November 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace
WASHINGTON - Raytheon and Airbus are protesting two recent awards for eight missile tracking satellites issued to SpaceX and L3Harris, putting into question the Space Development Agency's tight schedule to get its initial constellation on orbit in 2022.
The news was first reported by Aviation Week.
Under the Oct. 5 award in question, SpaceX and L3Harris were issued contracts to design and develop four satellites equipped with wide field of view (WFOV) overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors. The eight satellites would form tranche 0 of SDA's tracking layer, which the military is building to track hypersonic weapons from space.
L3Harris received $193 million, while SpaceX received $149 million.
Airbus U.S. Space & Defense first filed its protest of the award Oct. 28, while Raytheon filed its own protest on Nov. 3. A stop work order has been issued for SpaceX and L3Harris.
“SDA is working with the GAO to achieve fast, accurate and equitable resolution to the protests received from Airbus and Raytheon on the agency's Tracking Tranche 0 contracts," an SDA spokesperson said in a statement. “SDA is committed to full and open competition whenever practicable and the agency understands protests are a potential and not uncommon part of that process.”
The tracking layer is one of several capabilities being built into the agency's planned mega-constellation known as the National Defense Space Architecture. SDA is using a spiral development approach to build out that constellation, by adding more satellites every two years. The first tranche, which would include the eight missile tracking satellites in question, will include about 30 satellites set to launch in 2022. By the end of 2026, the agency wants to have hundreds of satellites in orbit.
While Raytheon declined to comment, Airbus U.S. Space & Defense told C4ISRNET in a statement that concerns over the government's evaluation process for the proposals led the company to protest the award.
“While determined highly competitive, Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc. was ultimately not selected by SDA for award. Our post-award debrief review identified concerns about the government's evaluation process, and as a result, we have filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO),” an Airbus U.S. spokesperson said in a statement. “Airbus U.S. believes its proposal based on the ARROW commodity satellite bus and the Airbus OneWeb Satellites' operational manufacturing facility in Florida fits SDA's evaluation criteria for commercial commoditized buses manufactured at scale.”
At the time of the awards, SDA Director Derek Tournear told C4ISRNET the awards were the result of a full and open competition, with the selection based purely on technical merit. Tournear praised both SpaceX and L3Harris in that interview, emphasizing both companies' plans to meet the agency's aggressive schedule.
“SpaceX had a very credible story along that line — a very compelling proposal. It was outstanding,” he said. “They are one of the ones that have been at the forefront of this commercialization and commodification route.”
In addition, “L3Harris had an extremely capable solution. They have a lot of experience flying affordable, rapid, small satellite buses for the department,” he said. “They had the plant and the line in place in order to produce these to hit our schedule.”
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Teresa Shea With cyber threats constantly evolving and increasing in sophistication, a strong national cybersecurity posture has never been more important. COVID-19 is causing an uncertainty across industry sectors, and criminals as well as adversaries are increasing their cyber-attacks and taking advantage of our increased digital work from home dependence. It is especially important to protect the organizations that comprise the U.S. Defense Industrial Base. Defined as the “worldwide industrial complex that enables research and development, as well as design, production, delivery, and maintenance of military weapons systems, subsystems, and components or parts, to meet U.S. military requirements,” Defense industrial base networks host mission-critical information and operational assets vital to national security. If infiltrated, the ramifications could plague the U.S. national security strategy, hamper our warfighting edge, create chaos within the critical infrastructure and ultimately undermine adversary deterrence. To effectively protect the Defense Industrial Base, the government and private sector must both work to secure the U.S. critical infrastructure. Organizations should prioritize collaboration to bolster the nation's cyber resiliency and collectively defend against malicious cyber actors' intent on doing us harm. Proactively defend networks It's widely known that, in an ideal world, organizations should stop threats before they reach their targets. However, to deter effectively, organizations need to have real-time situational awareness of their network infrastructure and supply chain, which can be a difficult undertaking. Threat intelligence information sharing between the government and the private sector companies that comprise the Defense Industrial Base is essential to achieving a strategic view of an advanced threat actor. Today, targets can only know what is happening to their own assets without insight into the attacker's intent. The Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Program allows both the DoD and private companies to share cyber threat information, mitigation and remediation strategies, which helps key players in both sectors increase cyber situational awareness and be more proactive in their security efforts. However, this program is currently voluntary, meaning that the crucial information uncovered within the program is only available to those who proactively join the program. Moving forward, both the public and private sectors must work to enact policies that require collaboration. It is no longer acceptable to rely on incident response protocols, performance assessments of existing systems and one-off reactions to threats without coordination. Increased information sharing is key to staying one step ahead of our adversaries. Follow government-suggested guidelines The U.S. government has dedicated time and resources to help secure the Defense Industrial Base, and organizations must act upon the recommendations provided. Earlier this year, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission released a report on the U.S. government's cyber readiness, which found that “the U.S. is currently not designed to act with the speed and agility necessary to defend the country in cyberspace.” The commission's findings place an emphasis on protecting the Defense Industrial Base's intellectual property, and called on Congress to require that these firms share threat data with the DoD and conduct threat hunting on their networks. Both sharing threat data and conducting threat hunting are proven to result in increased defense of our networks. A secure future As noted in a recent LawFare blog, “Cyber-enabled intellectual property theft from the DIB and adversary penetration of DIB networks and systems pose an existential threat to U.S. national security.” Given the abundance of cyber-attacks focused on Defense Industrial Base networks, penetrating them is high on our adversaries' target list. They're currently zeroing in on the U.S. critical infrastructure, attempting to poach the intellectual property that secures our very nation. Until we are willing to come together across sectors to share threat data, and commit to hiring strong talent, we will remain at a disadvantage. Fundamentally, it is about trust and our ability to put the greater defense above individual interests. If accomplished, the U.S. cybersecurity posture and resiliency will remain strong, deterring malicious cyberattacks against our Defense Industrial Base. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2020/07/15/the-key-to-securing-the-defense-industrial-base-is-collaboration/