Vulcan Engines. United Launch Alliance (ULA) said it has picked the Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 to be the upper-stage engine of its new Vulcan Centaur medium- to heavy-lift rocket. In addition to supplying RL10s, Aerojet Rocketdyne has agreed to develop a new version of the engine, the RL10C-X, which will increase the use of three-dimensional printing and other advanced technologies to improve affordability, performance and reliability. ULA said it continues to evaluate Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 and Blue Origin’s BE-4 for the booster engine and plans to select one of them “soon.”
100th P-8. The 100th P-8 maritime patrol aircraft is being built at a Boeing factory in Renton, Wash. The modified 737-800A will be the 84th P-8A Poseidon for the U.S. Navy and will be delivered later this year. Boeing has delivered 68 P-8As to the Navy, which plans to buy up to 117. Other P-8 customers are Australia, India, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Executive News. The Senate last Wednesday evening confirmed by unanimous consent Vice Adm. Karl Schultz to be the next Commandant of the Coast Guard. Schultz, who will succeed Adm. Paul Zukunft, begins his four-year term leading the Coast Guard on June 1. Separately, L3 Technologies’ board elected Christopher Kubasik, the company’s president and CEO, as chairman, and the company appointed Rita Lane, a former vice president of Operations at Apple Inc., to the board. Meanwhile, Oshkosh Corp., whose work includes manufacturing trucks for the Army and Marine Corps, appointed retired Army Gen. Ray Odierno, who concluded his service as chief of staff, to its board. And Lockheed Martin named Barry McCullough as its new vice president of Strategy and Business Development of the Rotary and Mission Systems segment. McCullough, who most recently was vice president of International Business Development at the company, is a retired Navy three-star admiral.
Emerging UAS Threat. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s panel that oversees her department that transnational criminal organizations (TCO) are using unmanned aircraft system to move drugs into the U.S. and that “it’s only a matter of time, we fear, until we watch them use it to transfer IEDs or other explosive materials.” IEDs refers to improvised explosive devices. She said the use of UAS by the TCOs “disrupt our surveillance and they cause problems with our communication already.” The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice are completing work on a “legislative request for authority that would help us surveil and disrupt” the use of UAS in domestic airspace, she said.
…Kaspersky Lookout. After overseeing the removal of cyber security software from federal civilian networks supplied by a Russian company, the Department of Homeland Security is looking to root out Kaspersky Lab’s products on any third parties the government does business with, Nielsen told the subcommittee in response to a question from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). The fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act prohibits Kaspersky’s products from being used by the federal government and any organization working directly or indirectly the government. Nielsen said the government “looking at it from a supply chain perspective,” adding that so far a lot of assessing has been done, noting that, “Unfortunately for many of the third party providers, they weren’t even aware that they had Kaspersky on their systems and within their products so we’re pretty advanced on that.”
…Consequences and Foreign Parties. Nielsen said that DHS is also working with the intelligence community to assess the extent to which foreign parties that are working with the U.S. government may have Kaspersky products on their systems. Once there is a concern, the plan is to quickly address it “within the federal interagency,” she said. Nielsen also said that DHS is reviewing contracting so that when cyber security concerns arise, such as when a third party has been hacked or is deemed vulnerable, “It has to be that we can pause and turn off contracts.” The government is also looking at consequences for parties that don’t remove Kaspersky software from their systems, she said. The U.S. government is concerned about Kaspersky’s ties to Russian cyber espionage activities.
Modular CNO. Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson said the service has learned a lot about modularity since the problems it experienced with the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). “The capability of per cubic yard is so much higher now that we can take a much more granular approach to modularity,” he said. So rather than focus on large modules that are swapped by a crane, “we can really think about modularity in terms of quickly swappable arrays. Rapidly improving processing. You know software is a big part of this.” He said he also does not think of it so much as modularity anymore but a vessel designed form the keel up to house combat systems and other major capabilities that will follow the curve of technology on a more agile basis. Whereas the hull and power plants will last for a ship’s lifetime, these other parts can change as part of a ship’s DNA, he recently said at the USNI Annual Meeting.
Wittman On Collisions. The chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower said he is not satisfied with how the Navy is addressing the problems that led to the deadly collisions of the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56). “I think there needs to be wholesale change in the ways that really shake up the status quo and we’ve got some things in this year’s NDAA, and we’ve had conversations with the Navy,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said at as Hudson Institute event. “The Navy is not in any way shape or form in agreement with or happy with [some of the provisions],” he added. Wittman spoke in favor of increased specialization among surface warfare officers and needing more training before leading the watch of a ship, comparing it unfavorably to the level needed to pilot a commercial vessel. He said the Navy has addressed some issues but “I think the comprehensive response to that needs to go even further than where the Navy has gone. We’ve been very direct and prescriptive in this year’s seapower mark in the House.”
DDG-125. Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding officially started building the first Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the future Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125), at its facility in Pascagoula, Miss. The company said the start of fabrication means the first 100 tons of steel have been cut for the ship. The Flight III ships will include modifications to accommodate the AN/SPY-6(V) Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which improves on the current SPY-1 radar to better track and intercept ballistic missiles. DDG-125 is the last of five destroyers ordered in a June 2013 multi-year procurement award.
LHD-6. The USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) Wasp-class amphibious assault ship arrived in San Diego on May 8, concluding a homeport change from Sasebo, Japan where it served as the sole forward-deployed amphibious assault ship. LHD-6 served as a forward-deployed ship since April 2012 and as flagship of the Amphibious Force 7th Fleet’s expeditionary strike group. The USS Wasp (LHD-1) replaced LHD-6 as the only forward-deployed amphibious assault ship. The Bonhomme Richard will later enter an extended maintenance availability where in will receive upgrades to operate F-35Bs.
Royal Arrival. A CH-53K King Stallion arrives at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) New River, N.C., early next week, marking the first delivery of what will become the U.S. military’s largest rotorcraft. This will mark another on-time milestone for the Marine Corps’ future heavy-lift helicopter program. After it lands at New River, the aircraft enters a supportability test plan during which Marines will conduct a logistics assessment on the maintenance, sustainment and overall aviation logistics support of the King Stallion. The CH-53K is a new-build aircraft with the same logistical footprint as the current CH-53E Super Stallion, but is fly-by-wire, software driven and has three times the lift capacity. Margins for future improvements are already built into the aircraft.
New CIO. Dana Deasy was sworn in as Defense Department chief information officer May 7. Deasy comes to DoD from JP Morgan Chase, where he was CIO and managed more than 40,000 information technology professionals. He now is responsible for how DoD manages and uses information, communications and cybersecurity. Deasy will oversee the Pentagon’s ambitious plan to migrate its IT systems to cloud-based computing.