CRS-2 Award Postponement. NASA again pushes back its expected award date for Cargo Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2), this time to Nov. 5, to allow additional time to evaluate final proposal revisions (FPRs). NASA previously delayed the award from June to September. CRS-2 is NASA’s follow up to its original effort to deliver cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). The guaranteed minimum value for any awarded contract is for six missions and the total maximum value of any awarded contract is $14 billion. Boeing; Orbital ATK; Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX); Lockheed Martin and Sierra Nevada (SNC) are submitting bids for CRS-2.
Boeing MDA MOKV. The Missile Defense Agency on Aug. 13 awards Boeing the third contract for its Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) program, according to a Defense Department statement. The nearly $10 million contract is competitive cost-plus-fixed-fee. Boeing will define a concept that can destroy several objects within a threat complex by considering advanced sensor, divert and attitude control and communication concepts. The contractors will define a proof-of-concept prototype and demonstrate risk mitigation steps and critical functional aspects of the concept. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are awarded similar contracts on Aug. 11.
UH-1N Industry Day. The Air Force is hosting a UH-1N replacement program industry day August 26-27 at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, according to a notice posted on Federal Business Opportunities. The dialogue serves to educate vendors on the content of the upcoming capabilities request for information (RFI) that is anticipated to be released following the industry day. The Air Force plans to acquire a common platform up to 72 vertical lift aircraft to replace the current UH-1N aircraft fleet. It will be an in-production, non-developmental, government off-the-shelf (GOTS) or commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solution.
Future Vertical Lift… The Marine Corps and Navy are both interested in the Future Vertical Lift—a program spearheaded by the Army to develop high-speed, long-range rotorcraft— and a joint acquisition program is likely once technology is further matured, says Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation; and Rear Adm. Mike Shoemaker, commander of naval air forces. Fly by wire controls are one of the most promising FVL technologies because they could enable the future rotorcraft to optionally manned, Davis says at a CSIS event. Both offerings in the joint multirole technology demonstrator program, Bell Helicopter’s V-280 and the Boeing-Sikorsky’s SB-1 Defiant, include that feature.
..Directed Energy. At the same CSIS event, Davis says that while directed energy weapons such as lasers offer tremendous potential to Marine Corps aviation, the 3,000-pound systems currently being produced are too heavy for the service’s planes and helicopters. “Right now some of the systems are pretty heavy, so I can’t get it up in a C-130, but I’d like to be able to get it up in everything that I own,” he says.
Littoral Combat Ship. Austal on Aug. 11 delivers the third Independence-class littoral combat ship, USS Jackson (LCS 6), at its Mobile, Ala.-shipyard. The Navy plans to commission it in December in Gulfport, Miss. According to Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), the Jackson is the first LCS delivered as part of a 20-vessel block buy between Austal and Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the Freedom-class LCS. “Jackson will operate out of Mayport, Florida, while conducting full ship shock trials, prior to joining her sister littoral combat ships in their homeport of San Diego in late 2016,” Capt. Warren R. Buller II, commander of LCS squadron one, says in a NAVSEA statement.
MUOS Launch Scheduled. The Navy’s fourth Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite is set to launch on Aug. 31, manufacturer Lockheed Martin says. MUOS, a narrowband tactical satellite communications system, will have greater coverage than legacy ultra high frequency (UHF) satellite communications. The fourth satellite is encapsulated in a launch vehicle Aug. 10 at Lockheed Martin subsidiary Astrotech Space Operations located near Cape Canaveral, Fla., and it will be shot into space using a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. “Delivery of this fourth satellite for the U.S. Navy completes the initial MUOS constellation and provides near-global coverage for the network,” says Iris Bombelyn, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of narrowband communications. “For our mobile forces, that means for the first time they will be able to have secure, high-fidelity voice conversations, networked team calls and data exchange, including video, with anyone around the world connected with a MUOS terminal.” The first three MUOS satellites were launched in 2012, 2013 and 2015. A fifth spare satellite is expected to launch next year.
Women in Combat.. Former Army Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno suggests that it is only a matter of time before all Army occupational specialties (MOS) will be open to women. Two women are currently nearing the finish line of Ranger School, one of the toughest courses a soldier can undertake. In his final press conference before retirement, Odierno says those women are an example of how to move forward with allowing women to serve in combat roles. “As we continue to move forward as a military…in order to best manage your talent, you have to pick the best people who can perform to the standards that we have established in our Army. Women in Ranger School are another example,” Odierno says. “If they can meet the standard…they should be able to earn a Ranger tab. I think that’s how we want to operate moving forward. If you can meet the standards that we’ve established, then you should be able to perform in that MOS.”
… Not Final. Should the women finish Ranger school, it does not automatically throw open combat billets to woman, Odierno says. He says data is still being gathered, but the trend is toward opening MOSs in armor and infantry, as long as female soldiers can meet the same physical standards as their male counterparts. Another coed Ranger School course will be run in November and the performance of the female candidates from both classes will be used to inform a final decision on whether women can serve in combat as Rangers. “We have not made any final decisions on infantry or armor yet, but I think those are coming very shortly,” he says. “I don’t know how it’s going to come out, because you never know. There are several days yet left in Ranger School. The feedback I’ve gotten about these women is how incredibly prepared they are. The effort they have put forward has been significant. They have impressed all that they’ve come in contact with. They are clearly motivated. Frankly, that’s what we want out of our soldiers.” 
Milley Takes Command… In his first public remarks as the 29th Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Mark Milley on Aug. 14 gives a rousing defense of the need for ground forces in current and future wars. In veiled comments aimed at budget hawks that could undercut the Army’s budgets–and thereby its ability to recruit, train and fight-–he pledges to keep the Army ready to fight whoever at a moment’s notice, wherever needed. Milley’s comments are made at a change of command ceremony Aug. 14 at Joint Base Meyer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va. After thanking outgoing Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno for his 29 years of service, other senior military and Defense Department leaders, his family and all soldiers, Milley launches into his defense of the Army as a vital element of U.S. might. “There is no cheap way to win a war. There is no cheap way to buy freedom,” he says. “The only thing more expensive than fighting and winning a war is fighting and losing a war. Winning wars is what the United States Army is all about.”
… Boots On The Ground. Not that anyone seriously considers the Army an expendable military service, Milley nonetheless takes aim at futurists who see wars being fought from a distance with high-tech ships, aircraft and unmanned systems. “There are many who think wars can be won only from great distances and from space and from the air and from the sea. Unfortunately, those views are very, very wrong,” he says. “War is an act of politics where one side tries to impose its political will on the other, and politics is all about people. People live on the ground. … Wars are ultimately decided on the ground, where people live.”
… Size Matters. Milley says the Army must maintain its size and its soldiers must have adequate training to fight in various conditions and terrain against a menagerie of potential adversaries. “We must have forces that have both capacity and capability, both size and skill,” he says. “They must be manned, they have to be equipped and they better be trained. We must adapt to combat. As America we have no luxury of a single opponent. We have to be able to fight guerrillas and terrorists all the way up through nation-state militaries. If we do not maintain our commitment to remain strong in the air, on the sea, and yes, on the ground, then we will pay the butcher’s bill in blood and we will forever lose the precious gift of our freedom.”
… As Chief. Milley promises to “ensure that we remain ready as the world’s premier combat force–readiness to fight and win in ground combat is and will remain the United States Army’s number one priority…We will always be ready to fight today. We will always be ready to fight tomorrow.”
Underpowered… The U.S. Agency for International Development spends $335 million on a power plant outside Afghanistan that operates at less than 1 percent of its capacity, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) finds. “Despite USAID’s assertion that Tarakhil Power Plant remains a ‘vital component’ of the electrical grid serving Kabul, it appears that that this $335 million power plant continues to be severely underutilized.” From February 2014 through April 2015, the plant exports just 8,846 megawatt hours of power to the Kabul power grid, which is less than one percent of Tarakhil’s production capacity during that period and that number has actually been on the decline over time, SIGAR says. During the same time period, the plant contributed just .34 percent of the total power supplied to Kabul.
…Wear and Tear. The plant is used only on an intermittent basis, though it is designed and built to supply power to Kabul continuously. Starting and stopping the equipment is also causing damage to the plant, SIGAR finds. “This underutilization has apparently resulted in the premature failure of equipment, which was expected to raise already high operation and maintenance costs, and could result in ‘catastrophic failure.’”
Federal Contracting. August recess doesn’t stop members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee from commenting on a new GAO report on best contracting practices. The report states that federal contracting officers oftentimes do not attempt to negotiate for a lower price with a company for goods and services, despite the requirement to do so under federal purchasing rules. A sample of contracts studied by GAO finds that officials fail to ask for a discount 36 percent of the time. “The United States is the largest purchaser in the world and should use its bulk purchasing power to get good deals,” says committee chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.) says, “Today’s report highlights the need to better train the federal government’s acquisition workforce on how to shop around. It also points to the importance of the [Obama] administration’s new initiative to develop better government-wide pricing data so that contracting officers are smarter shoppers. Too often, one federal agency has no idea what another agency has paid for the same good or service.”
RS-25 Hot Fire Test. Aerojet Rocketdyne on Aug. 13 successfully completes a full duration verification test of its RS-25 rocket engine that will power NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), according to a company statement. The 535 second test is the sixth in a seven-test series that begins in January to validate the engine for use on the SLS. Aerojet Rocketdyne expects SLS to launch in 2018 for Exploration Mission-1. RS-25, previously known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), powers the Space Shuttle during its 30 years of operation. The SLS program has 16 RS-25 engines in inventory at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility within NASA’s Stennis Space Flight Center, Miss., with 14 of them previously flown aboard the Space Shuttle.
JWST Sunshield Layer. The first of five sunshield layers for NASA’s James Webb Telescope (JWST) is delivered to Northrop Grumman on April 24, according to a company statement. This delivery signifies the beginning of final flight hardware completion for the sunshield. NeXolve Corp., a subsidiary of ManTech International Corp., is designing and manufacturing the sunshield membranes. Northrop Grumman will next integrate the final flight layers into the sunshield system to conduct folding and deployment testing as part of the final system validation process. Northrop Grumman anticipates JWST launching in 2018.
AN/ARC-231 Award. The Army awards Raytheon a $36 million contract to fund the certification and testing of a significant upgrade to the AN/ARC-231 multi-mode communications system, according to a company statement. The AN/ARC-231 is a VHF/UHF multi-band tactical communications system that provides voice and data links. The Army awards the contract after receiving the last of 18 engineering development models. Testing will ultimately result in full cryptographic certification for the upgraded system, which will go on more than 7,000 rotary, fixed wing and unmanned Army platforms.
USAF Targets Contract. The Air Force awards PAE a seven-year contract worth more than $116 million for the operations and maintenance of aerial targets used in the testing of all major weapons systems and munitions programs, according to a company statement. PAE will provide maintenance services for full-scale QF-4 and QF-16 drone aircraft at Tyndall AFB, Fla., and Holloman AFB, N.M. It also supports the subscale BQM-167 drone mission at Tyndall AFB and deployed locations; provides a full range of drone support to the Air Force Weapons Standardization Program (WSEP) and services all range instrumentation systems at Tyndall as well as the ground radar destruct system supporting all drone operations.
XS-1 Contract. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on July 27 awards Boeing a nearly $7 million contract modification for the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program, according to a DoD statement. The additional tasks, identified as Phase IB, continues the development of the XS-1 demonstration concept, substantiating identified core component technologies, mitigating risk, developing a Technology Maturation Plan (TMP) and performing several demonstration tasks. The modification (P00004) is to previously awarded contract HR0011-14-9-0005.
TSA HQ Lease. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announces a new lease agreement for the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) new national headquarters. Under the lease, TSA will occupy 625,000 rentable square feet (RSF) at the Victory Center Building in Alexandria, Va. by spring 2018 at a rental rate of $36/RSF. This saves more than $95 million over the 15-year lease. The lease agreement is awarded to Prudential-owned Eisenhower Real Estate Holdings, LLC after an open competitive procurement process.
S. Korea Presidential Visit. The White House announces South Korea President Park Geun-hye will visit the White House on October 16. This will mark the president’s second visit to Washington. Presidents Obama and Park will discuss cooperation in new areas that will shape the relationship in the 21st century including environment, energy, space, health and cybersecurity, the White House press secretary says. They will also discuss the security situation on the Korean peninsula in the face of the North Korean threat.
BlackBerry Joins Cyber Alliance. BlackBerry Corporation joins the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), a nonprofit public-private partnership collaborates with the government, corporate, nonprofit and academic sectors to promote the safe and secure use of the Internet and digital privacy. “Through our collaboration with NCSA, we can share BlackBerry’s knowledge and insights to further advance efforts to ensure that the mobile experience is safe and secure for users, no matter what devices they have or information they access,” Edward Hearst, vice president of U.S. government business development at BlackBerry says in a statement. Hearst will also join the NCSA board.
PSC Questions Procurement. The Professional Services Council (PSC) raises concerns about the scope and adequacy of protections offered under identity monitoring and protection procurement requests by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and General Services Administration (GSA). In official questions concerning the agencies’ RFQs, PSC says it is unreasonable to limit protections to those whose social security numbers are exposed in light of the recent OPM hacks. Other personally identifiable information, including place and date of birth, mother’s maiden name, passport number, and naturalization certificate number “is more than enough information to enable identity theft,” PSC Senior Vice President Jerry Punderson says.