THAAD DEPLOYS: In response to escalating tensions with North Korea, the Pentagon is deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System to Guam. The battery from the Army’s 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment at Fort Bliss, Texas, is being sent to the Pacific island to counter the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat. The decision follows a shift in the U.S. military’s investments in national missile defense as well as the recent participation of B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters in military exercises in South Korea.
Lockheed Martin has told Australia’s government and general public that if the country orders fewer than its originally planned 100 F-35s, Australian industry will receive less work on the Joint Strike Fighter program.
Lockheed Martin plans to provide further details later this week about the international version of its USS Freedom Littoral Combat Ship, the navy’s newest warship.
PARIS — French President Francois Hollande says the nation’s €31.4 billion ($40 billion) annual defense budget will remain flat next year despite pressure to reduce public spending. “We will spend in 2014 exactly the same amount as in 2013,” Hollande said during a March 28 interview with France 2 television. The Socialist president also lauded French military support for Operation Serval in Mali and vowed to maintain the nation’s security independence, including modernization of its nuclear arsenal.
The U.S. Army needs to do a better job tracking, configuring and “sanitizing” commercial mobile devices (CMDs) to ensure cybersecurity, a recent Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report says. “The Army Chief Information Officer (CIO) did not implement an effective cybersecurity program for CMDs,” the IG says. “Specifically, the Army CIO did not appropriately track CMDs and was unaware of more than 14,000 CMDs used throughout the Army.”
The Pentagon concurs with recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations to improve its efforts to infuse greater competition in its contracting procedures and the Defense Department plans to do just that, GAO says in a recent report. While the Pentagon has been working on making its contracting more competitive in recent years, the trend has not been promising.
GCV ANALYZED: In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that it will cost the U.S. Army $29 billion in 2013 dollars from 2014 to 2030 to carry out its current Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) acquisition effort on the most recent schedule offered for the perennially challenged program.
NEW DELHI — The most advanced version of India’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) has made its first flight, setting the stage for its induction into the country’s air force. The limited series production aircraft (LSP-8) is the last in the indigenously developed Tejas’ flight line before it is prepared for deployment for operational service by 2015.
The U.S. Navy will likely pay much less for its vaunted air and missile defense radar (AMDR) than previously projected — only perhaps about a third of what officials predicted a year ago — a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. The AMDR’s total price tag is now estimated at $5.8 billion, compared to the $15.2 billion projected last year for the radar system meant to provide simultaneous air and ballistic missile defense (BMD). (See chart p. 8.)
LANGKAWI, Malaysia — BAE Systems, which is leading the campaign to sell Eurofighter Typhoon fighters to Malaysia, says the Southeast Asian nation would have three anti-ship missiles to choose from if it orders the Typhoon.
LANGKAWI, Malaysia — The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) has become bullish about the prospect of using UAVs to help monitor Malaysia’s territory, even though it also has a plan to add more manned fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft.
LONDON — The U.K. defense ministry says it plans to stick to a common configuration of its Airbus Military A400M transport aircraft as the type enters service in 2014. The U.K. Royal Air Force is buying 22 A400Ms to replace its fleet of Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules aircraft over the coming years. Initially the U.K. had ordered 25 of the type, but the number was cut in 2010 as part of the re-negotiations over the increased price of the aircraft.
U.S. AIR FORCE Northrop Grumman Technical Services Inc., Hill Air Force Base, Utah, (F42610-98-C-0001, P03801) is being awarded a $12,655,091 contract modification contract for a Dual Source program. The contract modification is to refurbish fuses under the ICBM prime integration contract. The location of the performance is Hill Air Force Base, Utah and King of Prussia, Pa. Work is expected to be completed by June 30, 2014. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2013. The contracting activity is AFNWC/PZBE, Hill Air Force Base, Utah.
LONDON — Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) says it has completed development of the Surion Korean Utility Helicopter (KUH-1) and that the type is now ready to start replacing older helicopter models in South Korean army service.
The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom has arrived in Guam — the farthest western U.S. territory — to start the ship’s first Pacific deployment, while a probe is still underway to determine why the vessel’s service diesel generators (SSDGs) experienced three brief failures during the transit.
MELBOURNE, Australia — BAE Systems Australia says it is nearing completion of an autonomous navigation, guidance and control package that would allow precise localization of an unmanned aircraft without emissions, satellite signals or even preparatory mapping. The system also is intended to flexibly and autonomously guide the aircraft through its mission rather than forcing it to follow a line of waypoints, to reorder mission priorities as opportunities arise and to land the aircraft without external help.
BUDGET BRIEF: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will deliver his first major address on the Pentagon’s strategic and budgetary challenges at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington on Wednesday, April 3. The event will be streamed live at http://www.defense.gov. The speech is expected to preview in broad strokes the strategy behind the department’s fiscal 2014 budget request, which is expected to be released April 10 along with the rest of the U.S. government’s proposed budget.
U.S. AIR FORCE Northrop Grumman Corp., Aerospace Systems, San Diego, Calif., (FA8528-12-C-0003-PZ0001) is being awarded a $433,518,021 (estimated) cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for contractor logistics support for the RQ-4 Global Hawk fielded weapon system. The location of the performance is San Diego, Calif. Work is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2014. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2013. The contracting activity is AFLCMC/WIKBA, Robins Air Force Base, Ga. U.S. NAVY
