August 5, 2019 | International, Naval
KEY WEST, Fla., Aug. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Navy commissioned USS Billings (LCS 15) – the nation's eighth Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) – in Key West, Florida. This milestone places the ship, built by the Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) -led team into active service.
"Billings was designed to operate and adapt to a rapidly changing environment," said Joe DePietro, vice president of Small Combatants and Ship Systems at Lockheed Martin. "She is equipped and ready for today's threats and easily modifiable to meet the threats we may not even be aware of yet. Our team is confident Billings will be what the Navy needs when the fleet needs it."
Unique among combat ships, LCS is designed to complete close-to-shore missions and is a growing and relevant part of the Navy's fleet.
"Having now commanded two freedom class LCS variants, I would like to report that these ships are truly impressive and will fit well in the niche they have been designed for," said LCS 15's Commanding Officer, Commander Nathan Rowan. "They are fast, maneuverable, and their weapon systems are some of the most accurate I've witnessed on any platform of which I've previously served."
There are seven ships in various stages of production and test at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin, where the Freedom-variant LCS is built. The next Freedom-variant in the class is LCS 17, the future USS Indianapolis, which was delivered in late July.
"On behalf of the proud 2,000 men and women who transform flat steel into a fast, agile surface combatant," said Jan Allman, CEO of Fincantieri Marinette Marine, "we are honored to support the U.S. Navy, and we congratulate the outstanding crew of the USS Billings."
Multimedia assets are available here:
For more information, visit www.lockheedmartin.com/lcs.
https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2019-08-03-U-S-Navy-Commissions-Littoral-Combat-Ship-15-Billings
August 5, 2022 | International, Aerospace
Engine makers GE Aviation and Pratt & Whitney are competing for the future of the F-35 engine, as the Air Force considers a change.
June 12, 2023 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR, Other Defence
By fall 2024, Marine Corps low altitude air defense battalions will begin receiving a powerful new weapon.
November 23, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency has awarded its new multivendor cloud contract to a few companies, the spy organization confirmed Friday. Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, IBM and Oracle all confirmed to C4ISRNET they had been awarded the CIA's Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract, which will serve as the intelligence community's cloud environment. NextGov, which first broke the news, reported Google as an additional winner. The CIA declined to confirm specific vendors to C4ISRNET. “We are excited to work with the multiple industry partners awarded the Intelligence Community (IC) Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) Cloud Service Provider (CSP) contract and look forward to utilizing, alongside our IC colleagues, the expanded cloud capabilities resulting from this diversified partnership,” CIA spokesperson Chelsea Robinson said. The CIA declined to provide the contract value, though contract documents obtained by NextGov in 2019 stated it could be valued in the “tens of billions.” The draft request for proposals, released in February 2020 and obtained by C4ISRNET, was considering a 15-year performance period, a five-year base and two five-year options. The C2E contract is a follow-on award to the intel community's Commercial Cloud Services contact. AWS was the sole provider for that contract, which was worth $600 million. “We are honored to continue to support the intelligence community as they expand their transformational use of cloud computing. Together, we're building innovative solutions across all classification levels that deliver operational excellence and allow for missions to be performed faster and more securely,” an AWS spokesperson said. A spokesperson for Microsoft, which won the Defense Department's single-award, controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, said the company was “eager” to work with the intel community. “We applaud the intelligence community in advancing its cloud strategy to the next phase in order to take advantage of the latest commercially available cloud technologies,” the AWS spokesperson said. Jay Bellisimo, IBM's general manager for the U.S. public and federal market, said that the company “is proud to further its collaboration with the U.S. federal government.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2020/11/20/cia-awards-intel-communitys-cloud-contract-to-several-vendors/