Research Review. The Air Force is on track to finish a year-long review of its research efforts this fall, according to service Secretary Heather Wilson. The Air Force announced the review in September, saying it would help the service keep its technological edge in air and space. The Air Force Research Laboratory is leading the effort.
Fewer Rules. The Air Force is making progress in its effort to remove unnecessary rules for airmen, according to service Secretary Heather Wilson. The Air Force, which announced in August that it would conduct a two-year review of its 1,400-plus instructions, has rescinded 100 of them so far, Wilson says. Instructions that are not eliminated will be rewritten so they are easier to understand.
Quiet Congress. Capitol Hill is expected to remain quiet the week of April 2-6, as lawmakers take the second week of a two-week break.
Night Vision. The Army laced two orders worth a total $97 million for BAE Systems to provide new night vision goggles and thermal weapon sights, which together will enable soldiers to rapidly and covertly acquire targets in all weather and lighting conditions. The orders are part of a previously announced five-year contract for the Army’s Enhanced Night Vision Goggle III and Family of Weapon Sight-Individual (ENVG III/FWS-I) program. “Aiming to provide the most technically advanced and lightweight solution possible, our goggles allow soldiers to quickly detect and engage targets for a tactical edge,” says Marc Casseres, director of Precision Guidance and Sensing Solutions at BAE Systems. “When fully integrated with the FWS-I weapon sight, the combined solution provides superior imagery and a target acquisition capability that can greatly increase mission success and survivability.” Work on the ENVG III/FWS-I program will be conducted at BAE Systems’ facilities in Lexington, Mass., and Austin, Texas.
JLTV Variants. Oshkosh Defense displayed two Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) at the Association of the United States Army Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Ala. They are a representations of a single-point sling helicopter lift beneath a CH-47 Chinook, which shows how the vehicle can be transported by heavy-lift rotorcraft to remote missions while maintaining its high level of blast protection. “The Oshkosh JLTV is the first light tactical vehicle to provide superior off-road mobility and MRAP levels of protection in a highly transportable package,” says George Mansfield, vice president and general manager of Joint Programs for Oshkosh Defense. “The JLTV was also designed to be scalable, allowing necessary mission equipment and kits to be quickly installed or uninstalled at field level as the environments change. The JLTV can accommodate over 100 different mission package configurations serving missions from hostile and high threat operations to patrol and peacekeeping operations – a true testament to its modularity and adaptability.” Also on display is a JLTV that features the Kongsberg M153A2-E1 Low Profile PROTECTOR Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station, which demonstrates the ability of the JLTV platform to accommodate a wide range of mission equipment and weapon systems as required by the Army, Marine Corps and other customers.
Combat Support. Northrop Grumman has fully fielded the Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-Army) Increment I, completing the Army’s deployment schedule. With GCSS-Army, soldiers have greater visibility into maintenance, dispatching, unit supply, property book, finance and materiel management for greater flexibility in operations. The web-based system replaces several aging and outdated management information systems in the Army, National Guard and Reserve. According to the Government Accountability Office, the Army expects the system to provide several billion dollars in financial benefits in the coming years. “Our long history with enterprise resource planning systems and our strong partnership with the Army have made this monumental effort possible, and the benefits to the soldier are significant,” says Dan Verwiel, vice president and general manager, Missile Defense and Protective Systems, Northrop Grumman. “The streamlined logistics made possible by GCSS-Army will give soldiers greater agility, flexibility and a decisive advantage.” The fielding of the complex system, which integrates with more than 40 other Army systems, requires the conversion of 3.2 billion assets valued at more than $350 billion. When fully utilized, the Army Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics projects more than 100,000 users worldwide.
F-35 Engine Parts. The Naval Air Systems Command awarded United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney division a $240 million advanced acquisition contract for long-lead materials, parts, and components for 137 F135 engines. The F135 is the engine that powers the F-35 aircraft. This contract covers low-rate initial production for the Lot 12 engines for the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, non-DoD participants, and foreign military sales customers. Under the award, the there are 46 F135-PW-100 engines for the Air Force, 20 PW-600 models for the Marine Corps, four PW-100 models for the Navy, and 63 PW-100 and four PW-600 propulsion engines for non-DoD participants and FMS customers. The work will largely occur in East Hartford, Conn. and Indianapolis, Ind. and is expected to be finished by Jan. 2021.
NSC Long Lead Award. Huntington Ingalls Industries has received a $94.4 million contract from the Coast Guard to buy long lead time materials for construction of the 10th National Security Cutter. The advance procurement funding will be used to purchase major components for the 418-foot vessels, including steel, the main propulsion systems, generators, electrical switchboards and major castings. Congress has provided funds to complete construction of the 10th NSC and purchase the 11th. HII has delivered six Legend-class NSCs and the seventh is scheduled to be delivered later this year.
…FRC Delivery. The Coast Guard on March 29 accepted delivery of the 28th Fast Response Cutter from shipbuilder Bollinger Shipyards. The cutter Nathan Bruckenthal will be commissioned in July and will be the second of the 154-foot Sentinel-class vessels stationed in Atlantic Beach, N.C. The Coast Guard plans to buy 58 FRCs.
…MH-60T SLEP Approved. The Coast Guard in March says its received approval from the Department of Homeland Security Acquisition Review Board to proceed to the next acquisition phase for a service life extension program (SLEP) for its fleet of MH-60T Jayhawk helicopters. Work will be done at the Coast Guard’s Aviation Logistics Center in North Carolina although the service is still developing an acquisition strategy and a life-cycle cost estimate to determine the cost for the SLEP for the medium-range recovery helicopters. The service is considering either replacing the existing MH-60T fleet with low-flight-hour Navy HH-60H and SH-60F Seahawk hulls or replace parts in the current fleet to extend each helicopter’s service life by another 10,000 flight hours. The service has 45 MH-60Ts and the SLEP is meant to keep the fleet operational through the mid-2030s.
U.S.-Japan Exercise. The U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force completed a bilateral naval exercise on March 23. The Nimitz-class carrier USS Carl Vinson and Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Wayen E. Meyer conducted combined operations with the Hyūga-class Japanese helicopter destroyer JS Ise in the South China Sea, near Okinawa. Operations included training dills and sailor exchanges to enhance maritime interoperability. The ships conducted anti-submarine and air defense exercises and training drills for multinational command and control functions.
Palo Alto Networks Deal. Cyber security firm Palo Alto Networks has completed its $300 million acquisition of Evident.io, strengthening its capabilities in public cloud security. Palo Alto Networks says that once Evident.io is integrated, its cloud security offering will provide customers with a single approach to continuous monitoring, storage security, and compliance validation and reporting. Last summer, In-Q-Tel, the non-profit venture capital arm that supports the intelligence community, made an investment in Evident.io to help secure its infrastructure in all Amazon Web Services environments and allowing deployment of FedRamp High compliant architectures. FedRamp provides the federal government with a standardized approach to security assessment and authorization for cloud products and services.
New Battelle Director. Battelle says it has elected Stephanie O’Sullivan to its board of directors. O’Sullivan last year retired as principal deputy director and chief operating officer of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence after serving in various roles in the intelligence community for more than 30 years. She worked in the ODNI from 2011 until her retirement in Jan. 2017. “Stephanie has a strong technology background in areas that are directly relevant and uniquely aligned to Battelle’s business,” says John Welch, chairman of non-profit company’s board. “Her deep federal expertise and leadership will contribute great value and help advance Battelle’s mission.”
NY Data Breaches. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman releases a report March 29 detailing a record number of data breaches in his state in 2017, resulting in the exposure of 9.2 million personal records. There were 1,583 reported breaches of companies last year, which is four times the amount in 2016. Forty percent of the exposed data consisted of social security numbers, and 33 percent was financial account information. Schneiderman wants to introduce legislation requiring companies who hold large amounts of personal consumer data to notify New York authorities as a breach is confirmed. “My office will continue to hold companies accountable for protecting the personal information they manage – but it’s also time for Albany to bring our laws into the 21st century and ensure that New Yorkers are not needlessly victimized by weak data security and criminal hackers,” he says.
PSC/DoD Cloud. The Professional Services Council is asking DoD to broaden and accelerate its approach to adopting commercial cloud capabilities. Alan Chvotkin, PSC executive vice president, sent a letter March 21 to Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan outlining industry concerns with the single-award approach to DoD’s multi-billion dollar JEDI cloud initiative potentially limiting competition. At the industry day for JEDI on March 7, industry representatives told Defense Daily they were skeptical one company could handle the massive cloud migration project. “Significant policy and regulatory barriers still stand in the way of adopting cloud-based technologies. These barriers impede DoD’s ability to move at the ‘speed of relevancy’ to the warfighter,” Chvotkin wrote in the letter.
WEF Cyber Lead. The World Economic Forum says that Troels Oerting, the former Barclays head of cyber security, will lead its new Global Centre for Cybersecurity. Oerting previously served as the lead official for Europol’s counterterrorism and cyber crime divisions. WEF’s cyber security center opened in January and serves as a think tank for international security officials to share threat information and capability concepts. “The Global Centre for Cybersecurity is the first global platform to tackle today’s cyber-risks across industries, sectors and in close collaboration with the public sector. I’m glad that we have found a proven leader in the field who is keen and capable to help us address this dark side of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” says WEF founder Klaus Schwab.