Top U.S. Navy leaders are calling for shipbuilding and vessel repair companies to do a better job in the coming years as the service struggles to bolster and retain its fleet strength in a climate of financial austerity. Speaking Tuesday at the Surface Navy Association’s 24th Annual Symposium, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, calmly reprimanded shipbuilders for schedule delays and asked repair contractors to help the service meet its needs.
In its recent request for proposals (RFP) for the latest round of Aegis Combat System upgrades — commonly known as Advanced Capability Build (ACB) 16 — the U.S. Navy took great pains to make sure there would be a true competition for the work, according to officials at Raytheon, one of the competing contractors. When the draft RFP was released last year there was concern across the industry that the wording heavily favored Lockheed Martin, which has been the prime for Aegis for more than four decades.
Now that the U.S. has lowered the flag on official combat operations in Iraq, Pentagon officials and other military strategists are building libraries of lessons learned there. One volume that includes a somewhat detailed account of what works — and what does not — is the book “American Sniper, the Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” by Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL who spent his career stalking and killing insurgents and other enemies in Iraq.
Engineers developing NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) for future deep-space human exploration missions are polling the worldwide launch industry for an existing upper stage they can use to propel the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV) on two test flights around the Moon.
LONDON — The first two F-35 Joint Strike Fighters being bought by the U.K. should be delivered to the government in May, according to Peter Luff, minister for defense equipment and support. The first of the aircraft, BK-1, was rolled out by Lockheed Martin in November.
Lockheed Martin is not likely to protest its loss of the Pentagon’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) development and sustainment contract to Boeing, according to industry officials. The company is set to receive its debriefing from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, which managed the competition, on Wednesday, with Boeing’s to follow Thursday, an industry official says.
The U.S. Navy plans to cut “hundreds of millions” out of its Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) program — slated to fly first in the EA-18G Growler — by selecting only a single contractor instead of two, as was initially planned, at the start of its technology development (TD) phase in 2013. The decision was approved by Defense Department and Navy officials in late December and will be announced late this month to the service’s electronic warfare community at Naval Base Ventura County Point Mugu, Calif.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, is drawing attention to the the increasingly decrepit state of infrastructure at the Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB launch sites, and the threat it poses to national security space. “We limp along from year to year keeping our fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong,” Shelton says, speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics New Horizon Forum here.
ARLINGTON, Va. — With the unmanned Kaman K-Max helicopter proving effective for cargo-carrying operations in Afghanistan, the U.S. Marine Corps is now thinking about arming the aircraft “for self-protection,” a Lockheed Martin executive says. “They’re just talking about it,” said George Barton, Ship & Aviation Systems business development vice president, during a media briefing Tuesday at the Surface Navy Association’s 24th Annual Symposium. He quickly added that arming K-Max is not part of the program of record.
HOUSTON — NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) was decommissioned this month, following a productive 16-year mission focused on the workings of black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs. The spacecraft’s final transmissions were logged by the Goddard Space Flight Center on Jan. 4. The 7,000-lb. spacecraft is expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere between 2014 and 2023, depending on the influence of solar activity.
UPSTARTS WELCOME: Sending a clear warning shot across the bows of established launch suppliers, Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, says the service is increasingly interested in the potential of emergent space companies like Blue Origin and Space Exploration (SpaceX). Propulsion systems recently demonstrated by Blue Origin “might well be worth examining for our own unmanned purposes,” Shelton says.
NASA’s Office of Chief Technologist is casting a wide net for a second round of funding in its NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which will offer as much as $100,000 to flesh out as many as 15 proposals for technologies that can push the agency’s space exploration efforts.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Link 16 communications are significantly improving operations for the U.S. Navy H-60 Seahawk fleet and changing the way the service incorporates helicopters into its missions, according to George Barton, Lockheed Martin Ship & Aviation Systems business development vice president.
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy needs to pause incremental development of the Aegis combat system and streamline the existing versions out in the fleet, a key service admiral says. The Navy also needs to focus on long-term costs for the service’s proposed next-generation DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Flight III destroyers, according to Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, commander of Naval Surface Forces for U.S. Pacific Fleet.
ARMY General Electric-Aviation, Cincinnati, has been awarded a $937,878,676 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the necessary services and supplies in support of all Corpus Christi Army Depot overhaul and repair activities for the entire T-700 family of engines. The work will be performed in Corpus Christi, Texas, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2016. One bid was solicited, with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-12-D-0015).
U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND DRS Systems Inc., Parsippany, N.J., has been awarded a five-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with firm-fixed-price delivery orders for the purchase of Spot on Target in support of U.S. Special Operations Command Procurement Division. The estimated contract value is $40,218,000. The work will be performed in Dallas and Melbourne, Fla., and ordering will be completed by November 2016. U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill AFB, Fla., is the contacting activity (H92222-12-D-0003).
As the U.S. shifts its focus away from combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is starting to repair and reset its forces, including U.S. Navy ships and cargo vessels. The service recently awarded to Detyens Shipyards of North Charleston, S.C., a $7.8 million firm, fixed-price contract for a 60-calendar-day post-shakedown shipyard availability and dry docking of USNS William McLean, a Military Sealift Command dry cargo/ammunition ship.
LONDON — The U.K.’s flagship unmanned aircraft program, the Thales Watchkeeper, has failed to meet its target for delivering the first air vehicles to troops in Afghanistan. Watchkeeper is among the ongoing U.K. Defense Ministry procurements with the largest schedule delays, according to the National Audit Office. It was running more than a year behind schedule and also has come under scrutiny at the ministry.
Even before the Pentagon hinted last week that the U.S. Army would bear the brunt of looming budget cuts, lawmakers passed disproportionate reductions to the nation’s largest land force into law. In the 2012 appropriations bill passed last month, Congress took the Army’s share of the base procurement pie, already the smallest of the services, shaved two points, and split them with the Air Force and Navy. (See chart p. 3.)
