The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
No Navy. Navy officials will not appear before the HASC Seapower subcommittee’s shipbuilding hearing this Wednesday. The panel had wanted to compel the sea-service to testify, though it became clear the Navy could say very little before the release next month of the Pentagon’s FY ’11 budget proposal, 30-year Navy shipbuilding plan, and Quadrennial Defense Review report. The hearing will be on how President Barack Obama’s new plan for sea-based missile defense in Europe will impact the Navy’s fleet. The pundits scheduled to testify are: Eric Labs, senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Ronald O’Rourke, specialist in naval affairs at the Congressional Research Service; and Loren Thompson, the CEO at the Lexington Institute.
Missiles’ Ships. Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), co-chair of the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus, says more Navy ships may need to be purchased to address the new sea-based missile-defense setup. The caucus’ other co-chair, HASC Seapower subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), also believes additional vessels may be needed. “If you look at it just from the surface you can say that we’re going to be stretched beyond capability, with the sea-based (Ballistic Missile Defense) BMD systems and the other surface requirements for our surface fleet,” Wittman tells reporters Jan. 13 at the Surface Navy Association Symposium. “So I would say just off the top you probably are stretched past the capacity. We need to be asking those questions because I do think it does lead us down the road of asking do we need more DDG-51 (destroyer) platforms in order to implement these systems to have a robust sea-based BMD system.”
Fire Away. Garnering naval fires support remains “absolutely critical” to the Marine Corps, which has a “serious void” in such capability, Commandant Gen. James Conway says Jan. 14 at the Surface Navy Association Symposium. Because the planned buy of the future DDG-1000, with its long-range cannon system, was reduced from 24 to three ships, Conway says his service is trying to mitigate the naval-fires-support void. “Our people at Quantico (Marine Corps Base in Virginia) have identified it through various studies,” he says. “The Navy has acknowledged it. But once again at this point it’s a matter of priorities and a mitigation effort, so if you don’t have, how do you still accomplish. And that’s now where we find ourselves.”
$33 Billion Question. Amid reports that the Pentagon will seek $33 billion in supplemental war funding for fiscal year 2010, SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) tells reporters Jan. 13 he has not received official notification of that dollar figure. The supplemental appropriation request, largely for the war in Afghanistan, is expected to be sent to Congress in the coming weeks along with the Pentagon’s FY ’11 base-budget proposal. “That sounds about right in terms of the earlier estimates, but I haven’t seen a report,” Levin says during a press call from Dubai, after visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan with Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.).
C-17s For India. Boeing announced last week that the U.S. government has received a Letter of Request from India’s Ministry of Defence and the Indian Air Force regarding the potential acquisition of 10 C-17 Globemaster III advanced airlifters. “Boeing is very pleased that the Indian government has expressed interest in acquiring the C-17 to modernize its airlift capabilities, and we look forward to working closely with them,” says Vivek Lall, vice president and India country head, Boeing Defense, Space & Security. “We believe the C-17 can fulfill India’s needs for military and humanitarian airlift to help it meet its growing domestic and international responsibilities.” The C-17 conducted demonstration flights in February at Aero India 2009 in Bangalore, where members of the MoD and Indian Air Force had the opportunity to see the aircraft’s capabilities in action. The Indian Air Force wants to replace and augment its fleet of Russian-made AN-32 and IL-76 airlifters. There are currently 212 C-17s in service worldwide, including 19 with international customers. The U.S. Air Force, including active Guard and Reserve units, has 193. Other customers include the United Kingdom (which recently announced a contract for a seventh airlifter), Qatar, the Canadian Forces, the Royal Australian Air Force, and the 12-member Strategic Airlift Capability initiative of NATO and Partnership for Peace nations. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Air Force and Air Defence announced earlier this month that the UAE has signed a contract for the acquisition of six Boeing C-17s.
Stratofortress Support. Boeing last week announced that it has received a $22 million option to continue supporting the B-52 bomber under the Engineering Sustainment Program (ESP) contract the company received from the Air Force in June 2009. Under the $750 million, 10-year ESP contract, Boeing will continue to perform engineering assignments that maintain the B-52 as a ready, reliable and viable asset to the Air Force. “This is the first option of the ESP contract, which includes a total of nine annual options,” says Mike Houk, B-52 Fleet Support program manager for Boeing. “Receiving the option this month allows Boeing to continue supporting our customer by sustaining, modernizing and upgrading the B-52 to meet the warfighter’s needs, both today and in the future.” According to the company, the contract supports approximately 150 jobs at Boeing facilities in Wichita; Oklahoma City; Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, La.; and Edwards AFB, Calif. Boeing engineers will support software, communications, avionics and electrical upgrades; provide structural analysis and rewiring; and perform other tasks as directed by the Air Force. All B-52s in the U.S. inventory were built at the Boeing facility in Wichita.
New Regime. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and top weapons buyer Ashton Carter last week met top defense company executives at the Pentagon. Leaders from the Aerospace Industries Association, Boeing and Lockheed Martin attended, says Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. Gates took the opportunity to offer support for an overhaul of the U.S. export control regime. “He is backing a commerce-led, administration-supported effort to make dramatic changes to our export control regime,” Morrell says. An AIA spokeswoman calls the meeting “productive and wide ranging.”
Day in the Life of SBIRS. The Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) program has achieved two key milestones: a testing milestone demonstrating the ground system is on track to support launch of the first SBIRS geosynchronous GEO-1 satellite in the constellation; and a maturity milestone moving the ground system into the next level of integration, the Air Force says. The testing milestone, known as the Combined Day-In-The-Life Test, validated the functionality, performance and operability of the SBIRS GEO ground system for its planned operational use. The campaign included testing of more than 1.5 million source lines of code and 133 ground segment requirements. The new SBIRS ground system includes software and hardware necessary to perform activation, checkout and initial operations of the GEO-1 satellite after launch. SBIRS uses “Day-in-the-Life” test events to validate the integrated ground system following successful verification at the segment level. “Our ground system performed very well. This test paves the way for the SBIRS program to provide a new, even more impressive level of information to the warfighter with the GEO system,” says Col.Winthrop Idle, commander, SBIRS Ground Systems Group. Completion of the ground segments verification process and the CDITL led to the readiness milestone, known as the System Integration Readiness Review. This event, completed Jan. 12, officially moves the ground segment into the next level of integration.
The Right Decision. Under Secretary of the Navy Robert Work tells attendees at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ decision to truncate the DDG-1000 in the FY’ 10 budget and restart the DDG-51 line was the right thing to do. “DDG-1000 will be seen as a misstep,” he tells reporters at the event. “Truncation of DDG-1000 and restart of DDG-51 was exactly the right decision.” Work adds: “The Arsenal ship and DDG-1000 will be looked back, 10-15 years from now, as a false start.” As for the loss of naval surface fire support that DDG-1000 was to bring with its Advanced Gun System and LRLAP, Work says the Navy can duplicate NSFS with the fleet it currently has, with some modifications. “The decisions that have been made by the leadership of the Navy and the surface warfare community, I believe, will be justified over time,” he adds. However, Work does not discount the possibility that down the road the Navy could pursue a large surface combatant depending on the threat.
…LCS. “We were hoping we could continue with both variants of LCS,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus tells reporters at SNA. “When the bids came in for the FY ’10 ships this year they were just completely unsustainable and that’s why we decided to downselect and to have that competition between the two.”
Moving Forward. A BAE Systems official tells Defense Daily the company is pursuing a scaled down version of its Advanced Gun System (AGS), currently developed for DDG- 1000. “The size and weight of the existing AGS was driven by the requirements of DDG-1000,” the official says. “If you are willing to give up some rate of fire you can actually get some advanced system derivative.” That includes decreasing the 155mm mount to about half the weight as the current AGS, and approximately the same physical size as the Mk 45, but twice as heavy as the MK 45,” the official adds. “We’ve done studies that indicate what we are calling AGS Lite could be fit on a DDG-51-sized hull…an LPD-17.”
Help From Above. NGA is supporting the State Department, USAID, SOUTHCOM and DHS with analysis, unclassified commercial satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence products of the Haitian areas devastated by the recent earthquake, the agency reports. Commercial imagery providers DigitalGlobe and GeoEye have provided commercial satellite imagery of post-earthquake Haiti to NGA. “We’re looking at infrastructure and force protection and producing products for the command,” says Tom Mann, Director, NGA Support Team to SOUTHCOM. “We are prepared to send analysts into the region to provide support on-site.”
…Comms Assistance. DISA is taking advantage of capabilities it has already established, as well as new ones, to provide U.S. SOUTHCOM with the necessary communications and information network to relieve the intense suffering of Haitians caught in last week’s devastating earthquake, the agency says. “DISA is providing US Southern Command with information capabilities which will support our nation in quickly responding to the critical situation in Haiti,” says Larry Huffman, DISA’s principal director of global information grid operations. “Our experience in providing support to contingency operations around the world postures us to be responsive in meeting USSOUTHCOM’s requirements.”
The Cyber Range. DARPA Awards Lockheed Martin $30.8 million and Johns Hopkins University APL $24.7 million for Phase II of the National Cyber Range program. In Phase I of the NCR program, DARPA oversaw the creation of initial conceptual designs, concepts of operation, and detailed engineering and system demonstration plans. In Phase II, the Agency and its contractors will build and evaluate prototype ranges and their corresponding technology, the agency says. The National Cyber Range is DARPA’s contribution to the interagency “Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative” that aims to safeguard federal government information systems from cyber threats and attacks. The goal of the NCR program is to revolutionize the state of the art of the nation’s cyber testing technology, and develop a computer systems test bed on which cyber scenarios can be evaluated simultaneously to provide a comprehensive, qualitative and quantitative assessment of the security of information and automated control systems that are under development.
Another Early Delivery. Northrop Grumman delivers the first LRIP Phase 2 Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) to the Navy, more than six weeks ahead of schedule, the company reports. ALMDS uses pulsed laser light and streak tube receivers housed in an external equipment pod to image the entire near-surface volume area of the sea in 3-D. The ALMDS is capable of day or night operations. The system rapidly detects and locates surface and near-surface moored mines so they can be neutralized, Northrop Grumman says. The system is deployed from a MH-60. Northrop Grumman is delivering three ALMDS systems under the LRIP Phase 2 contract awarded in March 2008. The first system, accepted by the Navy on Dec. 16, 2009, had been scheduled for delivery on Jan. 31, 2010. The Navy already has two ALMDS systems produced under LRIP Phase 1, the company adds. ALMDS will be coupled with Northrop Grumman’s RAMICS, which is in development. RAMICS will take the mine location information from ALMDS, relocate and then neutralize the mine with its 30mm gun. RAMICS also operates from a helicopter.
UK Engine Deal. A 10-year, $1.4 billion contract has been placed with Rolls-Royce for the engines on the Royal Air Force’s Typhoon, the MoD reports. The Typhoon engines-the EJ200-will be maintained and supported under an arrangement that will help to sustain up to 3,000 highly-skilled jobs, adds the MoD. “This contract will ensure that our Typhoon aircraft continue to meet their operational commitments as a cornerstone of the U.K.’s air defence capabilities. We are committed to building strong arrangements with U.K. industry, in this case to get more efficient and affordable support for our front-line Typhoon fighter force,” Minister for Defence Equipment and Support Quentin Davies says. “This is good news for us all. The EJ200 engine is demonstrating unprecedented reliability, and this support service will continue to maximize aircraft availability in the most cost-effective way. Typhoon has now been operational in the air defence role for well over two years and a multi-role capability was integrated and declared combat ready by the RAF in July 2008.”
New Body Imager. Brijot Imaging Systems, a small Florida-based company that offers a stand-off passive millimeter wave imaging system to detect objects hidden inside or beneath a person’s clothing, has introduced a portal system for whole body imaging that it is working on having the Transportation Security Administration add to a Qualified Products List (QPL) for passenger screening. The new system, called SafeScreen, doesn’t provide the graphic details and outlines of a person’s body that the current whole body imagers are known for, which would go a long way to satisfying privacy concerns of the critics as long as it meets detection requirements. The system also has a smaller footprint than the imagers that TSA has on its Advanced Imaging Technology QPL, a plus for real estate challenged aviation security checkpoints.
No Worries. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen says the Coast Guard will emerge just fine from the forthcoming Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, which is a top- to-bottom review of homeland security that will inform the policies, programs and missions of the Department of Homeland Security for the next four years. “We are a major player inside Homeland Security and what the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review is intended to do is to take a look at the entire enterprise across the nation and, if you think about the homeland security enterprise, it really goes well beyond the Department of Homeland Security; state and local infrastructure and so forth but if you take a look at the broad spectrum of threats that have to be dealt with under one of those types of reviews there’s hardly a Coast Guard mission that doesn’t plan there, so we’re pretty comfortable,” Allen says.