Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - October 22, 2018

Sur le même sujet

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  30 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  BREAKING: Air Force to Fly New Skyborg Drones Next Year

  7/28/2020 By Jon Harper The Air Force plans to conduct operational experiments in 2021 with new unmanned aerial system prototypes for the Skyborg program, according to officials. Skyborg is one of the service's top three “Vanguard” science-and-technology initiatives aimed at delivering game-changing capabilities for the future force. The aim of the effort is to integrate attritable drone technologies with open missions systems to enable manned-unmanned teaming. The project is expected to lay the foundation for building a family of UAS that can adapt and make decisions at machine speeds. The autonomous platforms are expected to operate as robotic wingmen for manned aircraft, perform dangerous tasks and serve as low-cost force multipliers on the battlefield. The Air Force announced July 23 that it had awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts to Boeing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems and Northrop Grumman Systems that will enable the four companies to compete for up to $400 million in subsequent delivery orders in support of the Skyborg program. The contractors were down-selected after a competition with 18 participants. However, no funds were obligated at the time of the award; they will come with each individual order. The four companies are about to square off again as the Air Force prepares to make an order for the initial tranche of prototype aircraft. “Basically we'll look at the four options, what the pricing is, and so forth. There will be a lot that goes into deciding ... how many different vehicles we choose, how many we buy from each vendor,” Brig. Gen. Dale White, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, told reporters July 28 during a teleconference. “There's a lot of variables that are unknown in terms of what we get back from industry on that.” The service wants to buy as many different types of prototypes in the highest quantities it can afford with the pool of money that has been allotted, he added. It plans to place a delivery order in the next 60 to 90 days and "get the prototypes hopefully in the field by next year for some operational experimentation” with warfighters, White said. Vendors who didn't survive the recent down-select won't be completely shut out of the Skyborg program. “We are actively looking at how we use those vendors to increase the vendor pool over time because there's still a significant amount of work to be done getting to a production [system] and an operational vehicle,” White said. “We're going to keep the aperture open and we're going to maintain flexibility throughout this process.” The government-mandated open architecture will allow different organizations to come in and add technology to the platforms, noted Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory. “We will have that ability technically to add as we need to, and to increase the operational relevance,” she told reporters. “As the warfighter develops new ideas that would make it more operationally relevant, we'll be able to pull those pieces in as we conduct the operational experimentation campaign." AFRL is partnering with the Life Cycle Management Center on the Skyborg initiative and is bringing its own technologies to the table. “If there are opportunities on the autonomy side or developing the sensors that need to plug and play, or anything else that will help us achieve the operational goals that we have with our partners who are the warfighters. We're open to anybody ... that would make that happen,” she added. White said the Air Force envisions about 15 different potential mission sets that the drones could perform. The results of next year's operational experiments will help shape decisions about production and moving to a program of record. “We do have some timelines that we're looking at out there for making decisions, which I don't really want to share right now, but we believe we're going to be in a great position probably by the end of next year to be able to really decide which way we want to go with this,” White said. White was asked when the service aims to equip units with a Skyborg system that has initial operational capability or final operational capability. “We have plans that we think we'll [eventually] be ready to go do those things. But I think in a larger sense we still have to figure out how we bring this program together, put it in the overall corporate system in the Air Force and make sure ... we put the Air Force in a position to make a good decision point with when we go into production, how we produce it, what are the other things we have out there that it might partner with or it might complement,” he said. “We're still too early” in the project to say when systems will fielded, he added. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/7/28/air-force-to-fly-new-skyborg-drones-next-year

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  25 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Defense industry fighting DoD proposal to change performance payments

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's proposed plan to lower the rate of progress and performance payments some companies receive on defense contracts is sending shockwaves through the industry and invited a backlash from three large trade associations. To incentivize defense firms to work more quickly and more efficiently for the taxpayer, Pentagon leaders want to create a tiered system that recognizes high performing companies with higher performance-based payments. Contractors, however, are balking at the Pentagon's efforts to make them more accountable. While obscure to the general public, the proposed rule changes have rattled government contractors, which argue they would choke off funding for innovation, shackle them with more bureaucracy, increase the cost of military equipment— and hurt profits. The baseline performance- and progress-based payment rate for larger companies would be reset from 80 percent to 50 percent, with incremental increases or decreases based on new criteria proposed by DoD. If a contractor, for instance, delivers end items on time, hits milestone schedules, or avoids serious corrective action requests, it would win 10 percent bumps for each. (Small businesses would have their own schedule of incentives.) The National Defense Industrial Association is calling on DoD to rescind the regulation and collaborate with industry to create a different rule. One objection it has is the proposed rule would determine payment rates based on companies' overall performance, as opposed to contract by contract. “The marching orders from Congress is we have to be faster, more innovative, to do better for the warfighter,” said NDIA Senior Vice President for Policy Wesley Hallman. But, under the proposed rule, a company that wants to take on a high-risk project that fails, “will later be judged on that thing the following December. They're incentivized to take a low-risk approach.” Though Section 831 of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act encourages DoD to use performance payments, NDIA argues the rule violate's the law's intent and that lessening companies' cash flow would slow payments to subcontractors and sap funding for independent research and development. “We're doing our best to let them know how this will hurt industry,” said NDIA Director of Regulatory Policy Corbin Evans. The trade group's comments were submitted at a public meeting Sept. 14 to consider changes the Pentagon proposed in August to federal acquisitions rules, the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement. The Defense Department is holding another public meeting, Oct. 10, before the public comment period ends on Oct. 23. Both the Professional Services Council and the Aerospace Industries Association, which more than 300 companies in the aerospace and defense industry, also offered presentations in opposition. The move toward better stewardship of taxpayer dollars comes amid record Pentagon budget growth and amid a reorganization of the Pentagon's acquisition, technology and logistics office, now due to finish in a few months. The move falls in line with Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord's efforts to halve the timeline of major defense acquisition programs, which are notoriously slow. “I believe the lifeblood of most industry is cash flow, so what we will do is regulate the percentage of payments or the amount of profit that can be achieved through what type of performance they demonstrate by the numbers,” Lord said in a Defense News interview last week. Hence, “we're going to begin to reward companies through profit or through progress or performance payments, as a function of how they manage all of that, as well as quality and delivery and a variety of other things,” Lord said. Though it's unclear whether DoD will formally move ahead with the rule by a Dec. 1 deadline, investors have already responded negatively to a reports on the changes, according to aerospace and defense sector analysts at Cowen and Company. “It will be a scramble for companies and DoD to compile the necessary data to evaluate the rate request. Under the current draft rule, DoD would need to evaluate the rate request in just one month for all its suppliers,” Roman Schweizer, of Cowen and Company, said in a note to investors Friday. “We suspect that will be very hard the first time and suggests this year may be too hard.” Still, Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr downplayed the near-term effects, especially beyond the major primes. He speculated the proposed rule change will have negligible impact on contractor results in 2019 since it doesn't apply to any current contracts; it's very unlikely to go into effect before 2020, if ever; it will not apply to time and materials and fixed-price commercial terms contracts, and because it will only apply to some cost-plus contracts. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/09/24/defense-industry-fighting-dod-proposal-to-change-performance-payments

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  31 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Stealthy UAS Unveiled For USAF Target, Loyal Wingman Needs

  Steve Trimble A small start-up company in California has unveiled a new proposal for a stealthy unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to offer the U.S. Air Force as a “fifth-generation” target drone or a low-cost attritable aircraft. Tehachapi, California-based Sierra Technical Services, a company founded by previously retired Lockheed Martin Skunk Works engineers, unveiled the first photos of the completed Fifth Generation Aerial Target (5GAT) prototype after completing engine tests on the ground. A first flight of the 5GAT is scheduled in early 2020. The name of the aircraft is derived from its origins as a prototype funded by the Defense Department's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), says Roger Hayes, president and CEO of Sierra Technical Services. Several years ago, DOT&E recognized an emerging gap for a new target drone that could fly as a surrogate for fifth-generation fighters emerging in Russia and China such as the Sukhoi Su-57 and AVIC Chengdu J-20. In 2017, DOT&E awarded Sierra Technical Services a $15.9 million contract to develop the 5GAT prototype, Hayes said. The pace of assembly has been dictated by the availability of parts cannibalized from other military aircraft, such as the engines and metallic components from the Northrop T-38 trainer and F-5 fighter, as well as aileron actuators from the Boeing F/A-18, Hayes said. Sierra Technical Services supplemented its revenue as assembly continued by working on other programs, including supplying components for the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie. As development continued, the Air Force started to develop interest in a fifth-generation target. The service has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to develop the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, which is being designed to counter the PL-15 missile fielded on China's J-20 fighter. The Air Force needs to test the AIM-260 and other missiles against a representative threat. Last May, the Air Force released a request for information for the Next Generation Aerial Target, which included a version that can replicate fifth-generation fighter attributes, such as a stealthy airframe with canted tails and serpentine inlet ducts. The Air Force also is developing a concept to pair manned fighters such as the F-22 and F-35 with an unmanned partner, known sometimes as a Loyal Wingman. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) funded Kratos' XQ-58A, which completed a first flight in March. AFRL also plans to demonstrate a UAS controlled by a “software brain” using artificial intelligence. This Skyborg program is sometimes considered a follow-on for the XQ-58A program, but Hayes said Sierra Technical Services could offer the 5GAT for the Skyborg contract. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/stealthy-uas-unveiled-usaf-target-loyal-wingman-needs