NDAA Watch. The House and Senate are still at a standstill on a conference report for the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. SASC Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he and his counterpart in the House, Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), met last week for negotiations, but so far a reconciled NDAA has not emerged. Thornberry and McCain both decline to give their best guess on when to expect a conference report—a far cry from early July, when McCain said he believed talks could wrap up in less than a month.
GAO on OCX. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) accuses the Air Force of consistently overstating progress on the beleaguered Global Positioning System (GPS) Operational Control System (OCX) to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) compared to advisory independent assessments. In a Sept. 9 report (GAO-15-657), GAO says the Air Force needs $1.1 billion and four years more than planned to deliver OCX due to poor acquisition decisions and slow recognition of development problems. GAO says OCX cost and schedule growth persist due, in part, to a high defect rate, which may result from systemic issues. GAO says unrealistic cost and schedule estimates limit OSD visibility into, and oversight, over OCX progress. Raytheon is the OCX prime contractor.
F-35 Fuselages. Northrop Grumman is increasing its F-35 center fuselage production interval rate to three days from four days, according to a company statement. The production interval is the average number of work days between starts or completions of center fuselage. Northrop Grumman says this shaves almost a month and a half of the time needed to produce a fuselage and will enable the company to produce a fuselage in just over 10 months, compared to the approximately 11.5 months currently needed. Northrop Grumman says the tempo increase is a part of a coordinated, pre-planned effort by the company and its suppliers to help meet rising F-35 production requirements. F-35 Program Executive Office (PEO) Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan says Sept. 9 the program is tripling its production and fielding rate by 2019.
Simpson Aerojet. Veteran Boeing executive Jim Simpson joins Aerojet Rocketdyne Sept. 21 as senior vice president for strategy and business development, according to a company statement. Simpsons reports directly to company CEO and President Eileen Drake and serves as one of the officers. In his new role, Simpson leads Aerojet Rocketdyne’s new business capture and strategic alignment initiatives. Simpson previously spent 35 years with Boeing in a variety of leadership roles, most recently serving as vice president of business development and strategy for the company’s network and space systems division.
Soloway Resigns. Professional Services Council (PSC) President and CEO Stan Soloway announces his resignation after 15 years at the helm. Soloway, 61, says he reached the “difficult decision” because he is at the stage in his career where if he wants to do something “different and substantial” before he retires, now is the time, according to a statement. PSC Executive Committee member and IBM General Manager Anne Altman leads the search committee for Soloway’s successor. He joined PSC in 2001 after serving as deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition reform during the second half of the President Bill Clinton administration.
Cape Launch Contract. The Air Force awards Aleut O&M Services LLC a $395 million ID/IQ contract for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., launch operations and infrastructure support, according to a DoD statement. Work is expected to complete by Nov. 30, 2021. The award is the result of a competitive acquisition and eight offers were made. Aleut will provide operations, maintenance and engineering support for facilities and systems.
Iran Deal. In a 58–42 vote, Senate Democrats defeat a Republican disapproval resolution meant to take down the nuclear agreement with Iran. With Congress unable to prevent the deal from moving forward, the Senate may soon return to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which was on the floor for debate before it departed for August recess.
Wait, What? Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spent a couple days in St. Louis, Mo., attending the “Wait, What?” Future Technology Forum presented by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on Sept. 9-11. Carter kicked off the conference with remarks touting the achievements of the technological community, but took a minute to address the effects of sequestration on the defense budget. “I need to say that we need for Washington to come together behind a multi-year budget approach, and we’ve got to start that right now,” he says. He also visited the Boeing’s St. Louis facilities during the trip.
Data Rights…Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall sheds some light on the Pentagon’s approach to acquiring technical data rights from companies. “We try to negotiate a reasonable price for those data rights early on when we still have competition,” he says after a speech at the ComDef 2015 conference. “We can’t make anybody sell us the data rights or their intellectual property. It’s their property.” However, the Defense Department doesn’t want to be locked into having to buy everything associated with a product through the original equipment manufacturer, he says.
…What That Means for JLTV. The Army orders Oshkosh Defense to stop work on the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) pending a protest by losing competitor Lockheed Martin. However, should the Army decide to buy the JLTV technical data package from the eventual winner of the competition, it potentially could use that data to bring in a second supplier, Kendall says. “Setting up a second production line is very expensive, so the barrier to entry for someone else is pretty high, and I think that’s the situation we have with JLTV,” he says. “Nevertheless, I want to keep some competitive pressures on the winner of that program to keep the cost down, and having that data gives us the chance to do that.”
Concerns about Russia. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says Russia’s “aggressiveness in the Arctic,” which includes reactivating and refurbishing old bases as well as building new ones makes it “very clear that they are quite serious about staying in the Arctic.” Clapper, appearing at an event co-hosted by AFCEA and INSA, says Russia’s aggressiveness and military modernization “is of great concern” and that “In some ways it’s almost a throwback to the era of the Cold War,” yet the “challenge we have in Intelligence is we do not have nearly the resources that we did in the Hey Day of the Cold War. We are watching what is a very formidable adversary.”
…Confidence on Iran Deal. Regarding the nuclear agreement the Obama administration has negotiated with Iran, Clapper says he’s “pretty confident,” although not 100 percent, what the United States can independently verify what the International Atomic Energy Agency is able to regarding monitoring of Iran’s implementation of the deal. “We are fielding independent capabilities that will enable us to have good insight into the nuclear industrial enterprise of Iran,” he says. Clapper adds that the international oversight of Iran on this is “intrusive and unprecedented” regarding “access and ability to observe and monitor what the Iranians are doing.”
…Cyber Attribution. Clapper, in a separate appearance before the House Intelligence Committee, says that the ability to detect and attribute cyber attackers is improving. “Most” cyber operators “can no longer assume that their activities will remain undetected indefinitely,” he says. “Nor can they assume that if detected, they will be able to conceal their identities. “Governmental and private sector security professionals have made significant advances in detecting and attributing cyber intrusions.” While there are gains and losses in sources of intelligence, Clapper also says that investigations of cyber incidents caused by foreign actors have provided new insights “and new means of aggregating and processing big data.”
DISA Award. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) awards Segovia, doing business as Inmarsat Government, a contract for satellite capacity worth as much as $450 million, but with only $150,000 guaranteed, the Defense Department says. The contract is a competitive, single award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ), firm-fixed-price contract for worldwide commercial telecommunications services to include satellite capacity in C, Ku, Ka and X-band for mobile and fixed satellite transceivers on maritime, airborne and ground platforms. Period of performance is through Sept. 7, 2016; and each option year follows consecutively through 2020. Task orders are issued annually. Three companies submitted offers.
French Expand Fight. France, which was the first U.S. ally to join the air campaign against Islamic State (ISIL) militants in Iraq, is now flying missions over Syria as well, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook says. France’s defense minister calls Defense Secretary Ashton Carter the same day to inform him of the decision to expand French involvement to conducting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions over Syria and is prepared to follow up with airstrikes.
Target F-35. Lockheed Martin introduces the most sophisticated targeting system yet for the F-35 Lightning II, an advanced electro-optical targeting system (EOTS). The “evolutionary” system will become available in the Block 4 configuration of the aircraft that is currently under development. Advanced EOTS will replace the F-35’s current EOTS system and incorporates improvements such as short-wave infrared, high-definition television, an infrared marker and improved image detection resolution in the cockpit, Lockheed Martin says. Because it is similar in size to the current targeting system, advanced EOTS can be installed with minimal changes to the F-35’s interface. It will be housed behind the same low-drag window, maintaining the F-35’s stealthy profile. The two targeting systems are the first sensors to combine forward-looking infrared and infrared search and track functionality to provide precise air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting capability.
WH Official To Policy Group. Stephanie Martz, former Senior Counsel and Special Assistant to the President in the Office of White House Counsel, joins Monument Policy Group, LLC, a public policy advocacy and strategic communications firm. At the White House Martz previously worked on cybersecurity and data privacy issues. Earlier, Martz served as chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) where she worked on cybersecurity, intellectual property reform, and various national security issues.