OPC Support. The Coast Guard’s next major acquisition program, $10 billion or more Offshore Patrol Cutter, has bipartisan support in Congress and has the support of the White House Office of Management and Budget, says Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft. The program remains on track to award a final design contract in the fourth quarter of FY ’16, he says. Bollinger Shipyards, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works division, and Great Eastern Shipbuilding are all working under preliminary and contract design contracts for the OPC.
…Impact of 9th NSC. With Congress appropriating funding for a ninth high endurance National Security Cutter, one more ship than originally planned, Zukunft says his “number one concern” is that this vessel doesn’t come at the expense of the OPC. Both vessels are “complementary” and are “not mutually exclusive,” he says. Still, he adds, “at the end of the day we’ll run the numbers again, how many Offshore Patrol Cutters do you need?” The life-cycle costs of these platforms also have to be factored in, he says, noting that as the Coast Guard brings on new assets, it has flatlined its operating budget.
New P&W Chief. United Technologies Corp. has appointed Robert Leduc, the former president of its former Sikorsky Aircraft division, as president of its Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine segment. Leduc, 59, succeeds Paul Adams who is retiring at the end of February. “Bob’s “vision and experience in the aerospace industry, his proven leadership skills and his track record of executing complex developmental programs make him the right choice to lead Pratt & Whitney as we ramp up production of our exciting new PurePower Geared Turbofan engine,” says Gregory Hayes, UTC’s president and CEO.
New AeroVironment Prez. Unmanned aircraft system developer and manufacturer AeroVironment on Friday appoints Wahid Nawabi as its president, effective immediately. Nawabi will also retain his position as chief operating officer. Tim Conver will continue as chairman and CEO of the company. Nawabi’s new roles include strategic planning while continuing his focus on executing AeroVironment’s operating plan.
More GPS III Details… The Air Force releases additional details for its widely anticipated Global Positioning System III (GPS III) Space Vehicles 11+ Phase 1 Production Readiness Feasibility Assessment contract. The solicitation, released Jan. 8, is for a competitive firm-fixed-price acquisition with up to three contracts not-to-exceed $6 million. This includes a base contract of $5 million and a 26-month period of performance, plus two $500,000 options with a six-month period of performance for each option awarded, for a total possible period of performance of 38 months. The Air Force intends to award the Phase 1 contract in the third quarter of fiscal year 2016.
…GPS III. The scope of this effort includes insight to the contractor’s readiness efforts in preparation for the Phase 2 competition for production space vehicles and includes access to design artifacts as well as a demonstration of navigation payload capability. GPS III SV 11+ will use the current GPS III space vehicles 1-8 requirements baseline with the addition of a redesigned Nuclear Detonation Detection System Government Furnished Equipment hosted payload, a search and rescue/GPS GFE hosted payload, a Laser Retro-reflector Array GFE hosted payload, Unified S-Band compliance capability and a regional military protection capability. Lockheed Martin spokesman Chip Eschenfelder says 11 the company expects to bid for this contract. Lockheed Martin is the GPS III incumbent.
F-35 Contract. The Navy awards Lockheed Martin a $29 million not-to-exceed, cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N00019-14-G-0020), according to a DoD statement. The contract is for air vehicle retrofit modifications associated with the F-35A fuel tank overpressure engineering chance proposal in support of the Air Force and Australia, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.
Pratt Delivers Final F117. Pratt & Whitney will deliver the final production F117 engine to the Air Force later this month for use in its C-17 fleet as Boeing is ending manufacturing of its C-17 fleet. Four F117s power the C-17 and each engine is rated at 40,440 pounds of thrust. The F117 first entered service in 1993.
SpaceX Jason-3. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) plans to land its Falcon 9 first stage on its water barge drone ship after the company’s Jan. 17 Jason-3 launch from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., SpaceX founder Elon Musk says on Twitter. Musk says ship landings are needed for high velocity missions. SpaceX successfully landed its first stage on ground after its previous launch Dec. 21 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Jason-3 is the fourth mission in a U.S.-European series of satellite missions that measure the height of the ocean surface. The radar altimeter is the primary instrument on Jason-3. It measures sea-level variations over the global ocean with very high accuracy (as 1.3 inches, with a goal of achieving one inch). SpaceX this week completed a full-duration static fire of Falcon 9 in advance of the Jason-3 launch.
Weiler Nomination. President Barack Obama intends to nominate Todd Weiler to become the next assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs, according to the White House statement. Weiler is currently CEO of One Hemisphere Ventures, a consulting firm he founded in 2008. From 2009-2010, Welier served as vice president of Computer World Services Corp. He was deputy assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs from 1993 to 1999. DoD says this position is subject to Senate confirmation, which may be challenging as SASC Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been holding up nomination hearings for civilian DoD nominees.
First Israeli F-35A. Lockheed Martin and Israeli defense commemorate the start of production of the first F-35A for Israel, according to a company statement. The conventional variant aircraft, designated AS-1, officially began its mate process, where the four major aircraft components are joined together to form the aircraft’s structure. Lockheed Martin expects AS-1 to roll out of the factory in June and be delivered to the Israeli Air Force later this year. Israel has contracted for 33 F-35A through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
GD HQ Moving. General Dynamics is moving its company headquarters from Falls Church, Va., to nearby Reston. Company spokeswoman Lucy Ryan says General Dynamics will build a new facility on undeveloped land and that the company proposes a single office building with approximately 190,000 square feet of office space. She says the zoning documents have been submitted with Fairfax County and that the company’s current lease at 2941 Fairview Park Drive ends in March 2019. Washington Business Journal first reported the news of the move.
F135 Deal. DoD and Pratt & Whitney reach agreement in principle on production contracts for ninth and 10th lot of F135 engines for the F-35, according to a DoD statement. The ninth and 10th lots cover 66 and 101 total engines, respectively, as well as program management, spare parts and other functions. The total award value will be released when the two parties finalize the low-rate initial production (LRIP) 9-10 contracts. DoD says, in general, the unit prices for the 53 LRIP 9 and 87 LRIP 10 conventional variant and aircraft carrier variant (CV) propulsion systems reduced 3.4 percent from the previously-negotiated LRIP 8 price to the negotiated LRIP 10 price. LRIP 9 engine deliveries begin this year and LRIP 10 engines start in 2017.
Capitol Hill Week Ahead. Next week is a slow on the Hill, with only the Senate in session. SASC has a Jan. 20 hearing on the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations Projects in Afghanistan, which has been criticized by government watchdogs for funding projects that have wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. John Sopko, the special inspector general For Afghanistan reconstruction, will testify.
State of the Union. President Barack Obama calls on Congress to vote on an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL. “Take a vote. But the American people should know that with or without congressional action, ISIL will learn the same lessons as terrorists before them,” he says during his State of the Union address. Throughout his speech, Obama defended his strategy against the Islamic State and said the terrorist organization is not an existential threat to the United States. “Over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands,” he says.
CNO Goes to Silicon Valley. At the end of the month, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson will travel to the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) in California, the new Pentagon office created by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to improve relations with the cutting-edge technology businesses that populate Silicon Valley. In his strategic guidance released earlier this month, Richardson wrote that he would like to increase engagement with nontraditional industry partners. At the Surface Navy Association annual symposium this week, he says Carter’s DIUx provides a good entry point for finding businesses that could bring new ideas and more agility to the Navy. “I look forward to seeing how the Navy can posture ourselves to take most advantage of DIUx and what’s going on there,” he tells reporters Jan. 12.
LPD-28 . The Navy in recent weeks released a request for proposals (RFP) for LPD-28, the 12th San Antonio-class (LPD 17) amphibious ship, says Maj. Gen. Chris Owens, director of expeditionary warfare. LPD-28 will be a transitional ship to the LX(R) program: a modified, less expensive version of the LPD-17 hull that will replace the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship.
…More LPD-28. Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding, the company that builds the San Antonio-class, is working through the RFP to ascertain modifications to the ships’ requirements, says Brian Cuccias, president of Ingalls Shipbuilding. One of the known changes is that the LPD-28 bridge ship will have a stick mast instead of a composite mast. However, there will be other differences, says Cuccias, who was not ready to detail them on Jan. 13.
Tomahawk Seeker Test. Raytheon announces successful tests of a seeker that would allow the Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile to hit moving targets. For the captive flight tests, a T-39 test aircraft was equipped with the new dual-mode seeker seeker, a modular, multi-mode processor and a modified Tomahawk missile nose cone. Then, over a three-week period in December, the aircraft flew profiles simulating the flight path of the missile while aiming at moving targets on land and at sea, according to a company news release. Tomahawk missiles currently use a GPS-guidance system for long-range precision strikes on stationary targets. Raytheon used internal funding for the demonstration, the company said.
Illumio. Illumio appoints Nathanial Gleicher, former director for cybersecurity policy for the U.S. Nation Security Council (NCS), as head of cybersecurity strategy. In the new position, Gleicher will lead the company’s public cybersecurity thought leadership and policy engagements while overseeing the applicability of Illumio’s security technology to its customers’ cybersecurity strategies. Earlier in his career Gleicher prosecuted domestic and international cybercrime at the Department of Justice, built custom e-commerce and database solutions, and advised the South Korean government on technology policy.
IARPA. Stacey Dixon is selected by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to be the next Deputy Director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), effective Jan. 25. Dixon previously served as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Deputy Director of InnoVission, overseeing research and intelligence for geospatial intelligence. Earlier, Dixon served as NGA’s chief of congressional and intergovernmental affairs, program monitor and budget director for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and at the CIA. At IARPA Dixon will work with the agency director “to advance innovative and multi-disciplinary research programs to achieve breakthrough technologies for national intelligence missions,” IARPA says.
CompTIA Cyber Award. The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) presents House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Chris Kelsall, branch head of the cyber workforce for the U.S. Navy, the association’s Excellence in Cybersecurity award. The award is created to recognized legislators and federal agency program managers who use federal dollars wisely to improve the cybersecurity skills of those working for the U.S. government. “Chairman Thornberry has been instrumental on Capitol Hill in pushing for increased cybersecurity training and certification within the Department of Defense community,” Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of CompTIA, says. Thibodeaux acknowledges Kelsall as a member of the Federal CIO Council IT Workforce Committee who “has been instrumental in pushing for increased training and certifications for our nation’s IT workforce.”
Universal Soldier. With unmanned systems proliferating in the military, all the services are working to create common control stations and user interfaces to whittle down all of the proprietary systems that have been purchased. The Army is going one further by training universal operators, as well, Col. Paul Cravey, unmanned systems capabilities manager for the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, tells a meeting hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army. The operator will use a common control system to fly any unmanned aircraft in the Army’s arsenal. Soldiers are currently trained to operate a particular platform like a Shadow or Gray Eagle drone. “We’re looking to transition that training into a universal operator so that you are platform agnostic and qualified on a universal control interface…You can then control the assets that are apportioned to the BCT or to the ground commander that you are supporting in that environment.”
Training Shortage. At the ASUA meeting, which focuses solely on the Army’s aviation branch, leaders express concern that the budget ax has cut deeply into its training accounts. Maj. Gen. Michael Lundy, the Army’s chief aviator, helicopter, says pilots have gained valuable experience flying in challenging environments like Iraq and Afghanistan but need more training in combined arms operations. Training must more closely resemble real-world conditions to prepare aviators for future conflicts, he says. “Flying in Afghanistan is different than combined arms operations,” he says. “We need to be training at a much higher level.” Leaders must be creative and find innovative ways to make homestation training a viable stand-in for flying hours lost to budget cuts, he added.
Chinook Upgrades. Lundy updated the AUSA gathering on several modernization programs, including performance upgrades to the Chinook called CH-47 Block II. An analysis of alternatives has been completed and has passed muster with the Army systems acquisition review council, he says. Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Heidi Shyu has been briefed on the effort to enhance the Chinook’s performance with, among other refits, more efficient rotor blades. Chinook Block II is on track to become a program of record, Lundy adds.