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February 17, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - February 16, 2021

AIR FORCE

LinQuest Corp., Los Angeles, California, has been awarded a $200,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity for advisory and assistance services in support of Space Operations Command. Work will be performed at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, and is expected to be completed Feb. 28, 2030. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and one offer was received. Fiscal 2021 Space Force operation and maintenance funds in the amount $12,730,301 are being obligated at the time of award. Space Operations Command/Space Acquisition Management – Directorate, Peterson AFB, Colorado, is the contracting activity (FA2518-21-D-0001).

U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND

Reservoir International LLC, Fayetteville, North Carolina, was awarded a $200,000,000 maximum indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (H92239-21-D-0001) for Army Special Operations Forces training support services in support of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and 1st Special Warfare Training Group. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance funds in the amount of $3,449,752 are being obligated at the time of award. The work will be performed in the vicinity of Camp MacKall, North Carolina, until January 2026. The contract was awarded competitively among service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses with nine proposals received. U.S. Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is the contracting activity.

DEFENSE HEALTH AGENCY

Valor Network Inc., Metuchen, New Jersey (HT0015-21-D-0001), was awarded a $73,532,325 fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide professional diagnostic radiology interpretive services to the Military Health System (MHS). The base year amount of the contract is $13,369,448. The contract has four 12-month option periods. This enterprise contract is to support the continued implementation of the MHS organizational reform required by 10 U.S. Code § 1073c, and sections 711 and 712 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2019, effective Oct. 25, 2019, which eliminated separate silos of military healthcare and officially integrated healthcare under the authority, direction, and control of the Defense Health Agency, consistent with the direction provided by the secretary of defense. This contract was a competitive acquisition with eight proposals received. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance funds in the amount of $13,369,448 are being obligated at time of award. The Defense Health Agency, Enterprise Medical Support Contracting Division, San Antonio, Texas, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 12, 2021)

ARMY

General Dynamics Land Systems, Sterling Heights, Michigan, was awarded a $20,652,845 modification (P00127) to contract W56HZV-17-C-0067 for Abrams systems technical support. Work will be performed in Sterling Heights, Michigan, with an estimated completion date of June 22, 2022. Fiscal 2010 Foreign Military Sales (Kuwait) funds; fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Army) funds; and fiscal 2019, 2020 and 2021 other procurement (Army) funds in the amount of $20,652,845 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, is the contracting activity.

Raytheon Co., Dulles, Virginia, was awarded an $8,220,193 modification (P00042) to contract W52P1J-16-C-0046 for multinational information sharing services. Work will be performed in Kuwait, with an estimated completion date of July 15, 2021. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $1,895,193 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity.

Carbro Constructors Corp.,* Hillsborough, New Jersey, was awarded a $7,773,175 modification (P00004) to contract W912DS-19-C-0035 for construction of flood-control measures for Green Brook Segment C1. Work will be performed in Middlesex, New Jersey, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 13, 2021. Fiscal 2010 civil construction funds in the amount of $7,773,175 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York, New York, is the contracting activity.

*Small business

https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2504777/source/GovDelivery/

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  • KC-46 Progress Revives Next-Generation Tanker Talks

    September 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    KC-46 Progress Revives Next-Generation Tanker Talks

    Steve Trimble Proposals for a next-generation tanker that would come after the last Boeing KC-46 delivery in fiscal 2029 have popped up every few years since 2006, only to get sidetracked by yet another acquisition process misstep or technical problem afflicting the program's frustrating development phase. As a fresh sense of optimism gathers among senior U.S. Air Force leaders about the direction of the KC-46 program, a new discussion has started between Defense Department officials and the Air Mobility Command (AMC) about the future of the air-refueling mission. Some proposals in the discussions include revived versions of various older concepts for weaponized larger tankers and smaller stealth tankers. But this time, discussions involve taking a wider view of the overall need to defend and deliver fuel to aircraft in combat, with implications for base defenses, the size and range of future fighters and next-generation tanker designs. A perceived turnaround in the fortunes of the KC-46 program allows the Air Force to reopen the next-generation discussion. Since at least 2016, a heated dispute over Boeing's original design—and, later, proposed fixes—for the KC-46's remote vision system (RVS) sidetracked planning for a next-generation tanker. Air Force officials complained that Boeing's original RVS design fell short of operator requirements, especially when the receiver aircraft was backlit by the Sun. In addition, the canted layout of the belly-mounted, panoramic cameras created subtle distortions in the displayed video that proved bothersome to some RVS operators, Air Force officials say. The Air Force and Boeing finally agreed to a redesign plan in January 2019. The Air Force is finalizing a test report on an enhanced RVS, which was formerly known as RVS 1.5. AMC officials have committed to review the test data but offered no promises on whether they would approve the enhanced RVS to be installed in the KC-46. The installation would require parking a fleet of more than 36 delivered KC-46s to complete the retrofit, and the AMC remains unsure whether the improvement is worth the delay. The enhanced RVS offers only software updates to the current system, but the AMC clearly wants more. Boeing has committed to a more dramatic upgrade called RVS 2.0. Including hardware and software changes, this Boeing-funded, second-generation RVS system is expected to meet the image-resolution standards demanded by the Air Force and create a path to inserting the software algorithms necessary to give the KC-46 an optional autonomous-refueling mode. Boeing is scheduled to deliver the first 12 RVS 2.0 shipsets by the end of 2023 and begin the retrofit process on delivered KC-46s, says Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, the AMC commander. The AMC expects a production cutin for RVS 2.0 starting in 2024, although Boeing's KC-46 global sales and marketing director, Mike Hafer, says the first RVS 2.0-equipped aircraft could start rolling off the assembly line in late 2023. Will Roper, the Air Force's assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, says the progress toward fielding the RVS 2.0 makes him feel “excited” about the KC-46 program. “I think we've turned a new page,” he says. In mid-September, Roper and Van Ovost met to discuss what will follow the KC-46. The next-generation tanker discussion comes after a series of dramatic acquisition decisions surrounding Air Force aircraft. Most visibly, Roper led a push in 2018 to cancel the Joint Stars recapitalization program, which was replaced with the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). More quietly, Roper also drove the Air Force to rethink the acquisition strategy for the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. The ABMS and NGAD are now characterized by an architecture of multiple systems, with no single-aircraft silver bullet solution. Roper acknowledges that the nature of tanker operations does not immediately lend itself to a distributed multiplatform solution. “We can break up a J-Stars [replacement into multiple systems],” Roper says. “We may be able to break up an [E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System] in the future, but we can't break up fuel easily.” Still, Roper prefers to address the future air-refueling problem in an era of great power competition with a similar architectural approach as ABMS and NGAD. “When there's a solvable problem and you need to turn multiple knobs, the Pentagon likes to turn one and only one,” Roper says. “And [aerial refueling] sounds like a really good architectural question that you'd want to have an architected solution for—[rather than] design a one-solution candidate in the form of a platform.” Roper's turnable knobs for a future air-refueling system cover a wide range of options, including two with only indirect impacts on a tanker aircraft design. To Roper, the problem of air refueling includes defending the bases closest to an adversary where aircraft can be refueled on the ground. Likewise, another part of the solution is to move away from relatively small fighter aircraft that lack sufficient range for a Pacific theater scenario. “Maybe having small, currently sized fighters is not the way to go in the future,” Roper says. “Thinking about bigger fighters is a natural question to lay alongside the question, ‘How does your future tanker force look?'” Air-refueling capacity also is partly a function of the vulnerability of the tanker aircraft. Fewer and perhaps smaller tankers may be possible if existing tanker aircraft could operate closer to the battlefield. The Air Force now uses fighters on combat air patrols to defend high-value assets, such as tankers, surveillance and command-and-control aircraft. Those fighters conducting the patrols also add to the refueling burden. A possible solution is to weaponize tankers such as the KC-46 and KC-135. The Air Force is developing podded defensive lasers and miniature self-defense munitions. “We don't put weapons and sensors on tankers to shoot down aircraft, but the current KC-46 is a big airplane with the ability to mount sensors and weapons on the wings,” Roper says. “We're going to look at all those [options].” The Air Force also believes a new tanker aircraft is necessary. As far back as 2002, research began on stealthy mobility aircraft under the Air Force Research Laboratory's Speed Agile program. As the KC-X acquisition program kicked off, the Air Force released a tanker road map in 2006 that called for launching a KC-Y acquisition program in 2022 and a KC-Z program by 2035. By 2016, AMC leaders openly discussed proposals for leapfrogging the KC-Y requirement, which sought to buy a larger version of a commercial derivative. Instead, AMC officials began investigating concepts for an autonomous stealthy aircraft. By 2018, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works had defined a concept for such an aircraft, which featured an undisclosed refueling technology that could dock with a receiver aircraft without compromising radar stealth. As discussions have reopened in September, the Air Force is again considering the acquisition of a mix of larger and smaller aircraft to fulfill the demand for in-flight refueling in the 2030s and 2040s. “One trade we can do is having bigger tankers that stand off a lot farther,” Roper says, “[and] having smaller, microtankers that do that last mile, the dangerous mile—and we expect to lose some of them.” The Air Force's budget justification documents suggest research on a next-generation tanker will continue at a low level: Nearly $8 million was requested in fiscal 2021 to “assess promising configurations in high- and low-speed wind tunnels.” The Air Force also is designing a small, pod-mounted tactical air-refueling boom, according to budget documents. The latter suggests that one option for increasing refueling capacity for aircraft equipped with boom receivers is to integrate a podded fuel-delivery system on tactical aircraft, such as a Lockheed Martin C-130. “I expect that as we really look at airpower in the truly contested environment, we'll be looking at fuel very strategically,” Roper says. “We may have a different solution for outside [a threat area] versus inside. And I think we will value, increasingly, aircraft that have range for the last mile.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/kc-46-progress-revives-next-generation-tanker-talks

  • There’s a Big Obstacle to the Pentagon’s New Strategy to Speed AI to Troops

    February 18, 2019 | International, C4ISR

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That will eventually include combat operations, although both said the military won't deviate from its core doctrine that dictates how humans are to have authority over autonomous systems. They said near-term projects include efforts to predict forest fires, better spot network anomalies that can indicate cyber attacks, and, most prominently, predictive maintenance. It's an area where some smaller tech firms are already working with the Pentagon. SUBSCRIBE Receive daily email updates: Subscribe to the Defense One daily. Be the first to receive updates. One such firm is Uptake, run by GE alum Ganesh Bell, which has a contract with the Defense Innovation Unit to better predict and accelerate repairs for Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The company is building a virtual Bradley, using data streams from sensors on real Bradleys in the field — what Bell has called a learning, digital twin. “We are able to collect what the best-performing Bradley would look like because we are able to go into many of the subsystems and pull the data,” he said. “Just from a single vehicle, we were able to pull terabytes of data.” Bell aims to also incorporate data from external sensors, and use it to digitally recreate the vehicles' operating environments. It's a process that could be relevant to larger military endeavors, such as the Army's effort to design a new combat vehicle, Bell said. “If we prove the value here, imagine what we can do in that environment as we build that system out? We do the same thing in wind turbines. 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