The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
McHugh In Waiting. Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.) will have to wait until the second week of September, at the earliest, to be confirmed by the Senate as the next Army secretary. Kansas GOP Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, upset over reports that Guantanamo Bay detainees could be relocated to their state, placed holds on approximately 10 executive-branch nominations, including McHugh’s, last week before the Senate’s month-long recess began. The senators say they will not lift the holds until they receive information on detainee moves from the White House. The Senate will meet again for votes on Sept. 8. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says outgoing Army Secretary Pete Geren will remain on the job until McHugh is confirmed.
AT&L Deputy Movement. Frank Kendall’s nomination to be the next deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology is now in the hands of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). President Obama formally sent Kendall’s nomination to Congress on Aug. 6. Kendall, who if confirmed would succeed James Finley, is the managing partner at Arlington, Va., defense consultancy Renaissance Strategic Advisors. A previous Raytheon executive, Kendall’s past Pentagon posts include director of tactical warfare programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The SASC will vet Kendall’s background after the Senate returns in September.
Ares Action. NASA and ATK will conduct the inaugural full-scale, full-duration test of the future Ares I launch vehicle’s first-stage solid-rocket motor on Aug. 25. That’s just days before a panel will present President Obama with options, which may include scrapping the Ares I rocket, for the future of manned space flight. The U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, will hold a final public hearing Aug. 12 as it prepares its report due by the end of the month. The goal of the Ares I test, at an ATK test facility in Utah, is “to obtain valuable thrust, roll-control, acoustics and vibration data as engineers continue to design Ares I,” NASA says. The static firing of the five-segment solid motor will last two minutes. ATK is the prime contractor for the Ares I first stage.
Third-Site Price Tag. GAO finds “several challenges”–including unknown costs–facing the Pentagon’s tenuous plans for U.S. missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, beyond the involved nations’ lack of final approval. “DoD’s cost estimates for military construction and operations and support have limitations and do not provide Congress complete information on the true costs of ballistic missile defenses in Europe,” GAO says in an August report. The Pentagon’s projected military-construction costs for the interceptor and radar sites could potentially increase from the original $837 million estimate to over $1 billion, GAO says. The military-construction estimates for fiscal year 2009 leave out some costs because the Missile Defense Agency submitted figures before milestones were reached and a review was completed, the report says. Estimates for operations and support costs also are incomplete, it adds.
JASSM Glitch. It looks as though the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) development program just can’t catch a break. After a series of flight test failures last year and early this year, the Air Force signaled that prime contractor Lockheed Martin would have one last chance to get it right in reliability tests this summer. Those critical flight tests kicked off on July 13 to a bumpy start. According to the Air Force Headquarters public affairs office, the first test missile in the new series, flown from a B-1B aircraft at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., was not released “due to an aircraft-induced abort command.” The incident was the first aborted release in over 90 weapon employment tests, according to the Air Force. “The investigation and subsequent testing revealed that the aircraft’s aft door sensors were out of specified tolerance and induced the abort command,” the service said in a statement released last week. “Corrective maintenance action is being performed on this aircraft.” Flight testing of the $6 billion JASSM program is expected to resume later this month, an Air Force spokeswoman says.
Grand Opening. The Air Force last week officially opened a new command that consolidates all of its nuclear bombers and nuclear-tipped missiles. Global Strike Command at Barksdale AFB, La., will be fully operational in about a year, the Air Force says. Opening of a rejuvenated Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center for maintenance of the U.S. nuclear stockpile accompanies the move. In 2007, a B-52 bomber flew across the country inadvertently carrying six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads. Later that year, nuclear- related components were shipped to Taiwan by mistake. Three senior officers were relieved of command for their roles in the first incident. According to Pentagon officials, the command will have an annual budget of about $4.2 billion a year.
Rendundancies. Even as the Navy brings more and more advanced technologies onto its myriad platforms, there is always going to be a need to build in redundancies, CNO Adm. Gary Roughead tells Defense Daily. “It’s important that as we design things like [LCS] and think about things like that, we realize that we take these things into harm’s way and the potential for disruption is very real,” he says. The Navy needs to think its way through the redundancies it is going to need, Roughead adds. “It’s an interesting problem. That’s why I think with the reorganization (of N2 and N6) we can come to those types of decisions in a better way, in a more holistic way across the Navy.”
…Challenges. “We can never assume we are going to fight in an immaculate war. An adversary’s sole purpose is to disrupt us, so how do you make your decisions so that you are not disadvantaged when things cut loose,” Roughead adds. “That’s just the challenge of trying to design the fleet that we need for tomorrow.” Roughead believes that the reorganization is going to enable the Navy to look at what it is doing, where it is going and how it is going there in a better way than it has done in the past. “This is about how do we get our heads around this so that we can be a better Navy as a result. Because I think technology has moved and we as a Navy have done an OK job, but I just don’t want to do an OK job. I really want to get out front of this one, because it is with us and it isn’t going to go away.”
Got COTS? As the Navy looks to move toward COTS components, there is still going to be a need for proprietary systems, Vice Adm. H. Denby Starling, commander NETWARCOM, tells Defense Daily in a recent interview. Any decision to choose a COTS application will come out of the acquisition side of the Navy, Starling notes. “First of all, it depends on what you are buying the equipment to do. There are some functions out there in the command and control and network world that I think we would always want to have a proprietary or governmental developed system to operate,” he says. “But on the other side of that equation, the power in COTS equipment is just huge. For the great majority of what we do, I think COTS systems work fine. And then we have to look at the systems we allow to ride on that COTS hardware.”
Denied. GAO denies Argon ST Inc’s. protest of the Navy’s $95 million IDIQ contract for the Common Processing Systems (CPS). Virginia Beach-based Global Technical Systems (GTS) won the contract in March. The Navy issued a stop work order after Argon ST filed an agency protest. That order was lifted on May 1. A stop work order was not issued when Argon ST took its protest to GAO (Defense Daily, July 10). GTS is partnered with DRS Technologies and Northrop Grumman to provide for the design, development, qualification, and production of a COTS-based, Grade A shock-qualified, processing system in support of Navy platforms.
Repair Bill. The Navy awards General Dynamics a $65.2 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for installation of a hull patch, bridge access trunk, sail and port retractable bow plane, as well as perform mandatory corrective maintenance actions required for the repair and restoration of the USS Hartford (SSN-768), NAVSEA says. To date, the Navy has awarded more than $102 million to cover the cost of parts and repairs that resulted from the March 19 collision between the Hartford and the USS New Orleans (LPD-18) in the Strait of Hormuz. Fifteen sailors aboard the Hartford were slightly injured. The New Orleans suffered a ruptured fuel tank resulting in 25,000 gallons of marine diesel fuel spilling into the strait adds NAVSEA.
New Lab. NUWC Newport personnel broke ground July 31 on the Maritime Subsurface Sensor Operations Laboratory that will house a variety of unique equipment used in maintaining U.S. Navy towed sonar array systems, the Navy says. The $11 million project includes a 40,000-square-foot, single story addition to the NUWC Newport facility that will centralize all research, development, acquisition, testing, refurbishment, and maintenance of these systems. Much of that equipment in the new facility will relocate to Newport from a Space and Naval Warfare Command facility in Virginia, part of the overall Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) legislation in 2005 to relocate all maritime subsurface sensors functions within the U.S. Navy at NUWC Newport.
Robots Rule. NUWC Keyport delivers the first Automated Rotor Blade Stripping System (ARBSS) system to Fleet Readiness Center (FRC-East) Cherry Point, N.C., NAVSEA says. The system’s delivery is the culmination of an intensive three-year effort to develop and produce the Department of Defense’s first robotic laser stripping system for a composite aircraft structure. ARBSS automates the paint removal on CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopter rotor blades. A commercial robotic arm mounted on a 30-foot track manipulates a laser stripping head over all areas of the rotor blade surface during paint removal operations. It controls all aspects of the workcell, including fixturing, laser equipment, laser head communications and monitoring sensors. The new automated system yields both manpower and cost savings for warfighters. The previous manual process of paint stripping one rotor blade requires 22 hours of manpower. ARBSS completes a blade in four to six hours, depending on the thickness of the paint, NAVSEA adds.
CH-53K Parts. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. begins receiving the first of the 8,500 supplier parts that will constitute the new CH-53K heavy lift helicopter being developed for the Marine Corps. Arrival of the parts–primarily transmission gear forgings that Sikorsky machinists will intricately refine–indicates steady and solid progress toward production of the first prototypes, Sikorsky says. The parts will support assembly of the seven prototype vehicles that will be delivered during the system design and development program. Of the seven, four will serve as engineering development vehicles. The remaining three will serve as a dedicated ground test vehicle, a static test article, and a fatigue test platform. The prototypes will be assembled at Sikorsky’s Development Flight Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. Sikorsky received a $3 billion SDD contract on April 5, 2006, to develop a replacement for the Marine Corps’ CH-53E. The program is expected to produce more than 200 new aircraft, the company says.
More Kits. Plasan announces it has won an additional contract for the delivery of 1,700 armor kits for the U.S. Army’s Multipurpose All-Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV) as sub- contractor to Oshkosh. Plasan has met the first production milestone in the $1.05 billion contract awarded by DoD to Oshkosh and Plasan to produce 2,244 M-ATVs for deployment in Afghanistan. Through the application of the modular Kitted Hull concept, developed by Plasan, all armor parts and components are sent to the vehicle’s manufacturer where they are applied to the vehicle at the assembly line, thus improving efficiency and reliability.
Improving Security. The DSCA tells Congress Aug. 4 about a potential $526 million FMS to the United Arab Emirates of 362 Hellfire Missiles, 15 Common Missile Warning Systems, four radar-warning receivers, and related equipment and services. The sale also would include engineering and installation, transportation, engineering change proposals, depot maintenance, communications equipment, repair and return, support equipment, spare and repair parts, publications and technical documentation, personnel training and training equipment, contractor technical and logistics support services, and other related support elements. The proposed sale will allow the UAE to deploy aircraft to materially assist the United States in overseas contingency operations. Principal contractors would be: Science and Engineering Services, Inc (SES-I); BAE Systems; L-3.; Boeing; Lockheed Martin; and Northrop Grumman.