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US must be transparent about realistic prospects for cooperation in space
Opinion: The Pentagon's work to strengthen allied space cooperation remains insufficient to achieve stated policy objectives.
4 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Lockheed dives into next-generation missile defense interceptor competition
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin said it will compete to build the Missile Defense Agency's Next-Generation Interceptor designed to protect the homeland against intercontinental ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran.
The company is “excited to confirm that we are putting in a bid for the Next-Generation Interceptor,” Sarah Reeves, Lockheed's vice president of missile defense programs, told reporters Aug. 3.
Bids were due July 31.
Boeing and a Raytheon-Northrop Grumman team have already announced their intentions to compete to develop and field the agency's new interceptor following the cancellation of the Redesigned Kill Vehicle meant to replace the warhead on the current Ground-Based Interceptors. Those missiles are part of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System, which is operational at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
The RKV program was paused in May 2019 and then abruptly terminated in August 2019 due to insurmountable technical issues resulting in delayed schedules and cost increases. The Defense Department announced at the time that it would embark on an entirely new program to field a future interceptor.
MDA now plans to downselect to two companies, which will then compete for the right to build the interceptor.
While MDA struggled with RKV, Lockheed invested the last two decades on multi-kill vehicle technology,” Reeves said.
Lockheed had one of three small contracts to design a kill vehicle that could take out multiple warheads several years ago that would lead to a program that would replace the RKV called the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) program. Raytheon and Boeing had won the remaining two contracts.
Reeves stressed the need for the new interceptor to be able to go after threats that disperse multiple objects including decoys.
“We are looking carefully at the lessons learned from RKV including parts survivability testing which, in that program, was done too late and caused a major system redesign, as well as ensuring early-and-often testing and fly-before-you-buy mentality,” Reeves said.
Lockheed plans to conduct two successful flight tests before going into production, Reeves said, which as an MDA program requirement.
“The time is right now,” Reeves said. “We have significant investments and the technology a couple of decades ago, when this was initially a vision of MDA, wasn't quite there, but now it is ready to go.”
The company plans to take elements from its existing capabilities such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which Reeves said has had a 100 percent mission success rate, and the Aegis missile defense system. Lockheed also will garner experience from its partnership with the U.S. Navy on its Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile system, which “has to survive these more hostile environments,” she said.
And Lockheed's experience with space is another asset that will contribute to understanding technology needed for an NGI, which will need to travel through space, according to Reeves.
Lockheed is also optimistic, Reeves said, that it can meet a faster schedule for NGI than currently planned.
Some Defense Department officials said NGI could not be fielded until the 2030s but the MDA director and U.S. Northern Command's commander believe it is possible to move that timeline to at least 2028 or earlier.
The company plans to use tools such as artificial intelligence, machine-to-machine learning, big data analytics and 3-D printing to “accelerate the schedule and to deliver products faster than we have had in the past,” Reeves said.
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Google Drops Out of Pentagon's $10 Billion Cloud Competition
By Naomi Nix Alphabet Inc.'s Google has decided not to compete for the Pentagon's cloud-computing contract valued at as much as $10 billion, saying the project may conflict with its corporate values. The project, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud, or JEDI, involves transitioning massive amounts of Defense Department data to a commercially operated cloud system. Companies are due to submit bids for the contract, which could last as long as 10 years, on Oct. 12th. Google's announcement on Monday came just months after the company decided not to renew its contract with a Pentagon artificial intelligence program, after extensive protests from employees of the internet giant about working with the military. The company then released a set of principles designed to evaluate what kind of artificial intelligence projects it would pursue. “We are not bidding on the JEDI contract because first, we couldn't be assured that it would align with our AI Principles," a Google spokesman said in a statement. "And second, we determined that there were portions of the contract that were out of scope with our current government certifications.” The spokesman added that Google is “working to support the U.S. government with our cloud in many ways.” The Tech Workers Coalition, which advocates for giving employees a say in technology company decisions, said in a statement that Google's decision to withdraw from the cloud competition stemmed from “sustained” pressure from tech workers who “have significant power, and are increasingly willing to use it.” Read more: Google Won't Renew Pentagon AI Drone Deal After Staff Backlash Google is behind other technology companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in obtaining government cloud-security authorizations that depend on the sensitivity of data a service is hosting. The JEDI contract attracted widespread interest from technology companies struggling to catch up with Amazon in the burgeoning federal government market for cloud services. Final requirements for the project were released in July after a months-long lobbying campaign in Washington by tech companies including Microsoft, International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp. that opposed the Pentagon's plans to choose just one winner for the project instead of splitting the contract among a number of providers. “Had the JEDI contract been open to multiple vendors, we would have submitted a compelling solution for portions of it,” the Google spokesman said. “Google Cloud believes that a multi-cloud approach is in the best interest of government agencies, because it allows them to choose the right cloud for the right workload.” In a report to Congress, the Defense Department said making multiple awards under current acquisition law would be a slow process that “could prevent DoD from rapidly delivering new capabilities and improved effectiveness to the warfighter that enterprise-level cloud computing can enable.” The department also said it expects “to maintain contracts with numerous cloud providers to access specialized capabilities not available under the JEDI Cloud contract.” — With assistance by Ben Brody, and Josh Eidelson https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-08/google-drops-out-of-pentagon-s-10-billion-cloud-competition