Contracts for March 16, 2021

On the same subject

• 

  February 4, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - February 03, 2021

  NAVY Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Herndon, Virginia, is awarded a $329,891,030 firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-17-C-6327 to exercise options for Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare Increment One Block One (I1B1) dismounted systems, mounted systems, mounted auxiliary kits, operational level spares, depot level spares and engineering support services. This contract involves Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to the government of Australia. Work will be performed in San Diego, California, and is expected to be complete by December 2022. FMS (Australia) funding in the amount of $116,491,337 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a Lockheed Martin Co., Stratford, Connecticut, is awarded a $19,429,150 modification (P00005) to cost-plus-fixed-fee order N00019-19-F-2972 against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0029. This order provides for non-recurring engineering, engineering change order, logistics and programmatic support of the Data Transfer Unit and Defensive Electronic Countermeasure System Replacement and ARC-210 program, to replace existing subsystems within the CH-53K production aircraft. Work will be performed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (55.82%); Stratford, Connecticut (35.7%); and Fort Worth, Texas (8.48%), and is expected to be completed in August 2021. Fiscal 2021 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $19,429,150 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. ARMY Dean Marine & Excavating Inc.,* Mount Clemens, Michigan (W911XK-21-D-0001); Geo. Gradel Co.,* Toledo, Ohio (W911XK-21-D-0002); Great Lakes Dock and Materials LLC,* Muskegon, Michigan (W911XK-21-D-0003); The King Co. Inc.,* Holland, Michigan (W911XK-21-D-0004); Luedtke Engineering Co.,* Frankfort, Michigan (W911XK-21-D-0005); MCM Marine Inc.,* Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (W911XK-21-D-0006); Morrish-Wallace Construction Inc., doing business as RYBA Marine Construction,* Cheboygan, Michigan (W911XK-21-D-0007); and Roen Salvage Co.,* Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin (W911XK-21-D-0008), will compete for each order of the $130,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for dredging/construction services within the Great Lakes and Ohio River division. Bids were solicited via the internet with nine received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 2, 2025. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit, Michigan, is the contracting activity. Wilson Perumal & Co.,* Dallas, Texas, was awarded a $25,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract to support Army Materiel Command to evaluate the readiness and efficiency of depot/arsenal operations. Bids were solicited via the internet with 10 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 4, 2026. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity (W52P1J-21-D-0019). Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel Co., White Hall, Arkansas, was awarded a $16,620,400 modification (P00003) to contract W912P8-20-C-0002 for maintenance dredging. Work will be performed in New Orleans, Louisiana; and Black Hawk, Louisiana, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 5, 2022. Fiscal 2021 civil construction funds in the amount of $16,620,400 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans, Louisiana, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Invictus International Consulting LLC, Alexandria, Virginia, has been awarded a $97,943,684 cost-reimbursement contract for Operational Simulated Cyber Environment Resiliency Software prototype/hardware. This contract provides for research and development of capabilities in modeling, simulation and testing cyber technologies across the full spectrum of cyber operations to aid the Air Force and the Department of Defense (DOD). Research and further development will provide the Air Force and DOD with next generation cyber tools and technologies that enhance cyber resiliency and can be rapidly transitioned and integrated to support Cyber Mission Forces. Work will be performed in Alexandria, Virginia, and is expected to be completed Feb. 3, 2025. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and two offers were received. Fiscal 2021 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $967,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, New York, is the contracting activity (FA8750-21-C-1504). Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia, has been awarded a $68,600,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee task orders for the Threat Assessment and Aircraft Protection Defensive Electronic Warfare program. This program will conduct innovative research and development to design expendable (ordinance) and directed-energy (signal) countermeasure concepts, in electro-optical and multi-spectrum electro-optical/radio-frequency domains, in response to an ever-changing missile threat landscape using threat exploitation; modeling and simulation evaluation; and hardware and field testing. Work will be performed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and is expected to be completed Jan. 29, 2025. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and one offer was received. Fiscal 2020 and 2021 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $1,431,071 will be obligated at the time of award on the first task order. Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-21-D-1014). *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2492400/source/GovDelivery/

• 

  October 21, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Security

  Navy Hires Boeing To Develop A Very Fast And Long-Range Strike Missile Demonstrator

  The Navy will use the new high-speed demonstrator to help refine its requirements for future stand-off anti-ship and land-attack missiles. oeing has received a contract to help develop a ramjet-powered high-speed missile demonstrator for the U.S. Navy. The company says that the design will aid the service in identifying requirements for future air-launched missiles, possibly ones able to reach hypersonic speeds, that its F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and other combat aircraft within its carrier air wings will be able to employ against targets on land or at sea. The company's Defense, Space & Security division announced that the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD), part of Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), had awarded it this contract, worth approximately $30 million, on Oct. 20, 2020. The work will be conducted under what is officially called the Supersonic Propulsion Enabled Advanced Ramjet (SPEAR) program. The goal is to conduct the first flight of the demonstrator in late 2022. "We have a talented team of engineers to meet the challenging technical demands and schedule timeline that the SPEAR program requires," Steve Mercer, the Program Manager at Boeing for the SPEAR effort, said in a statement. "We look forward to working with Navy experts to advance technologies for the Navy's future capabilities." It's not entirely clear what kind of missile demonstrator the Navy is looking for exactly for the SPEAR program. The acronym includes the word "supersonic," but Boeing's press release cites its prior work on the X-51A Waverider, an experimental air-breathing hypersonic vehicle that featured a scramjet engine. Hypersonic speed is generally defined as anything above Mach 5. At the same time, Boeing also highlighted its work on "the Variable Flow Ducted Rocket propulsion system under the Triple Target Terminator program in 2014." The Triple Target Terminator program, or T-3, which the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) led, explored concepts for very-long-range air-launched missiles that would be able to engage hostile aircraft, cruise missiles, and air defense threats on the ground, hence the name. A Variable Flow Ducted Rocket propulsion system is a kind of rocket ramjet, a relatively well-established concept at its core, in which gas produced by burning a source of solid fuel is mixed with compressed air fed into a combustion chamber via a duct or air intake to produce thrust. Advanced designs that allow for varying the flow of gas into the combustion chamber make it possible to throttle the thrust and adjust the speed of the vehicle the ramjet is powering. With this in mind, it's worth noting that NAWCWD issued a request for information regarding "Solid Fuel Ramjet Propulsion Manufacture/Test" in March, though it is unclear if that contracting notice is related in any way to SPEAR. In addition, Boeing's press release says that it will "co-develop" the SPEAR demonstrator, but it's unclear if this means another company is involved in the effort or that the Navy's own engineers and scientists will be directly assisting with the work. The website of the Naval Aviation Systems Consortium (NASC) lists a contract award to the company relating to the SPEAR program on Aug. 31, valued at just over $32 million, but for the demonstrator's airframe only. NASC "has been formed to support the technology needs of the Naval Air Warfare Centers (NAWCs) and the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) through the use of Other Transaction (OT) Authority," according to the site. There is no mention of this award in the Pentagon's daily contracting announcement for Aug. 31, which is supposed to include any deal valued at more than $7 million. The SPEAR contract that Boeing has just announced also does not appear in today's notice, so it's unclear when the Navy formally awarded these two contracts and whether or not they are, in fact, the same one. The War Zone has already reached out to Boeing for more information about its involvement in the SPEAR effort. Whatever the company's role in the project is or isn't, the press release certainly indicates that it will be a stepping stone to the development of future anti-ship and land-attack missiles that will be integrated onto aircraft in the Navy's carrier air wings. This includes the services F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, another Boeing product, a significant number of which eventually slated to go through the Block III upgrade program, which will add a host of advanced features that you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece. At the same time, the clear indication is that any operational weapons that follow-on from the SPEAR effort could be added to the arsenal of the service's F-35C Joint Strike Fighters, as well. An F/A-18E Super Hornet, at left, and an F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, at right, share space on the flight deck of the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during tests in 2018. "The contract award comes after the Department of Defense requested information from the defense industry to help the Navy determine technical requirements of future carrier-based land and sea strike weapons systems," Boeing's press release said. "The SPEAR flight demonstrator will provide the F/A-18 Super Hornet and carrier strike group with significant improvements in range and survivability against advanced threat defensive systems," Mercer, the firm's SPEAR program manager, added. Very-long-range, high-speed strike weapons could be very valuable for the Navy's carrier air wings, especially as potential near-peer adversaries, such as China and Russia, continue to develop and field increasingly longer-range and otherwise more capable surface-to-air missile systems and associated radars and other sensors. Aircraft carriers and their associated strike groups and air wings are also increasingly at risk from various anti-access and area-denial capabilities, further underscoring the need for weapons with greater range and that are able to prosecute targets faster to help ensure their survival. At present, the primary air-launched stand-off anti-ship and land-attack missiles available to them are the AGM-84D Harpoon anti-ship cruise missile, the AGM-84H/K Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), and the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), all of which are subsonic. The service is in the process of developing the AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER), which will have at some surface strike capabilities and will also serve as the basis for a Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW) for the U.S. Air Force. However, the exact speed and range of this weapon are unclear. The Navy is also developing a powered cruise missile derivative of its AGM-154 Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) glide bomb. Boeing's SPEAR announcement comes as the U.S. military as a whole is pursuing a wide array of new hypersonic strike weapons, including unpowered boost-glide vehicles and air-breathing missiles. The Air Force is working toward its own "Expendable Hypersonic Multi-Mission Air-Breathing Demonstrator" as part of a program called Mayhem, which is linked to work on advanced turbine-based combined cycle engines. That service is also working closely with DARPA on the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) project and its own Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) effort. Lockheed Martin, which is leading the development of the HAWC missile, has proposed a follow-on design for use by the Navy in the past. In August, the Air Force had said it was looking at designs from Boeing, as well as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, to meet a requirement for "a solid-rocket boosted, air-breathing, hypersonic conventional cruise missile, air-launched from existing fighter/bomber aircraft." It's not clear if that announcement was related to HACM or not, but the following month, Boeing released a computer-generated promotional video featuring a B-1 bomber firing what the company described as a notional hypersonic missile. The company has subsequently released a more detailed still rendering featuring this conceptual missile that, at least visually, appears to be an air-breathing design. All told, it's hardly surprising that the Navy is also in the process of pursuing its own high-speed strike missiles to arm its carrier aircraft. There's no reason to believe that the weapons that emerge from SPEAR won't be suitable for integration onto land-based platforms, such as the service's P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, as well. Whatever SPEAR's final design looks like, it's an important step forward for the Navy in providing this capability to its combat aircraft fleets in the future. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37170/navy-hires-boeing-to-develop-a-very-fast-and-long-range-strike-missile-demonstrator

• 

  January 15, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  France hires two firms to soup up jets with an electronic warfare capability

  By: Christina Mackenzie PARIS — France has awarded a contract for Archange, its strategic airborne intelligence program aimed at strengthening the country's signals intelligence capabilities, to Thales and Dassault Aviation. The procurement agency DGA awarded the contract on Dec. 30, but it wasn't announced until Tuesday. The program was launched Nov. 18 by Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly. The companies would not specify how much the contract was worth. Thales is expected to install a universal electronic warfare capability on three Dassault-manufactured Falcon 8X aircraft, although the announced deal is only for two aircraft. Another contract is expected to cover a third aircraft at a later date. The first two aircraft should, by 2025, replace the two Transall C-160 Gabriel aircraft that provide the French Air Force which signals intelligence. The electronic warfare system, known by its French acronym CUGE (capacité universelle de guerre électronique), will make use of sigint technologies developed by Thales over the past decade to enable the system to simultaneously detect and analyze radio and radar signals. Thales said in a statement that this is possible thanks to multipolarization antennas and the use of artificial intelligence for automated data processing. The tri-jet Falcon 8X is Dassault's flagship business jet. It has a range of 7,500 miles, but a spokesman for Dassault told Defense News that this did not necessarily mean the sigint version, called Archange (avion de renseignement à charge utile de nouvel génération), would have the same range. The contract also includes the supply of a ground-based training platform, which will be based at Evreux, south of Paris. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/01/14/france-hires-two-firms-to-soup-up-jets-with-an-electronic-warfare-capability/