By Marina Malenic
ORLANDO–The Air Force and Lockheed Martin [LMT] are in discussions regarding potential financial penalties for a “quality issue” that prevented a new communications satellite from reaching its orbit.
Orbit-raising activities for the first Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite (AEHF-1) are going according to plan, Air Force officials said earlier this month. Shortly after the launch last August, the plan was modified as a result of an anomaly with the bi-propellant propulsion system, which was intended to place the spacecraft near its operational orbit (Defense Daily, Aug. 31, 2010).
“We are very fortunate that satellite didn’t blow up because of the failure of the upper stage,” Gen. William Shelton, the head of Air Force Space Command, said during a speech yesterday at the Air Force Association’s annual winter meeting in Orlando.
AEHF is designed to provide the military and other government officials with protected, high capacity, high-speed communications. It is the successor to Milstar.
An accident failure board has reviewed the situation, Shelton told reporters at a press briefing following his speech.
“We have what we believe is root cause,” he said. “We believe that it was a quality issue, let’s just put it that way.”
Shelton declined to elaborate on the technical details due to the sensitive nature of the discussions with the contractor.
“The good news is that we’re going to get this thing to orbit and that we believe it will have a full life,” he added. “But it’s been painful.”
Prime contractor Lockheed Martin late last year received a cost-plus-incentive-fee contract modification valued at approximately $1.4 billion for production of the fourth AEHF space vehicle (Defense Daily, Dec. 10, 2010).
Air Force Undersecretary Erin Conaton earlier this week said the service remains committed to the AEHF satellite program. She said the Air Force is planning a new acquisition approach that would allow for the purchase of two AEHF satellites in fiscal 2012. The Pentagon requested $974 million for the AEHF program in FY’12 (Defense Daily, Feb. 15).
Further, Shelton said yesterday that the Air Force must do more to make sure contractors deliver on what they promise.
“We have to write better contracts that hold the contractors accountable,” he said.
“If all the risk is on the government and not the contractor, that is not a good strategy,” he added. “Too many contracts written that way.”
Shelton said he plans to make more fixed-price contracts in the future and avoid the kind of “discovery learning” that adds risk to a deal.
He said the Air Force must “get control of the cost” of space programs more generally.
“Certainly we’ve become the poster child for things that are late and expensive,” he said.