Le premier contrat de R&T du SCAF (avion de combat du futur) passe au grill du Bundestag

Sur le même sujet

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  3 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Missile Defense Agency to inject competition into homeland missile defense contract

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency plans to hold a competition that could split up the work among contractors to modernize and sustain America's missile defense system, which is designed to destroy intercontinental ballistic missile threats. Boeing has held the development and sustainment contract for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense systems in place at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Boeing's contract is set to expire in 2023. The GMD system is made up of more than 44 Ground-Based Interceptors buried in silos in the ground along with ground control stations, detection and fire control systems, and other support infrastructure. Boeing received a sole-source $6.6 billion award in 2018 to build a new silo and 20 more GBIs, as well as to sustain the system. But Vice Adm. Jon Hill, the MDA's director, told an audience in March at an Association of the U.S. Army event that “we know that contract is not giving us everything that we need for the future, so we are going to compete that contract downstream.” The agency is working to develop a Next-Generation Interceptor that would replace the current GBIs with more capable interceptors. Its plan to upgrade the GBI's exoatmospheric kill vehicle with a redesigned version was canceled in 2019 due to technical problems. Rather than rework that program, the agency decided to design an entirely new interceptor and stop building new GBIs. A request for proposals for the NGI is due imminently. But along with a new NGI, “we are going to make sure that ground systems, sensors and fire control, all the rest of the system, we have the opportunity to inject that competition because I think that is very important,” Hill said. The MDA previously considered splitting up the contract several times, believing that would reduce cost and create efficiency in the program, but nothing materialized toward that goal. This time, the MDA has released two requests for information with the possibility of splitting up the contract. The most recent RFI was posted on Beta.Sam.Gov in March. “I will tell you that our lead system integrator does a great job today and the partnerships with industry within that construct do a great job, but we think that it's so large and complex we should be doing everybody a favor by being able to split that up without losing the integration among all those pieces,” Hill said, “so our intent is to move in that direction.” The agency “is exploring different approaches for fulfilling the GMD Program Element requirements. Acquisition approaches under consideration range from an award of multiple contracts to execute segments/missions of the program scope to a single contract to execute the entirety of the program scope,” the RFI states. “Essential to all of the acquisition approaches under consideration is the establishment of an enduring arrangement strategy for the execution of the [Weapon Systems Integration (WSI)] functions across the program lifecycle, either under a single prime contract, or as one of the multiple contracts.” The RFI lays out a possible plan to split up the contract into five pieces. One contractor would provide the NGI, which is being addressed through a separate request for proposals. Another would be responsible for legacy and future ground systems, and another for sustaining the existing GBIs. And a company would operate the weapon system along with military operators and would run fleet maintenance scheduling and deconfliction, site operations, test support, and depot and parts management, the RFI lays out. Lastly, a contractor would serve as the weapon systems integrator, making it responsible for overall GMD integration “including physical and logical integration of the GMD components, GMD system and MDA enterprise level integration, planning and execution of all necessary testing to verify and validate overall requirements compliance,” the RFI states. Responses to the RFI are due April 10. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2020/04/02/missile-defense-agency-to-inject-competition-into-homeland-missile-defense-contract/

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  4 septembre 2024 | International, Aérospatial

  Space Development Agency’s first satellites demo key capabilities

  This week’s test involved two satellites, built by SpaceX, exchanging data via a laser-communication link.

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  29 mai 2020 | International, Naval

  British-Spanish naval team gunning for another go at revamped UK carrier-support program

  By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — Spanish shipbuilder Navantia has formed a joint venture with Northern Ireland's Harland & Wolff to pitch for an upcoming program to build up to three logistics ships to support the Royal Navy's new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The Anglo-Spanish partnership, known as Team Resolute, has been announced as expectations grow that the British Ministry of Defence is preparing to reopen a competition to build two, or maybe three, ships capable of delivering ammunition, dry stores and spares in a requirement known as the Fleet Solid Support program. The MoD pulled the plug on the competition late last year claiming the bids did not represent value for money. With the competition poised to be restarted around September, Team Resolute is the first to show its hand. Navantia, one of Europe's leading shipbuilders, and Harland & Wolff have been working together for a while under a memorandum of understanding but the two have now firmed that up into a joint venture agreement as the MoD prepares to restart with a new procurement strategy. The third player in the Team Resolute line-up is British naval design company BMT. Although not a joint venture member, BMT will participate as a subcontractor providing the design. The company worked with Navantia in the original competition. The design house has built a reputation in recent years of providing designs to navies around the world, including oilers for Britain and multi-role logistics ships for Norway, both based on its AEGIR design. For Harland & Wolff, the Belfast yard famous for building the Titanic, it's the latest move in an effort to revive fortunes after the company almost went out of business last year before current owners InfraStrata acquired the operation. InfraStrata, a small British company looking to develop a huge underground gas storage facility just up the coast from Belfast, plans to use Harland & Wolff to undertake much of the fabrication work required on the energy program as well as seek to build a credible shipbuilding and support business. John Wood, CEO of InfraStrata, said the partnership with Navantia could open up the possibility of challenging a status quo which has seen BAE Systems and Babcock dominate the maritime sector here. “This partnership has the capability to disrupt the UK defence shipbuilding and through-life support duopoly that currently exists, as well as providing much needed competition in the defense sector to ensure optimum value for taxpayer money and guaranteed delivery," said Wood. “The Fleet Solid Support program gives us the opportunity to take the expertise in depth that Navantia and BMT have in order to put together a really strong offering based on a best-value-for-money strategy," he said in a telephone interview with Defense News. The yard only employs 130 people at present but Wood said there was plenty of expertise available not least among the 1,200 skilled staff who were laid off at Harland & Wolff prior to the InfraStrata acquisition. Navantia and a British group calling itself TeamUK – led by Babcock and including BAE Systems, Cammell Laird and Rolls-Royce – were the two contenders competing the final stages of the Fleet Solid Support program when the MoD called a halt to the competition amid a growing controversy over the fact that the competition had been opened to foreign bidders and not reserved for local companies. The British government claimed its was acting under European Union regulations as the support vessels were not warships. Britain has now left the European Union but remains subject to its rules and regulations while the two sides try to negotiate a trade deal. Now the MoD is preparing to recompete the requirement, which could be worth approaching $1.9 billion if all three ships are purchased for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the support arm of the Royal Navy. A spokesperson for TeamUK said the group was formed to deliver prosperity benefits for the local economy. “We look forward to understanding the updated requirements when the Ministry of Defence announces their future plans for this procurement process,” said the spokesperson. Babcock and BAE dominate the shipbuilding business in the UK and have significant contracts building the Type 31 and Type 26 frigate programs, respectively. Few outside the government know whether the new invitation to negotiate will leave the door open to foreign bidders and what the requirement will actually look like. Some analysts think the damage the Covid-19 crisis has done to the economy should rule out foreign bidders, giving priority to high local content to boost jobs and skills. The conundrum is, though, that as a result of the virus, the MoD is likely to have less money rather than more in future budget deliberations, putting even greater pressure on finding the best value for money solution. Wood says he is open-minded about which way the MoD jumps on the issue of foreign bidders. “Who knows where this will go. They are looking for value for money. What we are saying is they can have the best of both worlds with some outside influence from Navantia, a leading shipyard that has massive pedigree, and local company BMT supporting H&W, which has the best facilities for this kind of project in the UK. If we gear up for an international competition we are confident we can come through and put a credible bid on the table. If it's UK bidders only, we think we can do the same,” said Wood. Infrastrata's CEO said a manufacturing role for Navanti has not been ruled out. “There could be workshare going to Spain. There could be components or blocks coming from Spain, but the agreement we have is to do the majority of the work in the UK. It's really about coming up with a project that fits the delivery schedule. Until we get the timelines nothing is ruled in and nothing ruled out. The key fundamental is it's a British cooperation, with the ability to reach back into Navantia,” he said. The executive said the plan was to spread the work beyond Harland & Wolff into other parts of the UK. “We are looking at opportunities in the UK on fabrication. We may also look at another acquisition in the UK to spread the work wider,” he said. Save the Royal Navy, a well regarded online group campaigning to reverse the decline of the Britain's naval forces, speculated recently that rather than buying two or three large Fleet Solid Support ships the MoD may look at altering the requirement and buying several smaller, cheaper, multi-role logistics ships as part of a wider update to British maritime support requirements. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/05/28/british-spanish-naval-team-gunning-for-another-go-at-revamped-uk-carrier-support-program/