A&D Industry And The Chinese Conundrum: Get In Or Out?

On the same subject

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  September 25, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Boeing assembles team to bid for next-gen missile defense interceptor

  Jen Judson WASHINGTON ― Boeing has assembled a team with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems and Aerojet Rocketdyne to bid to build the Missile Defense Agency's Next Generation Interceptor (NGI). The agency decided last year to scrap its plans to redesign the kill vehicle of its current Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) that is part of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system designed to defend the homeland against possible intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran. The MDA is holding a competition instead to design a brand new interceptor for the GMD system. The company has an extensive history with the GMD system in place at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, having held the development and sustainment contract for years. That contract is set to expire in 2023 and MDA is weighing options to break up that contract to foster competition that promotes increased capability. “The Boeing-led team will deliver critical technology to enhance our homeland missile defense,” Norm Tew, Boeing Missile and Weapon Systems vice president, said in a Sept. 24 statement. “Combined, we bring decades of expertise in proven missile and weapon systems.” An NGI “requires a new way of thinking supported by a proven ability to deliver pioneering solutions,” Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS, said in a separate company statement issued Sept. 24. “We are excited to partner with Boeing to deliver the disruptive technologies needed to help MDA rapidly deploy an interceptor system that bolsters the nation's missile defense network and ensures that the U.S., our allies, and partner nations maintain military overmatch against ever evolving threats from adversaries.” Aerojet Rocketdyne will supply the propulsion system. “As the country's premier hit-to-kill propulsion provider, we're able to deliver low-cost, high-performance systems by leveraging our skilled workforce and strategic investments in innovative technology and materials,” Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO, said in the Boeing statement. Boeing reports the team submitted its NGI offering to MDA on Aug. 12. Also according to the statement, Northrop Grumman will serve as a “component supplier” on the Boeing team. Northrop is also teaming up separately with Raytheon to compete against the Boeing team and Lockheed Martin. Raytheon was the developer of the now-canceled RKV. MDA aims to downselect to two companies later this year, who will then compete for the right to build the interceptor. Proposals were due July 31, but MDA noted in its request for proposals that there may be some give in that schedule due to the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The agency requested $664.1 million in fiscal year 2021 for the NGI program, as part of a $4.9 billion five-year budget plan. https://www.defensenews.com/2020/09/24/boeing-assembles-team-to-bid-for-next-gen-missile-defense-interceptor/

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  August 9, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land

  Hypersonics by the dozens: US industry faces manufacturing challenge

  By: Jen Judson HUNTSVILLE, Ala. —The U.S. military is a few years from launching offensive hypersonic weapons that are currently under development. But building those initial missiles is one thing — manufacturing the weapons in multitude is another issue entirely. “I would say we really need to understand, again, how can we produce precision hardware at scale,” Michael Griffin, the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, told a group of reporters Aug. 7 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. “If we talk about ballistic missile defense or hypersonic offense and we talk about proliferating architectures, we need any dozens, many hundreds, maybe thousands of assets,” he added. “This takes us back to the Cold War where at one point we had 30,000 nuclear warheads and missiles to launch them. We haven't produced at that kind of scale since the wall came down.” As hypersonic missiles become a reality, industry is going to have to relearn how to effectively, efficiently and economically produce them, Griffin said. While industry has developed warheads, glide bodies and other components, there is no industrial base equipped to manufacture hypersonic weapons. Things are moving in the right direction when it comes to bringing industry up to speed and preparing for larger-scale manufacturing of missiles, Griffin said. But building these systems is challenging because, for example, hypersonics require a greater degree of thermal protection than what has been required of other weapons in the past, he noted. Building hypersonics is no longer a technical issue or a matter of understanding physics, but rather an issue of understanding the industrial engineering required to produce a larger number. “I'm not sure how much help the government can be there,” he said. “Mass production is not what we do. ... That is going to be an industry problem.” The Army is just weeks away from awarding a contract to a company that will work with the federally funded laboratory that developed a hypersonic glide body to develop manufacturing plans and strategies. Other companies will have a turn as well. The effort is spearheaded by the service's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office. Griffin stressed that the weapons manufacturing process needs to be affordable. “Our adversaries have clearly found ways to make them affordable. China has these things now by the thousands. What do we do to learn, once again, how to produce sophisticated things at scale and affordably?” he said. China is able to field new systems every few years, Griffin noted, while the U.S. takes a decade or more to get through a cumbersome acquisition process. “It don't believe that the issues facing the United States aerospace and defense establishment are issues of specific technologies,” he said. “I believe that over the last 30 years ... we've become lost in our processes.” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2019/08/08/hypersonics-by-the-dozens-us-industry-faces-manufacturing-challenge/

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  October 5, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  Lockheed Opens New Hypersonic Weapons Factory In Alabama

  The manufacturing plant is the third digital factory opened by the world’s largest defense contractor this year.