May 19, 2021 | International, Naval
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – BAE Systems, Inc. has won a U.S. Navy competition to serve as the design agent for the mechanical portion of the Mk41 Vertical Launch System (VLS), the company said in a May 18 release. With this $164...
January 27, 2024 | International, Aerospace
GA-EMS is designing and building two OCTs to provide robust space-to-space communication in a degraded environment and establish and maintain links to meet SDA standards and requirements.
August 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Michael Bruno As public companies reported their latest quarterly results amid the recent financial carnage in the aerospace and defense sector, it was hard to find genuine optimism. With COVID-19 gutting the commercial aerospace manufacturing sector and maintenance, repair and overhaul segment, and expectations hardening around flat or worse defense spending, most corporate managers provided slimmed-down outlooks for the foreseeable future. But one segment stood out for its near-universal positivity: space. It may have almost taken an implosion of the airliner business and historic federal deficit spending against a pandemic to get there, but suddenly outer space looks like the best place to be in business. “Space continues to be an opportunity for companies to drive growth in a flat-to-down environment,” Jefferies analysts wrote in an Aug. 10 report. As the recent earnings season showed, numerous companies are being lifted by space business. “The primes are having such strong growth there,” Credit Suisse analyst Rob Spingarn noted in a July 31 teleconference. For instance, L3Harris Technologies sees space—both space-based and ground support—as its fastest-growing opportunity, with a combined $10 billion pipeline of long-term opportunities and several bid proposals awaiting responses that total around $1 billion in the near term. “We feel very encouraged by the space business as a whole,” said L3Harris Chairman and CEO Bill Brown. Several others below the marquee prime government contractor level are also benefiting, according to Jefferies analysts Sheila Kahyaoglu and Greg Konrad. “Kratos Defense and Security is benefiting from the need for low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites in real-time data processing, and Mercury Systems is getting pulled in, given an increased need for data processing power at the edge.” What is more, both Booz Allen Hamilton and Parsons indicate that space is even a target area for mergers and acquisitions. President Donald Trump's administration's spending and focus on space, from the new U.S. Space Force to a NASA mission to return Americans to the Moon in the coming years, certainly helps set the tone. Significantly, there is a commercial sector race to establish LEO-based communication and Earth observation services—albeit one driven by billionaires and their personal passions for a space legacy. A more subtle shift, though no less significant, is occurring down the value chain, where there is an emerging middle market for space services. Companies such as Parsons, Virgin Galactic and KBR have reengineered their companies and are making money by providing support services for the space effort—in ways that are not as sexy as SpaceX's NASA crew transport mission but just as real when it comes to making a profit. “We had nice year-on-year growth in the space business, just under double-digit growth there,” KBR CEO and President Stuart Bradie said Aug. 6. The former Halliburton business, once publicly associated with military logistics support during the George W. Bush administration, now is the world's only government-licensed provider training astronauts for commercial space missions. “Investors often overlook that KBR has transformed its portfolio since 2015 and still perceive the firm as an engineering and construction play, given its heritage as a unit of Halliburton,” Cowen analyst Gautum Khanna noted in June. But acquisitions of Wyle Labs, Honeywell Technology Solutions and Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies in 2016-18 “put KBR on the map as a noteworthy government services competitor.” Government services, especially space, now are responsible for 70% of the company's annual revenue. Interestingly, the space market is expanding so fast that KBR itself may have competition for astronaut training. In June, NASA signed a Space Act Agreement with Virgin Galactic to develop a private orbital astronaut readiness program for space tourists. “As part of this, we will offer our existing space training infrastructure at Spaceport America and customized future Astronaut Readiness Program . . . allowing these private astronauts to become familiar with the environment in and en route to space such as G forces and zero G,” Virgin Chief Space Officer George Whitesides said Aug. 3. “This initiative has been largely driven by the considerable demand among our existing customer base to participate in orbital space flights.” There have also been plenty of space company setbacks in recent months, with OneWeb's bankruptcy heading the list. But it should come as no surprise that business success in space is hard. Maybe what is surprising is that space is already proving lucrative for public investors, and the market looks set to grow. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/space/amid-financial-wreckage-ad-space-rises-above
June 14, 2018 | International, Land
Last month, in an appearance before the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley provided a notably upbeat assessment of the state of his service. “The Army is on the mend. I can report out to you today, after two and a half years as the chief of staff of the Army, we are in significantly better shape than we were just a short time ago. And that is through the generosity of this Congress and the American people,” he said. Clearly, some of the credit for the Army's improved state of affairs is a result of the recently passed two-year budget, which provided a much-needed increase in resources. The Army has been able to grow its end strength, purchase needed munitions and spare parts, increase training activities, and recapitalize older and damaged equipment. More resources have also enabled the Army force to expand its presence in Europe, increase, albeit modestly, procurement of upgraded Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Strykers, and acquire the new Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle. But much of the credit goes to the Army chief of staff himself. About a year and a half ago, I wrote a blog for the National Interest titled “Perhaps the Most Remarkable CSA in More than Half a Century.” It was Gen. Milley who made modernization the measure of success for his tenure as the Army chief of staff. This change in strategic direction came just in time, ahead of the reappearance of great power competition as the greatest threat to this nation's security. Gen. Milley is not alone in his quest. In fact, it is a troika consisting of Secretary of the Army Mark Esper, Under Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarty and the chief that is fashioning a new Army in record time and doing so while simultaneously transforming the Army's acquisition system. This is the proverbial case of changing the car's tires while speeding down the road. The early signs are that the Army modernization is on the mend and the acquisition system is being changed. An important example of these improvements is the Army's Rapid Capabilities Office. Established by the secretary and the chief in August 2016, the RCO is tasked to expedite critical capabilities to the field to meet combatant commanders' needs using alternative contracting mechanisms to deliver technologies in real time to the war fighter. One of the RCO's initial projects was to bring the Army back into the game with respect to electronic warfare. In 12 months, the RCO developed an initial integrated mounted and dismounted EW sensor capability that has been deployed with U.S. forces in Europe. A second phase of the project is underway that will add aerial sensors, additional ground-unit sets and improve functionality. Another program that is proceeding rapidly is a vehicle-mounted, jam-resistant positioning, navigation and timing capability for GPS-challenged environments. Prospective solutions are currently undergoing testing. The chief has directed the RCO to address several new areas. The RCO is working on a long-range cannon concept that may be able to double the range of 155mm howitzers, as well as optical augmentation technology to detect an adversary's anti-tank guided missile day/night sights and loitering munitions that can strike air-defense and artillery emplacements. The Army has been moving rapidly to address many of its critical capability gaps. To meet the challenge posed by hostile aircraft and drones, the Army intends to deploy the first battery of the Maneuver Short Range Air Defense launcher on a Stryker armored vehicle by 2020, five years ahead of schedule. Additional sensors and weapons, including a tactical laser, could be integrated into the new turret by the early 2020s. Tank-automotive and Armaments Command did a rapid assessment of active protection systems. The current plan is to equip at least four brigades of Abrams tanks with the Israeli Trophy system while testing continues on a number of solutions for other armored fighting vehicles. The Army also has used other rapid procurement organizations within the Pentagon. One of these is the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, created in 2016 to push rapid innovation based on leveraging commercial companies. Recently, DIUx led a prototype contract involving upgrades for Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The first production items from it will soon be delivered to the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. There are other examples of advances in cyberwarfare, soldier systems, networking and long-range precision fires. The central point is that Gen. Milley's vision of the Army's future is turning out to be right. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/06/13/gen-milley-is-right-the-us-army-is-on-the-mend/