The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Underground NGEN Ads. An industry team competing for the lucrative contract for the next generation intranet for the Navy and Marine Corps has been peppering the Washington D.C. metro with ads touting its solution. The Computer Sciences Corp. and Harris Corp. advertisements about the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) can be spotted inside the blue and yellow line trains that run to the Pentagon. “We feel it’s getting pretty good exposure,” says Heather Williams, a CSC spokeswoman. The ads began in March and are set to come down this month, she says. The CSC-Harris team is trying to unseat Hewlett-Packard, the prime contractor for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) that NGEN will succeed when it comes online, which is planned for 2014.
…HP Hits Back. HP says it’s not planning an ad campaign but has something to say about that of its rivals. Bill Toti, the company’s vice president for Navy and Marine Corps programs, says in an emailed statement the award will come down to the team that offers the “smartest” proposal and lowest price. “Rather than spending money on radio and print marketing campaigns aimed at the casual beltway commuter, HP prefers to invest in capability that improves the quality of service for our Navy and Marine Corps customers,” he says. The Navy is expected to release the final request for proposals for NGEN sometime this month. The total value of two separate contracts under NGEN could reach $10 billion over a five-year period. One contract will be for enterprise services and the second for transport services, but it‘s possible one bidding team can win both. Lockheed Martin is also weighing whether to get into the competition.
Panetta Talks LCS With Singapore. Among the topics discussed last week during Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s meeting with his Singaporean counterpart, Ng Eng Hen, was U.S. plans to forward deploy four Littoral Combat Ships to the Southeast Asian nation. The deployment is part of the Obama’s administration strategy to beef up the American presence in the Asia-Pacific region. “The deployment of the LCS signals the U.S. commitment to the region and enhances its ability to train and engage with regional partners,” the Pentagon said after the meeting with Ng. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert recently told reporters the USS Freedom (LCS-1) will deploy to Singapore for eight months next year to evaluate the ship’s operational performance.
Welding Titanium. The Office of Naval Research says it has gotten one step closer to realizing the possibility of introducing titanium hulls to the fleet. ONR attributes the progress to a welding innovation. Titanium has been historically seen as difficult to weld because of the high temperatures required and other complications. But by using a technique called friction-stir welding, ONR has overseen the successful forging of titanium in a project it has funded at the University of New Orleans School of Naval Architecture and Textron Marine and Land Systems. The project is intended to produce a full-size ship hull section by this summer, ONR says, after recent completion of the industry’s longest friction-stir titanium alloy welds, including some more than 17-feet long. Titanium is advantageous to steel because of its lighter weight and resistance to corrosion, but it is significantly more expensive.
Back In The Fight. Part of the Army’s rationale for buying EADS UH-72A Lakota helicopters was to free up UH-60 Black Hawks to get back in the fight, and to retire aging Hueys and OH-58A and C models. Col. Thomas Todd, project manager, Utility Helicopters says “about 23-25 Black Hawks were returned for use in theater, And by the end of production and fielding the OH-58 A and C models and the Hueys will be gone.” Additionally, he says Lakota provides more capability at a lower operating cost.
New Owner. TE Connectivity Ltd. Says its completed the about $2 billion acquisition of Deutsch Group SAS, which will be accretive to the company’s adjusted earnings in fiscal year 2013 excluding acquisition related costs. The acquisition of Deutsch, a leading provider of high-performance connectivity solutions for harsh environment applications, will significantly expand TE’s product portfolio and enable the Company to better serve customers in the aerospace and defense, industrial and commercial transportation, and rail markets.
Chinook Celebrations. August 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the Army taking the first delivery of the A model CH-47 Chinook, says Col. Robert Marion, project manager, Cargo Helicopters. 2011 was marked by celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the helicopters’ first flight in 1961. In fact, Marion has tracked down that very first helicopter. “I thought it would be attrited or in a museum or outside an airfield on a pole,” Marion says. But that first A model is still going strong, it’s been back through the line and is now a D model, and is now part of the state of Washington National Guard.
New Mini Gimbaled Sensor. AeroVironment unveils a new miniature gimbaled sensor payload on the RQ-11B Raven unmanned aerial vehicle at the Army Aviation Association of America professional forum and exhibit in Nashville, Tenn. The payload has hi-res color and an IR thermal video sensor as well as a laser illuminator in a multi-axis sphere able to continuously pan. The new payload will become a standard component of future Raven systems and will be sold as an upgrade for previously fielded units.
Implementing The Cloud. General Dynamics receives two Army contracts to develop and implement fixed and mobile cloud computing capacity for the Area Processing Centers Army Private Cloud (APC2) initiative. The company is one of of several awarded five-year, multiple-award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts with a combined potential value of $249.8 million. APC2 is a new component of the LandWarNet strategic initiative, encompassing all Army information capabilities such as collecting, processing and storing information for warfighters. Through this program, the Army plans to lower application migration, hosting, administration and maintenance costs by moving to cloud computing and reducing the number of data centers it operates.
Rapid Acquisition. A U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) acquisition executive tells an industry audience April 3 that USSOCOM’s rapid acquisition process could be applied to the Defense Department’s other branches, but distance is a big hurdle. “Yes, we can come up with the processes that allow services to move quickly, similar to what we have,” USSOCOM Deputy for Acquisition James Cluck says at a National Defense Industry Association breakfast in Arlington, Va. “But I’m not sure that the sort of tyranny of distance in different organizations isn’t going to have a major impact. We’re all in one spot. It makes it a little bit easier for us to decide what we want to do, execute programs and resolve problems.”
F-35 For Holland. The First F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the Netherlands rolls out of the F-35 production facility April 1, according to a Lockheed Martin [LMT] statement. This is the latest step in the production process, leading to its eventually assignment at Eglin AFB, Fla., according to a statement. The Netherlands will use the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) jet, known as the AN-1, for training and operational tests for pilots and maintainers, according to a statement. AN-1 will undergo functional fuel system checks before being transported to the flight line for ground and flight test in the coming weeks, according to a statement.
MQ-9 Crash. An Air Force MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle crashes April 4 near Seychelles International Airport on the island of Mahé, according to an Air Force statement. The MQ-9, built by General Atomics, was not armed and no injuries were reported, according to a statement. The cause is unknown and is currently under investigation. Mahé is the largest island of the Republic of Seychelles, an island country archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, located about 932 miles east of mainland Africa.
Raytheon STM. Raytheon’s Small Tactical Munition (STM) Phase II scores a direct hit on a target in February during the weapon’s first guided flight test, says a company statement. During the test at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., a Raytheon Cobra unmanned aircraft system released the munition in flight, the statement says. After safely separating from the UAS, the weapon used both GPS/INS and semi-active laser to guide the target.
IFT RFP. After a number of delays, all pretty much the usual in government procurement, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Friday released the Request for Proposal (RFP) for a planned procurement of fixed towers equipped with radars and cameras for surveillance along portions of the nation’s southwest border, beginning in Arizona. The Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT) program is one element of CBP’s larger effort to bring various technology to the fight to further stem the tide of illegal immigration into the United States. Other programs include the Remote Video Surveillance System, Mobile Surveillance Systems, man-portable camera and radar systems, and other sensors. The IFTs, which will be integrated so that a sensor hit on one tower can result in a camera on another tower being slewed to pick up on that track, will assist the Border Patrol in detecting, tracking, identifying and classifying items of interest.
…Confidence. The IFT program comes in the aftermath of the Secure Border Initiative Network that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano terminated two years ago after what was to supposed to be a fairly straight forward technology deployment turned into a frustrating and somewhat difficult development effort. SBInet was developed and deployed in two locations of the southwest border by Boeing. CBP says that based on extensive market research, it “has high confidence that there are currently existing, non-developmental systems that will warrant an eventual contract award under this solicitation.” The agency says that “First and foremost…[it] is NOT interested in any kind of system development.” Responses to the RFP are due by May 21.
Generally, A Winner. Secure Communities, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program that enables fingerprints of arrested individuals collected by local law enforcement agencies to be searched against the department’s biometric database in addition to the FBI’s biometric database, has been “effective” in identifying criminal aliens, the DHS Inspector General’s (IG) office says in a new report. The IG also says that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the DHS component responsible for Secure Communities, adds that in most cases the agency has taken enforcement actions. “Under Secure Communities, the agency expanded its ability to identify criminal aliens in areas not covered by its other programs,” the report says. “In addition, it was able to identify criminal aliens earlier in the justice process, some of whom it would not have identified under other programs.” Moreover, the report says that the program has been implemented “at little or no additional cost” to localities.