August 6, 2020 | International, Aerospace
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is trying to move ahead with reforms to how it acquires space systems, even as a report outlining significant legislative changes has gotten held up by the Office of Management and Budget.
Released in May, the Department of the Air Force report recommends nine specific proposals to improve contracting under the newly established U.S. Space Force. While most of the changes can be undertaken independently by the Department of Defense, three recommendations would require legislative action by Congress. But according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration Shawn Barnes, the report has yet to get past OMB, which oversees the President's budget proposals and ensures legislation proposed by agencies is consistent with the administration.
“[It's] still not on the hill. I'm a little frustrated by that, but I think we're very close with OMB at this point and I think we're just about there,” said Barnes during a July 30 call with reporters. “There are a couple of sticking points, but I'm not going to talk about those directly here.”
Barnes continued on to say that OMB had no issues with the vast majority of the report.
And while the Air Force has to wait for legislative action on some recommendations, Barnes said they are already moving ahead with internal reforms, such as establishing a distinct Space Force budget.
“We're in the process of figuring out how to implement those actions within the alt-acquisition report that don't require any legislative change, and of the somewhat less than ten of those specific actions, probably six of them are within the Department of Defense's ability to get after. So we're building implementation plans for that,” he said.
The most important recommendation in the report, at least according to the Air Force, is budgetary. They want to be able to consolidate Space Force budget line items along mission portfolios, such as missile warning or communications, instead of by platforms, allowing them more flexibility to move funding between related systems without having to submit reprogramming requests to Congress. This was a point of contention between the Pentagon and legislators last year, as the Air Force issued repeated reprogramming requests to secure the funding needed to push up the delivery date of the first Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared satellite.
Barnes insisted that managing funding at the portfolio would give the Space Force more flexibility to react to program developments without sacrificing transparency. While funding would not longer be broken out at the program level, it could still be expressed at a lower level, he said.
“We would still be breaking it down at a subordinate level but what we would hope is that we would have the ability to still move money from one of those subordinate levels to another, and that's where we can have that transparency,” he explained.
October 17, 2023 | International, Land, Security
Thales and the Royal Netherlands Air Force strengthen their partnership with the delivery of the System Lifetime Extension Program (SLEP) on 13 Instrument Landing Systems and Distance Measuring Equipment.
September 22, 2020 | International, Naval
David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Marine Corps is moving as fast as it can to field a new class of light amphibious warship, but it remains unclear what it will do, where it will be based or what capabilities it will bring to the fight. The idea behind the ship is to take a commercial design or adapt a historic design to make a vessel capable of accommodating up to 40 sailors and at least 75 Marines to transport Marine kit over a range of about 3,500 nautical miles, according to a recent industry day presentation. While the presentation noted that the ship should have few tailored Navy requirements, that also creates a problem: If the Navy is going to pay tens of millions to develop, build, crew and operate them, should it not provide some additional value to the fleet? Analysts, experts and sources with knowledge of internal discussions who spoke to Defense News say the answer to that question is a source of friction inside the Pentagon. The idea of the warship arrived on the scene in 2019 with the ascension of Gen. David Berger as commandant of the Marine Corps. His planning guidance called for a smaller, more agile amphibious force that could operate inside the Chinese anti-access, area denial window in the South China Sea. In a recent virtual meeting of the Surface Navy Association, the chief of naval operations' director of expeditionary warfare, Maj. Gen. Tracy King, emphasized that above all, the platform must be cheap and come online quickly. “I see the efficacy of this [light amphibious warship] is really to help us in the phases and stages we're in right now,” King said Aug. 27. “We need to start doing things differently, as an extension of the fleet, under the watchful eye of our Navy, engaging with our partners and allies and building partner capacity: We ought to be doing that right now. I think we're late to need with building the light amphibious warship, which is why we're trying to go so quickly.” When asked whether the ship should contribute to a more distributed sensor architecture to align with the Navy's desire to be more spread out over a large area during a fight, King answered in the affirmative. "[But] I really see it benefiting from [that architecture] more,” he said. “We need to build an affordable ship that can get after the ability to do maritime campaigning in the littorals.” The unstated implication appeared to be that if the ship is loaded up with sensors and requirements, it will slow down the process and increase the cost. Analysts who spoke to Defense News agreed with that, saying the Navy is likely trying to put more systems on the platform that will make it more complex and more expensive. The Navy has said it wants to keep the price under $100 million per platform and begin purchasing them as early as the latter half of 2022. “The hardest part is going to be appetite suppression, especially on the part of the Navy,” said Dakota Wood, a retired Marine officer and analyst with The Heritage Foundation. "This is what we saw in the littoral combat ship: It started out as a very light, near-shore, small and inexpensive street fighter. And then people started adding on requirements. You had ballooning costs, increasing complexity of the platform, and you get into all kinds of problems. “The Marine Corps wants this quickly. It needs it to be inexpensive so you can have 28-30 of them over a three- to four-year period.” There is the additional challenge of where the ships will be based, since they will probably not be built to the kinds of standards of normal Navy vessels built to last for 30-40 years in service. The minimum service life for the light amphibious warship will be about 10 years, according to the industry day presentation. Wood said that would be a challenge for the Marines and the State Department to work out in parallel with the effort to get the hulls quickly built. Jerry Hendrix, a retied Navy captain and analyst with the Telemus Group, agreed with that assessment, saying the Marines are eager to move forward to get something fielded, in part to make sure this transition to a lighter, more distributed force being pushed by Berger actually happens. "The commandant can't divest of some of the legacy platforms he's building — these big, expensive and vulnerable platforms — until he has something that replaces it in the water. And so he's anxious to get going with something else so he then has a reason to move away from what he has. “The commandant is well aware he has a four-year clock and its ticking. So if he's going to make changes, he's got to get moving to get those changes in place and commit the Marine Corps to them to make sure it's going to last. And right now I'm not sure there's a lot of high confidence that they are going to last.” Hendrix acknowledged that the Navy has good reason to want the light amphibious warship to have more capability, but added that the Corps is more interested in something simple than something costly and elaborate. “What that does,” Hendrix said, “is drive up unit cost and drive down the numbers that can be purchased.” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/09/21/us-marines-wants-to-move-fast-on-a-light-amphibious-warship-but-what-is-it/
August 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence
ARMY Veraxx Engineering Corp., Chantilly, Virginia, was awarded a $218,000,000 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, fixed-price-incentive and time-and-materials) contract for advanced planning and preview systems, mission simulators and rehearsal capabilities that enable live, virtual and constructive training in support of special operation's unique joint training and mission requirements. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2028. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Orlando, Florida, is the contracting activity (W900KK-20-D-0014). Astlanda Ehitus Ou, Harjumaa, Estonia (W912GB-20-D-0017); Framaco International Inc., Rye Brook, New York, (W912GB-20-D-0018); Relyant Global LLC, Maryville, Tennessee (W912GB-20-D-0019); Semi SA, Madrid, Spain (W912GB-20-D-0020); SKE Support Services GmbH, Goldbach, Germany (W912GB-20-D-0021); and Tartu Bryan JV, Colorado Springs, Colorado (W912GB-20-D-0022), will compete for each order of the $49,950,000 firm-fixed-price contract for providing real property repair and maintenance, design build, environmental work, force protection work and construction services for U.S. forces and/or facilities throughout Estonia. Bids were solicited via the internet with 11 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wiesbaden, Germany, is the contracting activity. Southwest Water Design LLC,* Albuquerque, New Mexico, was awarded a $40,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for civil works and hydrology and hydraulics services. Bids were solicited via the internet with 15 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 24, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the contracting activity (W912PP-20-D-0003). Phillips Contracting Co. Inc.,* Columbus, Mississippi, was awarded a $24,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for rental of construction equipment. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W91278-20-D-0076). B&K Construction Co. LLC,* Mandeville, Louisiana, was awarded a $15,218,859 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of hurricane protection features in Plaquemines Parrish, Louisiana. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in New Orleans, Louisiana, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 21, 2025. Fiscal 2020 civil construction funds in the amount of $15,218,859 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg, Mississippi, is the contracting activity (W912P8-20-C-0050). Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Connecticut, was awarded a $13,500,000 order-dependent contract for technologies to be developed and demonstrated in the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft technology risk mitigation and maturation effort. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 23, 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W911W6-20-D-0005). GiaCare and MedTrust JV LLC,* Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was awarded a $7,779,386 modification (P00001) to contract W81K04-19-D-0021 for registered nursing services for the San Antonio Military Health System. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2024. U.S. Army Health Contracting Activity, San Antonio, Texas, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE SRC Tec, North Syracuse, New York, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $90,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for force protection Counter-small Unmanned Aerial System (C-sUAS) with Medusa sustainment. This contract provides for the acquisition, upgrade, sustainment, installation support and design and analysis support of C-sUAS and subsystems manufactured by SRC Tec. Work will be performed at locations to be determined in each delivery order and is expected to be completed Aug. 24, 2028. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal 2020 procurement funds in the amount of $2,137,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity (FA8730-20-D-0045). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Aurora Industries LLC,** Orocovis, Puerto Rico, has been awarded a maximum $25,608,088 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for coats. This is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods. This was a competitive acquisition with 10 responses received. Location of performance is Puerto Rico, with an Aug. 23, 2021, ordering period end date. Using military services are Army and Air Force. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-20-D-1283). NAVY General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, is awarded a $15,485,103 modification (P00009) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00019-18-C-1063. This modification adds performance for site relocation activities and exercises an option to extend intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services utilizing contractor-owned/contractor-operated MQ-9 unmanned air systems. Work will be performed in Yuma, Arizona (34%); Poway, California (14%); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (52%), and is expected to be completed in December 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $15,485,103 will be obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Management Services Group Inc.,* doing business as Global Technical Systems, Virginia Beach, Virginia, is awarded a $13,601,735 firm-fixed-price modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-20-C-5608 for procurement of network, processing, and storage technical Insertion 16 (NPS), Modification 1 storage equipment, which will be incorporated into area storage area network cabinets during production. The NPS program consists of enterprise products in use across surface Navy combat systems which introduce powerful commercially available off-the-shelf processors as part of a general strategy to achieve a modular and open architecture design. Work will be performed in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by June 2021. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy); fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2018 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2018 other procurement (Navy); fiscal 2015 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2014 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); and government of Australia funding in the amount of $13,601,735 will be obligated at time of award and funding in the amount of $2,069,033 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. Areté Associates, Northridge, California, is awarded a $9,745,580 cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price, cost-with-no-fee contract for integration services supporting incremental upgrades, block upgrades and future generations of MK 18 Family of Systems unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), additional UUVs and remotely operated vehicles. This 17-month contract includes no options. Work will be performed at Tucson, Arizona (75%); and Valparaiso, Florida (25%). The period of performance is from Aug. 24, 2020, through Jan. 23, 2022. Fiscal 2020 funds will be obligated using other procurement (Navy). Funds in the amount of $6,885,495 will be obligated at the time of award. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract is awarded using other than full and open competition in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations Subpart 6.302-5 and 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(5). Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific in San Diego, California, is the contract activity (N66001-20-C-0025). *Small Business **Small disadvantaged business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2323086/