Here are the programs that made the biggest news over the past week:
Raytheon to start work on AMDR — The stop-work order on Raytheon’s successful bid to design and develop the Air and Missile Defense Radar slated for destroyers has been lifted after Lockheed Martin dropped its protest last week,
we reported Friday. Lockheed lodged the protest in October after the Navy awarded Raytheon the $156.9 million contract to outfit the Navy’s fleet of DDG-51 destroyers with the huge new radar — a program that could be worth $1.6 billion over the long haul. The first AMDR could be installed on a ship by 2016, and the system will replace legacy Lockheed-built AN/SPY-1 radars.
DOT&E dings Ford-class — The Navy’s gleaming new aircraft carriers will be “unlikely” to be able to meet requirements for handling aircraft, its core responsibility, the Pentagon’s top weapon’s tester told Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a Dec. 9 memo, as reported by Bloomberg last week. The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation wrote in a 30-page report about uncertainty with critical new technologies, including the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS). The Navy says the new carrier will increase sortie rates by 25 percent.
Canada may look beyond F-35 — The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may be gearing up to duke it out in a new competition north of the border, according to UPI — and they may have company. Canada is looking to replace its fleet of aging CF-18 jets, and once again a nation could be faced with the choice of Boeing’s ready-to-go Super Hornet or the shiny and new — and expensive — F-35. Or, the Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon could swoop in and shake up the international market even further. Canada is an official partner of the F-35 and has spent $160 million on its development, but the high cost of the fighter is making it a less-than-solid choice to replace the nation’s fleet of fighters and is prompting officials to consider holding an open competition, according to the report.