President Barack Obama is asking Congress to provide $526.6 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2014, a figure that does not include war-funding details or the continuing effects of across-the-board budget cuts that start in fiscal 2013. Over 10 years, the request sent to Capitol Hill on April 10 would trim $150 billion from previous spending plans for the military, with most of the reductions coming in later years.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Navy’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget strengthens the nation’s carrier force, more than doubling the funding request from fiscal 2013 for the CVN-78 Ford-class program slated to replace the aging Nimitz fleet. The Navy is requesting about $1.7 billion in funding in fiscal 2014, compared to $781.7 million the previous fiscal year. Of that fiscal 2014 total, about $1.5 billion is slated for procurement, while the remaining $147.1 million is meant for research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).
Despite releasing a fiscal 2014 budget that does not address sequestration, the Pentagon is still feeling the effects of an $85 billion across-the-board cut taking place in fiscal 2013. The reduction to military spending from sequestration in fiscal 2013 is $41 billion, which cuts from every program line. Coupled with higher wartime operations costs, the Pentagon is facing up to a $25 billion shortfall in its operations accounts, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters April 10.
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THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Army announced April 10 that it is seeking $5 billion in fiscal 2014 to buy or upgrade its helicopter fleet and acquire more large and small unmanned aircraft to provide ground troops with better intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The Army’s cut of the $526.6 billion Defense Department 2014 budget request is $129.7 billion, with only 18%, $23.9 billion, going to procurement and research, development, testing and evaluation programs. Personnel needs will be getting the largest piece of the pie, 44%, or $56.6 billion.
THE PENTAGON — To meet sequestration-mandated cuts, the U.S. Navy will spend about $10.7 billion less in fiscal 2013 than it had intended to spend and the service is projecting about $59 billion less in spending across the fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2018 future years defense plan (FYDP), according to the Navy’s proposed fiscal 2014 budget released this morning.
The White House is requesting $2 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) weather satellite programs in fiscal 2014, boosting funding for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite System (GOES-R) while trimming back the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). The moves are in line with the criticisms of an external review panel that last year deemed the agency’s satellite efforts “dysfunctional.” The White House is asking for $5.448 billion overall for NOAA in fiscal 2014.
THE PENTAGON — U.S. Navy submarine programs are geared up for vibrant funding in fiscal 2014 for both the Virginia-class and Ohio-class replacement boats. The Virginia-class SSN attack subs have become the template for the U.S. Navy in terms of operational and acquisition proficiency, and the proposed fiscal 2014 spending plan includes about $5.4 billion for the boats, compared to about $4.3 billion last year.
The U.S. Air Force is still reviewing an option to cut as many as five Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters from its current fiscal 2013 plan to procure 19 aircraft, and expects to have to do the same for next fiscal year if no new appropriations are enacted by the time that year begins Oct. 1.
THE PENTAGON — While proposed U.S. Navy aircraft procurement funding is set to hold steady in fiscal 2014, the service’s aircraft depot maintenance accounts are slated to take a nosedive and maintenance backlogs will balloon. Navy spending for aircraft procurement has remained relatively flat—$17.6 billion in fiscal 2012, $17.1 billion in fiscal 2013 and $17.9 billion proposed for fiscal 2014—according to the service’s proposed fiscal 2014 spending proposal.
THE PENTAGON — The Obama administration’s proposed funding level for the U.S. Navy’s major surface-fleet procurement drops a bit for the upcoming fiscal year. Funding levels are sinking for destroyers, holding steady for Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) and rising for the new proposed afloat forward staging base.
Though part of NASA’s top-funded science directorate, the agency’s planetary exploration budget suffers a sustained, pre-sequester 20% reduction in the Obama administration’s 2014 budget proposal and its outyear projections.
Establishing a U.S. human commercial space transportation capability by 2017 will require more than $821 million annually for the next three years if the initiative is to achieve the White House’s goal, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden emphasized as the fiscal 2014 budget request went to Capitol Hill today. Commercial crew is to receive $525 million under the 2013 budget continuing resolution, up from just more than $400 million in NASA’s 2012 budget.
Click here to view the pdf NASA 2014 Budget Request (Dollars in millions) NASA 2014 Budget Request (Dollars in millions) Division Subdivision FY2012 FY2013 FY2014Request FY2
COLORADO SPRINGS — After a decade of multibillion-dollar cost overruns and delays in delivering satellites, it seems the U.S. Air Force can claim that it has finally averted a potential disaster—at least for now—on its next big satellite program.
Partisan divides may be blocking Washington from an agreement on how to reduce the deficit, but interest groups from all over the political spectrum are united in panning President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget request for failing to acknowledge sequestration.
NASA plans to launch a program in fiscal 2014 to accelerate dramatically the development and certification of new composite materials and structures for aircraft, but also is re-evaluating its rotary-wing research with the aim of phasing out lower-priority work. The agency’s aeronautics research budget is planned to stay essentially flat to fiscal 2018, slipping just 0.6% to $565.7 million in the fiscal 2014 request. Funding is planned to stay at that slightly lower level for the rest of the five-year budget plan.
THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Army says network-centric technology is its biggest “investment priority,” but it still comes in behind combat vehicle development among research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) projects in the service’s fiscal 2014 budget request unveiled April 10 at the Pentagon.
COLORADO SPRINGS — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is nearly finished negotiating the details of its first two contracts providing launch services to the U.S. Air Force. Talks for its Falcon 9 v1.1 launch of NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (Dscovr) satellite and a Falcon Heavy flight lofting the Air Force’s Space Test Program (STP-2) satellite should be wrapped up by the end of the month, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell tells Aviation Week. Dscovr is slated to boost in November 2014, with STP-2 to follow in September 2015.
The U.S. Army is halting procurement of the Light Utility Helicopter program after fiscal 2014, cutting the number of UH-72s Lakotas it planned to buy by just over 30. The Army, which has said it would buy 346 UH-72 Lakotas from EADS North America (EADS NA) through 2016, has cut the proposed fiscal 2014 procurement to only 10 aircraft from an original 31. The service also dropped the final ten aircraft from its fiscal 2015 plan, for a net reduction of 31 aircraft from the overall buy.
NASA spending rises to a pre-sequestration level of $17.7 billion under President Barack Obama’s proposed 2014 budget and holds steady in outyear projections, essentially casting off the current fiscal year deficit-reducing rollback to fuel an accelerated asteroid encounter by astronauts.
The French defense procurement agency DGA has cleared the laser-guided AASM modular air-to-ground weapon for use with the country’s air force and navy.
