New Money Men. The all-powerful House Appropriations Committee (HAC) will have the same chairman, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and six new GOP members during the 113th Congress, which starts in January. The new members, whom the House Republican Steering Committee approves Nov. 29, are Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), David Joyce (R-Ohio), and David Valadao (R-Calif.). Rooney, a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) member, is a familiar face in defense circles. He opposes the Air Force’s plan to cancel the Global Hawk Block 30 drone aircraft and the now-defunct second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Joyce will fill the congressional seat now held by HAC member Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), who is retiring. The full House Republican Conference approves Rogers as the HAC chairman Nov. 28, when it also elects two new committee chairmen: Reps. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) for Homeland Security and Ed Royce (R-Calif.) for Foreign Affairs. It also reelects Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon as HASC chairman.
McIntyre’s Might. HASC Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee Ranking Member Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) will return to Congress next year. Republican challenger David Rouzer concedes to him on Nov. 28, following a recount of votes cast during the Nov. 6 election. “Now that the recount has been completed and the tally of votes is official, we can move forward satisfied that each vote was counted properly and accurately,” Rouzer says in a statement. McIntyre has not been excessively involved in matters of the Seapower subcommittee, which oversees Navy and Marine Corps procurement and research programs for weapons systems such as ships and aircraft, aides and observers say. The HASC has not yet announced its new roster of committee members or the new subcommittee chairmen and ranking members. The Seapower subpanel needs a new chairman, because Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) is leaving the House after a failed Senate run. The Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee will receive a new chairman and ranking member, because Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) lost their reelection bids.
Political Center Holding on Defense. Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, says that for about a year before the recent presidential election he was getting “a little nervous” about the ability of the political consensus in the center on the “importance of defense and on the importance of strong defense budgets” to hold. Now his outlook has improved. “I got a little nervous about that over the last year because there was a growing element on the right in particular that was much more focused on deficit reductions than national security and I think that tide has rescinded just a little bit and hopefully the center will hold as we go through the next couple of months,” Kendall says at an investor conference hosted by Credit Suisse.
…Budget Cuts Mean Capability Cuts. Kendall says that the FY ’13 budget for DoD is based on a threat-based strategy and spending plan over the next 10 years that match well, although there are risks and challenges. While Kendall doesn’t believe that the pending prospect of budget sequestration will become a reality–which would mean $50 billion in defense spending cuts annually during the next 10 years–even $10 billion in annual cuts will have a severe impact on what DoD can do, he says. If there are further budget cuts, “we will have to go back and revisit that strategy and make some very fundamental choices about what we want our Defense Department to be able to do” and “which areas are we going to take risk in,” he says.
…Not All Dire for Industry. Even if sequestration goes into effect, there will still be money to be made by the defense industry, Kendall says. Sequestration represents about a 10 percent cut to the DoD budget, and if it occurs, “we will get through that,” he says. The defense business is cyclical and there is “still money to be made,” he says. Moreover, with the nation’s defense strategy beginning to shift toward the Pacific Rim, Kendall says that will present new opportunities, particularly in the maritime and air domains. There are also new opportunities emerging in space and cyber security, he says.
More Sequestration Talk. A panel of defense industry chief executives plans to speak about the impact of budget cuts and the possibility of sequestration Monday morning at the National Press Club in downtown Washington. The 10 a.m. conference will include Wes Bush, the chairman, CEO and president of Northrop Grumman; Pratt & Whitney President David P. Hess; Dawne Hickton, the vice chair, president and CEO of RTI International Metals; and the president and CEO and TASC, David Langstaff.
Touting Iron Dome. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta praised the recent success of the U.S.- funded Iron Dome missile defense system for Israel, saying during a press conference last week with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, that the White House will continue seeking funding for the system. Panetta credits Iron Dome for taking out more than 400 rockets fired by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip during hostilities over the last month. He says it amounted to an 85 percent success rate in fending off the missiles bound for Israeli population centers. The United States earlier this year pledged an additional $70 million on top of the $205 million to fund Iron Dome in fiscal 2012. “And we will obviously continue to work together to seek additional funding to enable Israel to boost Iron Dome’s capacity further and to help prevent the kind of escalation and violence that we’ve seen,” Panetta says.
Big E’s Deactivation. The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was to be deactivated Saturday in a ceremony in Norfolk, Va., after more than 50 years of service. During her lifetime, Big E saw action in every major conflict involving the United States. The carrier entered the fleet during the Kennedy administration, witnessed the Cuban Missile Crisis, had six tours in the Vietnam War and engaged in some of the first strikes against the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. More than 100,000 sailors served on the first nuclear powered carrier ship over the decades. The carrier will undergo a long deactivation period before decommissioning in 2015.
RL-10 Delays X-37B. The Air Force’s ongoing investigation into the RL-10 engine anomaly on the October GPS IIF launch delays an X-37B launch, according to an Air Force spokesman, who added every other mission that uses Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles is impacted. The service had originally scheduled a Nov. 27 launch for X-37B, its secretive reusable unmanned space vehicle, but pushed it back to Dec. 11. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) Gen. William Shelton in October ordered an Accident Investigation Board (AIB) to investigate why an upper stage engine on a Delta IV RL-10B-2 rocket did not perform as expected during the GPS IIF launch. The investigation also delays the Orbital Test Vehicle-3 (OTV-3), NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-K (TDRS-K) and Wideband Global Satellite-5 (WGS-5) missions with missions after WGS-5 under review pending results of the investigation.
GeoEye and Japan. Commercial satellite imagery provider GeoEye (GEOY) partners with Japan Space Imaging Corporation (JSI) to provide a major Japanese ministry with access to comprehensive high-resolution satellite imagery of all of Japan through GeoEye’s EyeQ platform, according to a company statement. Under the agreement, which extends a deal first established earlier this year, JSI will use EyeQ to provide Japanese ministry analysts with online, on-demand access to the GeoEye and JSI-owned satellite imagery covering Japan. EyeQ will allow a wide array of non-specialist analysts to quickly and easily assess GeoEye’s accurate, high-resolution content in near real-time, within hours of its collection. JSI is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp.
Raytheon Future SATCOM. The Air Force awards Raytheon $8.7 million to participate in development of the future protected tactical military satellite communication system, according to a company statement. The service’s objective is to identify cost-effective architectures and component development paths for the future SATCOM system that will follow the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) system. Raytheon will design and demonstrate affordable terminal components as well as support the waveform development for the Air Force. Raytheon has previously developed protected communication programs like the Army’s Secure Mobile Anti-Jam Reliable Tactical Terminal (SMART-T).
Taking A Look. The National Research Council is looking over their recent report on Missile Defense where Raytheon points to a math error overstating by a factor of 15 the long-term costs of the Army’s Patriot Weapon System. The Sept. 11 NRC report set off a flurry of shock at high operation and sustainment costs, which led the Army to take a look at the report and find the sticker shock came by pinning the O&S cost to one battalion rather than the entire service inventory of 15 battalions. The council will determine if it needs to rework the report if the error would change its findings and recommendations as it reviews “Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives.”
New Boss. Col. Michaelene Kloster assumes command Dec. 1 of the 98th Training Division from Brig. Gen. Dwayne Edwards, during a change of command ceremony at Fr. Benning, Ga. Kloster began her military career in June 1984, commissioned as a second lieutenant from the Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Delaware, and was a Distinguished Military Graduate. She is also a graduate of the Combined Arms and Services Staff School; the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U. S. Army War College. She holds a Master of Science in Management and a Doctorate Degree in Business Administration.
Bradley Reset. BAE Systems receives a $97 million contract to reset up to 146 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Under the reset work, Bradley vehicles will be partially torn down, rebuilt and tested to restore and extend the life of the vehicles. Mark Signorelli, vice president and general manager of Vehicle Systems at BAE, says: “This important work reinforces the Bradley as a vital asset to the U.S. Army and helps maintain the skilled workforce imperative to the defense industrial base.” Final delivery is expected in July 2014. The initial teardown of vehicles will be performed at the Red River Army Depot. This is considered a level-II vehicle reset where key components are removed for reset, then returned to BAE and the Red River Army Depot to be rebuilt and tested for performance.
…Separately. BAE receives a sole-source $37.6 million contract from Letterkenny Army Depot to provide the spare parts and kits needed to convert 250 RG33 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles into Medium Mine Protected Vehicles (MMPV), a 6×6 state-of-the-art wheeled military vehicle. The company will provide a rear ramp, used to deploy remotely operated unmanned ground vehicles in route and area clearance missions, and a new vehicle heating and air conditioning system. The spare parts and kits will be assembled by the existing workforce at the BAE Systems facility in Anniston, Alabama.