Lockheed Martin [LMT], developer of the Air Force’s nearly multi-billion dollar Space Fence radar program, will begin key facilities construction in the next few months after performing a series of important reviews.
Lockheed Martin Vice President for Advanced Systems Steve Bruce told Defense Daily Friday the company has a design review in February where it “walks through” the design with the Air Force, a “95-percent facilities design review” and a critical design review (CDR) in March.
These reviews, Bruce said, will kick off the full facilities construction process that will produce the “man camp,” power plant and radar. Construction of the man camp, which will house 250 people working on the Space Fence S-band space surveillance radar (SSA) program at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, is already in process and on schedule, he said.
“We’ve been making great progress,” Bruce said.
Bruce said groundbreaking for the power plant won’t begin until toward the end of 2015 while groundbreaking for the radar will start in February. In addition to the power plant, Bruce said, a “very large” annex must be built next to it. Lockheed Martin is currently building the “lay down” areas, which Bruce called pieces of land the company will use to store material like machines to make concrete. He said a concrete production facility, called a “batch facility,” has been delivered and is ready to go.
One challenge the program has faced is the number of World War II artifacts remaining on the island archipelago, a strategic location for the United States in the Pacific Ocean. Bruce said his Lockheed Martin team has uncovered “a few” artifacts and he expects to uncover more. Another challenge is the possibility of discovering unexploded ordnance.
Bruce said his team hasn’t encountered any unexploded ordnance yet, but if it does, the company has another team to deal with them. Dealing with unexploded ordnance is covered in Lockheed Martin’s contract with the Air Force, Bruce said, under what is known as a “changes clause.” This means the contractor is not liable to pay for something it discovers that it didn’t previously know about.
Bruce said there is some soil near where the power plant will be built that is contaminated with diesel fuel, for which a mitigation process will take place.
“(The soil) is not unsafe,” Bruce said. “It just needs to be handled properly so the diesel fuel doesn’t get where you don’t want it.”
Once facilities construction begins, Bruce said supply chain production will also ramp up. Subcontractors that supply critical parts like power supplies, radiator tiles and cables will accelerate production. Bruce said Lockheed Martin is prepared for that as Space Fence’s limited design types, by design, can accommodate increased production.
The Air Force wants a second site for another Space Fence radar, this one located in western Australia, but the service hasn’t found the funding in a constrained budget envirornment. Bruce believes the Air Force is evaluating Lockheed Martin’s performance on the Kwajalein Atoll radar before deciding whether to move forward with construction of the second radar, which he said was supposed to begin in 2018. The Air Force was unable to respond to a request for comment by press time Friday.
“I won’t call it a pre-requisite,” Bruce said. “But if the Air Force develops confidence in our ability to execute, I think it gives them more confidence that this isn’t going to turn into a mess like a lot of programs.”
Bruce said the program is on path for a September 2018 initial operational capability (IOC) goal. Lockheed Martin hasn’t used any reserve schedule yet, he added. Lockheed Martin beat out Raytheon [RTN] in June for Space Fence, which will replace the Air Force’s VHF Fence.
Space Fence, worth $915 million, is valued at greater than $1.5 billion over an eight-year period if all options are exercised. It is a phased-array radar designed to help the Air Force identify and track space debris that could damage satellites or other space assets (Defense Daily, Sept. 9). Space Fence is focused on low earth orbit (LEO), or about 3,000 km into space.
Lockheed Martin’s subcontractors on Space Fence include General Dynamics [GD], AMEC, Cree Inc. and TriQuint.