Taiwan to buy $1.4bn of new fighter jets, likely F-16s produced in South Carolina

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  August 11, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  After a hard-fought competition, ULA and SpaceX to remain military’s rocket launch providers

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance and SpaceX have won the Space Force's next-generation rocket contract, locking the two companies in as the Defense Department's launch providers of choice for the foreseeable future. ULA — a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing — was awarded $337 million, while SpaceX will be getting $316 million for phase two of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, the Pentagon announced Aug. 7. They beat out Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman. Phase 2 of the NSSL program is the U.S. military's vehicle for ordering launch services from fiscal year 2022 to 2027. ULA is slated to get 60 percent of the manifest, with SpaceX getting the remainder. “We don't think this is the last round of innovation that we're going to see,” Will Roper, the Air Force's acquisition executive, told reporters during an Aug. 7 roundtable. “Although we're excited for the next five years, we're looking ahead to ‘Phase 3' five years from now and wondering what new leap-ahead, lower-cost technologies might be on the forefront to make assured access to space not just assured, but cheaper.” The award pays for the first three missions in 2022, which include two ULA launches and one for SpaceX. All are classified, Roper said. There is no ceiling on the number of launches that the Pentagon can order in Phase 2, but Roper expects about 32 missions. Funding for those missions will be distributed in future task orders. The NSSL Phase 2 award moves the U.S. military one step closer to eliminating its dependence on the Russian RD-180 engine, which is used in ULA's Atlas V rocket. The Defense Department has until 2022 to stop RD-180 procurement, and Roper said he was confident was on “a low risk path” to ensure it will meet that deadline. For the Phase 2 SpaceX offered the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, which are both certified and in use. ULA proposed a new rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, which is under development and expected to make its maiden flight in 2021. “Vulcan Centaur is the right choice for critical national security space missions and was purpose built to meet all of the requirements of our nation's space launch needs,” said Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO, said in a statement. Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman were also in the process of creating new launch systems under a 2018 agreement with the Space and Missile Systems Center. That organization will now work with those companies on how to best halt the government's involvement in that development, Roper said. “We will tie off the [launch service agreement] contracts as soon as we can, at a point that makes sense,” he said. “We want to make sure that work that's in flux, that we're able to document what the vendors have done. Where the government has rights to the data and the work, we want to make sure we retain them.” Unless the companies protest the contract award, the next opportunity for Northrop, Blue Origin or other challengers to compete for national security launches is NSSL Phase 3, but the department's approach and timeline for that effort is still being determined. “If funding were available for a Phase 3 launch service agreement, there's no prohibition on how early we could start Phase 3,” said Roper, who added that studies have shown “some strategic benefits for doing that sooner rather than later.” https://www.defensenews.com/space/2020/08/07/after-a-hard-fought-competition-ula-and-spacex-to-remain-militarys-rocket-launch-providers/

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  November 4, 2019 | International, Naval

  SECNAV: Ford Issues Due To Cost Cap, Explains Timeline

  By Rich Abott | The Secretary of the Navy today said the cost cap on the first Ford-class aircraft carrier helped lead to problems resulting in delays to the advanced weapons elevators (AWEs) and explained the government's issues and changing strategy with the shipbuilder. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer said on Wednesday at a Heritage Foundation press roundtable that the Navy and shipbuilder/AWE builder Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] planned to build a test elevator site, similar to the electromagnetic advanced landing system (EMALS) located in Lakehurst, N.J. The Navy has used Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst to test the General Atomics advanced arresting gear (AAG) and EMALS hundreds of times before testing them on the first new carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78). “Then we had the cost cap come in. And as [HII president and CEO] Mike Petters can say, you know fine, the cost cap comes in and no one builds the land site elevator. We had to cut costs somewhere. Sometimes we're our own worst enemy,” Spencer said. In February, the Navy said it would start building the AWE land-based test site, after the fact, in Philadelphia (Defense Daily, Feb. 20). Spencer said he thinks about it and wonders if anyone was expecting there to be second and third order effects of a cost cap. “You don't get anything for free and you're not going to drive quality by cost cap. We have to start thinking differently when we go to cost control.” Spencer also further illuminated the Navy's work with HII on the elevators. Last week, he strongly criticized the company after delays on the AWEs, saying the Navy's faith and confidence with HII senior management on the project were very low (Defense Daily, Oct. 25). On Monday, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts said the Navy-HII team's output on the elevators has been much better in the last few months and he was cautiously optimistic on progress of the Ford elevators (Defense Daily, Oct. 29). Spencer said in fall 2018 the Navy was finalizing the HII elevator plan. The company gave him a chart that said all 11 AWEs would be tested and certified by the end of the planned post-shakedown availability (PSA), which was then planned for July 15. He said HII management reported high confidence of this timeline while Naval Reactors told him due to throttle and bearing issues the PSA would likely be pushed into September or October, “so I had more margin there. Did I feel confident? Completely confident.” Then, in January, Spencer said he made a bet with President Trump that the AWEs would be finished with the PSA or he could be fired (Defense Daily, Jan. 8). Spencer explained this was meant to rally the shipbuilders. “What we weren't seeing down there was the spring in the step of the people on the waterfront, to be very frank with you. It was business as usual. So we said ok, here's a rally point, we're going to commit to this.” However, in May 2019 he said HII management “goes oops, here we are, elevators aren't going to be ready until the end of 2020, possibly 2021. And that's when I went, do they really know what they're doing?” Spencer called that a moment of inflection and called Thomas Fargo, chairman of the board of HII, asking if the board knew what was going on with management “because out trust and confidence on this specific project of the elevators has eroded significantly.” While Spencer said Fargo said yes, there were continued frustrations on the government side. “That's when Hondo [Geurts] and I said let's get a tiger team down there and let's take this over as the general contractor and HII can sub to us. And that's basically what's happened this last 3 months.” Spencer said he went to the president and, after explaining the situation, was told “it's a complex system, keep knocking down the dragons.” When asked if these lessons would apply to future ships, Spencer said the Navy wants to avoid a cost cap for the lead ship in a new class like upcoming guided-missile future frigate, FFG(X). “We have to have an open discussion on first of class. Now, these are proven designs so it's going to be a little different, but we are adjusting it here and there and yes we should expect some hiccups,” he continued. “Expectation management, I think, is key.” Going forward, Spencer argued perhaps the Navy should make requirements for ships more flexible. He compared the Navy's process to the airline industry, which requires an airplane that can fit a certain number of people to transport them a certain amount of miles and has few change orders, then examines the options. However, the government has shrunk the competitive base so far that contractors agree to following requirements but only if the government takes 60 to 100 percent of the risk. “In some cases, you'd love to say should we change requirements to requests? Because if in fact you're a shipbuilder, why should I definitively lock you in if you have better ideas? Where is the flow to say if you want to get here you might want to consider this, which his 80 percent of the solution versus I will drive to 100% of your solution but the cost is going to be up here?” Spencer said he understands it is difficult to change requirements because they serve a definite purpose but wondered at what cost and percent mission capability can the government make a compromise compared to the current inflexibility. Relatedly, Spencer said he has “medium confidence” that a recent $197 million reprogramming request to Congress to fund more Ford fixes will be enough, simply because “first of classes is tough.” “I'd be remiss if I said that was the last, to be very frank. I'd rather have the option to say we're going to come for more than saying no we're capped off now. I feel good on what we're finally learning on the end of this birthing process,” Spencer said. https://www.defensedaily.com/secnav-ford-issues-due-cost-cap-might-need-money/navy-usmc/

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  May 22, 2020 | International, Land

  KMW, Nexter and Rheinmetall get the go-ahead for initial MGCS architecture study

  May 20, 2020 - Standing for Main Ground Combat System, MGCS is a joint Franco-German defence project. The programme, to be implemented under German political leadership, is tasked with developing a main combat system to succeed the Bundeswehr's Leopard 2 and the French Army's Leclerc starting in 2035. Making the start of the MGCS procurement programme Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), Nexter Systems and Rheinmetall AG established an ARGE in December 2019. Now, the partners and the German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw), acting in the name of Germany and France, have signed a contract for the “System Architecture Definition Study - Part 1” (SADS Part 1). This contract sounds the industrial starting gun for a MGCS Demonstration Phase At the Franco-German Ministerial Council meeting in Toulouse on 16 October 2019, the defence ministers of both nations, Florence Parly and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, emphasized their commitment to developing the MGCS. The ARGE is a German acronym standing for Arbeitsgemeinschaft, or “working group”. Under German law, the ARGE serves as the contractual partner of the procurement authority (BAAINBw) during the first phase of the programme. Officials of the three companies represent the ARGE vis-à-vis third parties. The aim of the study is to harmonize the final MGCS concepts of the previous phase, to analyse further details, and to propose a common multi-platform architecture. The three contractual partners will assess various aspects of different concepts: technical feasibility in the projected timeframe allotted for the programme; ability to fulfil the operational needs of both armies; efficiency and compatibility with national “systems of systems” (SCORPION for France and Digitization of Land-Based Operations (D-LBO) for Germany). Workshares in the SADS Part 1 are to be distributed equally between France and Germany on a fifty-fifty basis. The first phase of architecture work is expected to last 18 months. View source version on Rheinmetall : https://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/en/rheinmetall_defence/public_relations/news/latest_news/index_23936.php