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  May 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - May 27, 2020

  NAVY Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is awarded a $393,846,014 modification (P00008) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00019-19-D-0015. This modification increases the ceiling to produce and deliver Ancillary Mission Equipment (AME)/Pilot Flight Equipment (PFE) and associated AME/PFE initial spares in support of F-35 Lot 14 aircraft deliveries for the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, non-Department of Defense participants and Foreign Military Sales customer's operational aircraft. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be complete by September 2023. No funds are obligated at time of award and funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services, Rockville, Maryland, is awarded a $10,536,004 modification (P00006) to previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N00421-20-C-0003. This modification exercises options to provide engineering and technical services for integrated communications and information systems radio communications on Navy ships in support of the Ship and Air Integration Warfare Division, Naval Air Warfare Center, Webster Outlying Field, Maryland. Work will be performed in Saint Inigoes, Maryland (60%); California, Maryland (30%); Bath, Maine (5%); and Pascagoula, Mississippi (5%), and is expected to be complete by June 2025. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds for $2,000,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, is awarded a $7,432,050 modification (P00006) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00019-18-C-1063. This modification provides for Group 5 unmanned air system intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services. These services are in support of outside the continental U.S. (OCONUS) Task Force Southwest and Marine Corps operations utilizing contractor-owned/contractor-operated MQ-9 unmanned air systems. Work will be performed in Yuma, Arizona (35%); Poway, California (15%); and various OCONUS locations (50%), and is expected to be complete by July 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $7,432,050 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. ARMY Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control, Grand Prairie, Texas, was awarded a $106,282,221 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price) contract for industrial engineering services for programs supporting international contractor logistics services related to the Multiple Launch Rocket System. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Grand Prairie, Texas, with an estimated completion date of May 26, 2023. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Army) funds in the amount of $ 9,553,209 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-20-C-0032). EXP Federal, Chicago, Illinois, was awarded a $25,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for architect and engineering services for construction and renovation projects in the Republic of Korea. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 24, 2023. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Far East District, is the contracting activity (W912UM-20-D-0001). Lockheed Martin Corp., Orlando, Florida, was awarded a $13,210,610 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price) contract for modernized target acquisition sight/pilot night vision sensor refurbishment. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Orlando, Florida, with an estimated completion date of May 31, 2022. Fiscal 2010, 2018 and 2019 aircraft procurement (Army); and 2010 Foreign Military Sales (United Kingdom) funds in the amount of $13,210,610 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-20-F-0413). General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, was awarded a $13,181,067 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Gray Eagle post-production software support. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Poway, California, with an estimated completion date of May 27, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $13,181,067 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-20-F-0250). The Boeing Co., Mesa, Arizona, was awarded a $7,578,872 modification (P00057) to contract W58RGZ-16-C-0023 to provide generator feeder fault protection for the Apache helicopter. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2024. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Army) funds in the amount of $3,713,646 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. Tasso Inc.,* Seattle, Washington, was awarded a $7,500,000 firm-fixed-price contract for serology kits. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in San Diego, California, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 15, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $7,500,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W911QY-20-P-0158). (Awarded May 1, 2020) DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Raytheon Co., Andover, Massachusetts, has been awarded a maximum $14,494,050 firm-fixed-price delivery order (SPRRA2-20-F-0087) against a seven-year basic ordering agreement (SPRBL1-15-D-0017) for antenna elements. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a two-year, five-month contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Massachusetts, with a Sept. 30, 2022, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2022 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Puerto Rico Apparel Manufacturing Corp.,** Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, has been awarded a maximum $11,173,437 modification (P00010) exercising the first one-year option period of a one-year base contract (SPE1C1-19-D-1151) with four one-year option periods for various types of coats and trousers. This is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. Location of performance is Puerto Rico, with a Nov. 29, 2021, estimated performance completion 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. (Awarded May 21, 2020) AIR FORCE Ophir Corp., Littleton, Colorado, has been awarded an $11,281,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for repair of the B-2 pilot alert assembly and laser energy monitor. Work will be performed in Littleton, Colorado, and is expected to be completed May 25, 2025. This award is the result of a non-competitive acquisition. Fiscal 2019 repair funds in the amount of $1,500,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Sustainment Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, is the contracting activity (FA8119-20-D0004). LinQuest Corp., Los Angeles, has been awarded an $11,008,552 firm-fixed-price modification (P00047) to contract FA8819-15-F-0001 for the Space and Missile Systems Center technical support follow-on task order bridge extension. This modification provides continued technical support services for the Special Programs Directorate, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. Work will be performed at Los Angeles AFB, California, and is expected to be completed May 31, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $856,651; and fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $3,000,000 are obligated at the time of award. The U.S. Space Force, Space and Missile Systems Center, Special Programs Directorate, Los Angeles AFB, California, is the contracting activity. *Small business **Economically disadvantaged women-owned small business in historically underutilized business zones https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2199430/source/GovDelivery/

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  January 14, 2019 | International, Land, C4ISR

  What to look for in the upcoming Missile Defense Review

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's Missile Defense Review is in the final stages of pre-release, sources tell Defense News, after more than a year of release delays. The review, a congressionally mandated document looking at the status of America's missile defense capabilities, could be unveiled as soon as the next week, although it has yet to be briefed to Congress, sources say. And while there appears to be significant momentum to actually releasing the document soon, the release has seemed imminent in the past, only to be pulled back at the last minute. The document has been the focus of intense speculation from both the missile defense and nonproliferation communities, with a wide expectation that the document will call for investments in new missile defense technologies and, potentially, a notable change in America's missile defense posture toward Russia and China. For years, America has maintained that missile defense systems capable of defeating major strategic systems are being designed and deployed not at another great power, but only at rogue actors — chiefly Iran and North Korea — who might seek to strike at the U.S. or its allies. The National Security Strategy — the overall security guidance released by the Trump administration in late 2017 — underlines this thinking, stating that “the United States is deploying a layered missile defense system focused on North Korea and Iran to defend our homeland against missile attacks. This system will include the ability to defeat missile threats prior to launch. Enhanced missile defense is not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.” But analysts, such as Thomas Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, have argued that in an era of great power competition, as illustrated in the National Defense Strategy, it's foolish to lack a plan for defending American assets and allies against China and Russia. “For so many decades we've been standing there like Samson, pushing apart Russia and China on the one hand and missile defenses on the other, saying they're not related,” Karako said. “So in some ways, that implicit connection [from previous reviews] could become much more explicit and pursued more aggressively, and really it should be.” Citing a need to defend against Russian and Chinese weapons is simply stating a need to defend against a major challenger. But China particularly seems to grow as a concern year over year for the U.S. government; it's notable that acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan's message to his staff upon taking over the top job at the Pentagon was to focus on “China, China, China.” Members of the nonproliferation community, such as Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists, argue that the technology needed to ensure America can defeat a major nation's use of strategic weapons is so expensive and technically challenging that getting to that point will divert funding from better projects. That spending decision would also encourage potential adversaries to invest more, not less, in nuclear weapons to counter America's perceived missile defense improvements, the argument goes. “Even absent a specific policy to take on Russia and China more explicitly, planned missile defense plans continue to be made in patterns that Russia and particularly China will not be able to ignore,” she said. “Trying to counter China and Russia's strategic deterrent with missile defense is of course a fool's errand and gets us further from reducing nuclear weapons, not closer. I hope that wiser heads prevail.” It is important to differentiate between regional missile defense systems being placed to defend allies against Russia or China, and the bigger homeland defense mission, said Kingston Reif of the Arms Control Association. For example, based on congressional guidance, it is expected the review will include ideas for countering hypersonic weapons, a threat currently originating from only Russia and China. “If the review goes so far as to broaden the role of missile defense to defend the U.S. homeland against Russian and Chinese missile attack[s], that would mark a major and radical change in U.S. policy,” Reif said. “The United States, Russia and China aren't taking into account the concerns the others have about their offensive and defensive developments sufficiently seriously to avoid increased risks of instability.” Technical capabilities While the great power competition may be a key driver, it is unlikely to be the only new aspect of the report. Karako hopes to see a layout for how missile defense capabilities fit into America's overall deterrence strategy, noting: “All capabilities are finite. So how is it that finite active missile defenses can contribute to deterring a Russia or China?" “Everyone knows if they want to, they could overwhelm a given defense. But it really comes down to how do certain capabilities deter aggression, opportunism, limited strikes, all these kind of things,” he said. “So I'll be looking for the articulation of how it contributes to overall deterrence for ourselves and our allies.” He's also keeping an eye out for how the document defines “integrated” missile defense systems, and whether planners can avoid stovepiping capabilities. Reif, for his part, is looking to see if there are increases in the Ground-Based Interceptor force in Alaska and California, or the creation of an East Coast missile defense site. Technologically, the report is expected to push for so-called left-of-launch technologies — capabilities that can take out a potential missile threat before it even leaves the launcher. “If you can see it early, you can kill it early,” Gen. John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, said in August. “Driving that equation to the left has huge operational advantages because to actually shoot down a missile that somebody launched that comes back down on their head, do you think they are going to shoot another one? I don't think so. They are not going to shoot another one because it's just going to come right back down on their head, and so they stop shooting. Isn't that the whole point?” It's also expected the MDR will call for investment in laser systems, with Michael Griffin, the Pentagon's research and engineering head, saying in November that “you're going to see in upcoming budgets for missile defense a renewed emphasis on laser scaling across several” technology areas. In addition, expect talk of a space-based layer for missile defense, although that may be primarily focused on sensors rather than intercept capabilities — at least for now. Asked about space-based interceptors, Reif said: “Like a zombie that can't be killed, the idea keeps coming back. Pursuing space-based interceptors would be unaffordable, technically dubious and highly destabilizing.” The document, as ordered by Congress, must include milestone targets for developing new capabilities. It requires statements of five- and 10-year programmatic goals for developing capabilities, “as well as desired end states and milestones for integration and interoperability with allies, and a statement on the role of international cooperation,” per congressional guidance. Getting the MDR published has proven to be a nearly Sisyphean task for the Trump administration. Pentagon officials originally said the document would be released in late 2017 — then February, then mid-May and then late in the summer. In September, John Rood, who as undersecretary of defense for policy is the point man for the MDR, indicated the report could come out in a matter of weeks. And in October, Shanahan, then the deputy secretary of defense, said the document had been done “for some time.” There is also widespread speculation in the missile defense community that the review has been delayed, at least in part because of the warmed relations between the Trump administration and North Korea. Notably, the mid-May time frame for release, which was floated by Shanahan in April, lined up President Donald Trump's planned meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. While that meeting was canceled and then eventually happened in June, there was a sense the Pentagon did not want to do anything that could jeopardize those talks, such as releasing a report discussing how the U.S. could counter North Korean capabilities. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2019/01/11/what-to-look-for-in-the-upcoming-missile-defense-review

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  October 30, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Unmanned aircraft could provide low-cost boost for Air Force’s future aircraft inventory, new study says

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Air Force looks to increase the size and capability of its aircraft inventory, the service should assess the possibility of using drones as a low-cost and highly available alternative to manned airplanes, posits a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The CSIS report, which was obtained by Defense News and other news outlets ahead of its Oct. 29 release, compares three recent congressionally mandated studies on the Air Force's future force structure by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank, the federally funded research organization MITRE Corp. and the service itself. All three studies were broadly supportive of retaining existing unmanned aircraft, or as the Air Force terms them, Remotely Piloted Aircraft or RPAs. However, the CSIS report makes the case that the low cost and high mission capable rate of RPAs like the MQ-9 Reaper or RQ-4 Global Hawk merits more attention when making future force planning. “I think we need a roadmap for RPAs in terms of what are the new missions that we can begin to transition over to RPAs and some new operational concepts for how we use them,” CSIS senior analyst Todd Harrison told reporters at a Oct. 28 briefing. “I say this more from a cost perspective and a readiness perspective because our RPA fleet stands out from the rest of the Air Force in that it costs a lot less to operate [them] and we utilize them much more,” he said. “We need to leverage that. That's a strength that we need to double down on.” Harrison pointed to two data points supporting a wider use case for RPAs. Despite clocking in the highest number of flight hours per airframe, drones boast some of the highest mission capable rates in the Air Force's inventory, averaging near 90 percent for the MQ-9 and its predecessor, the MQ-1, and around 75 percent for the RQ-4 Global Hawk. Those aircraft are also cheap to operate, with some of the lowest costs per flying hour or total ownership costs in the inventory, Harrison said. The Air Force, MITRE and CSBA studies provide solid support for keeping the Air Force's current RPA force. The Air Force's study, which proposes a growth to 386 total operational squadrons, would add two squadrons of unmanned strike aircraft, although it does not say what kind of aircraft should be acquired. It also recommends an increase of 22 squadrons of aircraft devoted to command and control or the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission sets, but does not provide a breakdown of what specific capability gaps need to be addressed or whether they could be filled by unmanned aircraft. The MITRE and CSBA study, by contrast, advocate retaining the current inventory of MQ-9 Reapers and RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drones. CSBA also recommends the procurement of a new, stealthy MQ-X drone that could be used for strike, electronic attack and other missions in a contested environment. Despite the broad support, the three studies do not necessarily portend a wider acceptance or demand for unmanned aircraft in the next budget, Harrison said. “I wouldn't count on it happening that soon. I think this is a wider term change that's going to be needed. Part of it is a cultural change within the Air Force and part of it requires some real strategic thinking about what are the types of missions where unmanned is going to make sense and how do we best leverage those,” he said. “The RPAs that we have today, they didn't come about overnight. They evolved. A lot of the time they faced a lot of institutional resistance, but they proved themselves. They proved themselves valuable in the kind of fights that we've been in in the past 20 years.” One mission area that could be flown by unmanned aircraft in the future is aerial refueling, Harrison said. The Navy in 2018 awarded Boeing a contract to produce an unmanned carrier-based tanker drone known as the MQ-25. That aircraft, like all Navy planes, will use the simpler probe and drogue for refueling. Refueling via a rigid boom, as utilized by Air Force tankers, makes for a more challenging development, but the remote vision system on Boeing's KC-46 tanker — which allows the boom operator to steer the boom using a series of cameras as his or her only visual cue — is a step in the right direction, he said. Another potential area for expanded RPA use could be the development of low-cost drones that can be flown in swarms or as “loyal wingmen” to manned aircraft, the CSIS report stated. These “attritable” aircraft can be expended during a conflict without making an adverse impact on the mission or putting human pilots at risk. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/29/unmanned-aircraft-could-provide-low-cost-boost-for-air-forces-future-aircraft-inventory-new-study-says/