EELV AWARD: The U.S. Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a $108 million firm-fixed-price contract for launch services using an Atlas V Launch Vehicle under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program for launch of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF)-1 satellite. The work will be finished by February 2009, the Pentagon said in a Feb. 28 announcement.
Canceling the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and replacing it with U.S. Air Force F-16s and Navy F/A-18s could save tens of billions of dollars in coming decades but would result in a lack of capabilities now prioritized by the Defense Department, a Congressional Budget Office report on federal appropriations options has suggested.
NAVAL AIR TOO: Amidst the sturm and drang over potentially increased Navy shipbuilding and systemic acquisition problems, top U.S. Navy and Marine Corps officials are pushing to raise the profile of naval aircraft too. The department's secretary and chief acquisition official, along with the chief of naval operations and the Marine commandant, freely declare their ongoing requirement for respective versions of the Joint Strike Fighter - despite proposed budget cutbacks (DAILY, Feb. 6).
SEASPARROW MISSILES: Raytheon Co. has been awarded a $23.7 million contract to buy long lead material for production of Evolved Seasparrow Missiles for NATO countries and Foreign Military Sales customers, the Defense Department said March 5. ESSM production will be for Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Norway, Spain, United States, and the United Arab Emigrants. The work is set to be finished by February 2010. The contract was awarded by the Naval Sea Systems Command.
CATBIRD MODIFIED: The Cooperative Avionics Test Bed (CATBird), formerly a Lufthansa Airlines Boeing 737-300, recently underwent extensive airframe modifications by BAE Systems in Mojave, Calif. The aircraft will undergo a massive installation of mission systems sensor suites at Lockheed Martin's facilities at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, where it landed on March 2. When completed, the aircraft will fly thousands of mission profiles designed to emulate sensor systems on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
NUCLEAR KOREA: The latest U.S. intelligence assessment of North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities is expected soon on Capitol Hill and lawmakers will be looking for a possible reassessment by the Bush administration of the reclusive state's alleged highly enriched uranium program.
Commercial satellite operators say they're willing to pay for anti-jamming and other protective systems on their spacecraft to assuage the security concerns of government users, but only if the government will restructure its procurements to encourage such investments.
Boeing told suppliers of long-lead parts for new C-17s to stop procuring those parts for uncommitted aircraft, Dave Bowman, company vice president and C-17 program manager, said March 2. The company could not justify keeping that supply base going absent any further aircraft commitments, Bowman said in a teleconference press briefing. "It would not be a good business decision," Bowman said, saying the company gave the bad news to the 700 suppliers in 42 states on March 2.
In announcing Feb. 26 that it was sustaining protests of the Air Force's $10 billion-$15 billion contract award to Boeing for more than 140 combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopters, the Government Accountability Office specifically cited Air Force errors in failing to properly take into account lifecycle costs for the CSAR-X fleet.
COMSAT POLICY: The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) is calling on the White House to craft a National Commercial Satellite Communications Policy to go along with previously issued policies on space transportation, satellite-based navigation and remote sensing. SIA thinks the satcom policy, much like the space transportation policy, should mandate that the government rely on commercial capabilities for its communications needs to the maximum practical extent.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office's Feb. 26 decision to sustain the protests against the Air Force's $10 billion to $15 billion contract award to Boeing for more than 140 combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopters will have far-reaching effects for the service and defense companies well beyond CSAR-X, analysts and acquisition experts say. This is the first new major weapons purchase program for the Air Force since the Pentagon returned the service's final acquisition authority in the wake of the proposed tanker leasing program fiasco.
KC-130J SAVINGS: Since January 2005, the U.S. Marine Corps KC-130J aircraft program has saved more than $29 million due to the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division's efforts in streamlining program logistics, parts and maintainability, Naval Sea Systems Command officials maintain. KC-130J sustainment shifted work to NSWC Crane on a performance-based logistics-organic funded "by the flight hour," they explain.
FIVE MORE YEARS: Lynn Tilton, CEO of MD Helicopters, predicts it will take at least five more years to turn the company around financially. She says a chief obstacle is fixing an industry supply chain that is "broken" by "building a force of suppliers to support a constant rate of production." Tilton says the supply chain situation is getting worse, but that she is determined to "gut it out" and achieve fiscal stability.
MIDEAST MISSILES: Israel's recent test of its Arrow ballistic missile defense weapon has generated a few more details from Washington-based analysts. The intercept altitude was 250,000 feet. Two batteries were involved - at Palmachim Air Base south of Tel Aviv and the Ein Shemer unmanned aerial vehicle test base to the north. One tracked while the other fired, to demonstrate networking.
DANGEROUS OPPORTUNITY: It's become a cliché to note that the word for "crisis" in Chinese calligraphy contains the characters for "danger" and "opportunity." But top Air Force officials seem willing to seize the opportunity when discussing the military buildup in China, which is estimated to have increased defense spending 14.7 percent to $35.3 billion in 2006. "The Chinese are becoming awesome investors," Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne tells a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the service's $110.77 billion fiscal 2008 budget request.
DELICATE BALANCE: The Navy still is undecided how to divide its buy of Joint Strike Fighters between the F-35B short-takeoff and F-35C carrier-catapult versions. "Every year we do a balancing act," says Delores Etter, assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition. "STOVL [short takeoff vertical landing] on carriers - that's certainly the plan the Marine Corps has at this point.
Leading U.S. defense officials keep hammering the message: the country ought to spend more on defense in relation to the gross domestic product (GDP), especially given the alleged array of threats from Al Qaeda to a near-peer China, nuclear North Korea and Iran.
HARVEY RESIGNS: U.S. Army Secretary Francis Harvey resigned March 2 in the wake of the scandal over the care of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Undersecretary of the Army Peter Geren will serve as acting secretary until a new appointment is made. In announcing Harvey's departure, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he is "disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation."
TWO-HEMISPHERE RAPTOR: Last month's surprise visit of a 12-ship F-22 formation to Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii (DAILY, Feb. 28), is prompting lots of questions at the Pentagon. It turns out that when the four lead ships crossed the International Date Line en route to Japan, their navigation computers were rendered unusable, though the aircraft continued to have "thrust and lift," according to Col. Tom Bergeson, operations group commander at the 1st Fighter Wing. The Raptors were directed to Hickam to await a fix, which was delivered via a software update.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has won a competition against Los Alamos National Laboratory to lead the design of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).
IED FIGHT: Robotic equipment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other unmanned sensors or systems are proving to be indispensable in the Pentagon's fight against improvised explosive devices (IEDs), said Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, chief of staff for the Multinational Corps-Iraq. "The robotics piece is tremendously helpful," Anderson said March 2 during a satellite-transmitted press briefing. "We have UAVs and other airframes with that constant eye," he said. "The big thing is change detection."
