., an industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity company raised $1.2 million in seed round funding from DataTribe. The company plans to use the funding to build a Dragos Threat operations Center to provide remote ICS/supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) threat hunting services and ICS-specific technologies. The Dragos executive leadership orginated in the U.S. intelligence community (IC): CEO Robert Lee started his career as a Cyber Warfare Operation Officer in the U.S. Air Force while co-founders Jon Lavender and Justin Cavinee previously worked in unnamed positions in the IC.Dragos was first established in 2013.
CrowdStrike Leadership. CrowdStrike named Brian Brouillette as vice president of customer success. Brouillette previously served as senior vice president and general manager of Westell, responsible for the company’s intelligent site management and global services business unit. Earlier he served in support and services capabilities at Hewlett Packard, Juniper, Ixia, and NetOptics. At CrowdStrike Brouillette is set to focus on developing support services to help customers stop cyber breaches.
New CyberPatriot Sponsor. The Air Force Association (AFA) announced the American Military University (AMU) as the newest Cyber Silver-level sponsor of its CyberPatriot STEM program. CyberPatriot is the AFA’s youth cyber education program that aims to strengthen cyber skills among youth and getting students interests in STEM careers. The program’s presenting sponsor is Northrop Grumman with other Cyber Silver-level sponsors including the Air Force Reserve, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Leidos, and the University of Maryland University College.
DoD Cloud Pilot. The Defense Department’s Office of the Chief Information Officer this week will begin a pilot test to more quickly bring cloud capabilities into the department by examining the testing processes of the major cloud providers to see if it can be certified so that DoD doesn’t have to retest each new capability, Marianne Bailey, principal director, Deputy Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity at the department, says at a cyber conference hosted by 1105 Media Group. Currently, when industry provides a new capability they test it, and then auditors audit the testing and sometimes test it again. If the industry testing can be certified “and we don’t retest…I think it will go a long way to get us a much shorter timeline,” says Bailey. She says that currently the certification and accreditation process for new capabilities aren’t “keeping pace with the dynamic world we have today.”
FRC Acceptance. The Coast Guard last week accepted delivery of its 19th Fast Response Cutter from shipbuilder Bollinger Shipyards. The 154-foot Rollin Fritch will be stationed in Cape May, N.J., making it the first FRC that will be based outside Florida or Puerto Rico. The Coast Guard so far has ordered 38 FRCs of a potential 58 vessel buy.
New IR Head at Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin has appointed Greg Gardner to the role of vice president, Investor Relations, effective Dec. 5, succeeding 36-year company veteran Jerry Kircher who is retiring. Gardner has been with Lockheed Martin more than 30 years and has served as director, Investor Relations since 2011.
Anti-Missile Radar. The Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR), which will be built in Alaska to distinguish ballistic missile warheads from decoys, is on track for a preliminary design review in January, according to prime contractor Lockheed Martin. “The program is on an aggressive schedule to be operational in 2020 and we are hitting all our milestones,” says Chandra Marshall, the company’s LRDR director. The Missile Defense Agency awarded a $784-million contract to Lockheed Martin in October 2015 to develop and produce the ground-based radar.
PAC-3 Interest. Lockheed Martin is receiving international interest in its new PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) and has been cleared to market the anti-missile, anti-aircraft interceptor in 18 countries, says Scott Arnold, Lockheed Martin vice president of PAC-3 programs. The PAC-3 MSE, which is designed to have more range and maneuverability than the original PAC-3 interceptor, recently achieved its initial operational capability with the U.S. Army.
Tanker Milestone. The U.S. Marine Corps has accepted delivery of its 50th KC-130J Super Hercules refueling plane from manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Built in Marietta, Ga., the aircraft is assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif. The Marines plan to buy a total of 79 KC-130Js. The 51st and 52nd are scheduled for delivery this winter.
Surface Warrior. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Tom Druggan, the former commander of the USS O’Kane (DDG-77), an Aegis ballistic missile defense destroyer, took the helm of Naval Surface Warfare Center during a ceremony Aug. 25 in Dalhgren, Va. He succeeds Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, who became the Navy’s chief engineer.