Missile Defense Agency Awards Lockheed Martin Contract To Design, Manufacture And Construct Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii

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  9 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  GOP’s ‘targeted’ stimulus doesn’t include defense dollars

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday introduced and set up a floor vote for a leaner Republican coronavirus relief bill, but it does not contain the billions of dollars the defense industry has sought to diffuse the economic impact of the pandemic. The bill, which includes some of the elements of the $1 trillion package the GOP proposed in July, is intended to break a weekslong partisan stalemate. However, it has a slim chance of passage in the face of Democrats' insistence for more sweeping aid. “The Senate Republican majority is introducing a new targeted proposal, focused on some of the very most urgent health-care, education and economic issues. It does not contain every idea our party likes,” McConnell said in a statement. “I will be moving immediately today to set up a floor vote as soon as this week.” It wasn't immediately clear what the differences, if any, were to an earlier version that Senate Republicans floated last month. Both draft bills excluded the $29 billion for defense that the GOP included in its previous $1 trillion package. The $1 trillion proposal from July contained $11 billion to reimburse defense contractors for coronavirus-related expenses, as authorized by Section 3610 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. which expires Sept. 30. Defense firms and trade associations have lobbied for an extension of Section 3610 as well as the funding, fearing the Pentagon would otherwise have to tap modernization and readiness accounts. The move comes as lawmakers straggle back to Washington for an abbreviated preelection session, as hopes are dimming for another coronavirus relief bill — or much else. Passage of an extension for Section 3610 and any funding may have a better chance if lawmakers can attach it to and pass a stopgap continuing resolution before Sept. 30, when the fiscal year ends and 2020 appropriations run out. However, defense industry observers were pessimistic on Tuesday. “I don't see any of the COVID package procurement money making it into the CR, and the CR is a high hurdle in any event,” a defense industry source told Defense News. “This Senate bill is a ‘press release' bill and not a piece of legislation that has a chance of passing into law.” Several Republican senators in tough reelection bids are eager to show constituents they are working to ease the pandemic's strain on jobs, businesses and health care. But many Senate Republicans are resisting more spending. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters Tuesday that the GOP conference would discuss the legislation during a meeting on Wednesday. McConnell's move Tuesday would clear the way for a Thursday test vote in which the $500 billion, scaled-back bill — roughly half the size of a measure McConnell unveiled earlier this summer — is sure to be blocked by Democrats. McConnell's bill would provide more than $100 billion to help schools reopen, enact a shield against lawsuits for businesses and others that are powering ahead to reopen, create a scaled-back supplemental jobless benefit of $300-per-week, and write off $10 billion in earlier post office debt. (The National Defense Industrial Association is among groups that have called for a liability shield.) But the bill won't contain another round of $1,200 direct payments going out under President Donald Trump's name. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., continues to demand $2.2 trillion, and while Trump's negotiators have signaled a willingness to inch further in her direction, a significant gap remains. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., rapped McConnell in a statement Tuesday for resisting earlier calls to work on an economic stimulus bill. They called the most recent bill “political” and a nonstarter with Democrats. “As they scramble to make up for this historic mistake, Senate Republicans appear dead-set on another bill which doesn't come close to addressing the problems and is headed nowhere,” Pelosi and Schumer said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/08/will-gops-targeted-stimulus-include-defense-dollars/

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  26 juin 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Japan confirms it’s scrapping US missile defense system

  By: Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press TOKYO — Japan's National Security Council has endorsed plans to cancel the deployment of two costly land-based U.S. missile defense systems aimed at bolstering the country's capability against threats from North Korea, the country's defense minister said Thursday. Taro Kono said the country will now revise its missile defense program and scale up its entire defense posture. The council made its decision Wednesday, and now the government will need to enter negotiations with the U.S. about what to do with payments and the purchase contract already made for the Aegis Ashore systems. Kono announced the plan to scrap the systems earlier this month after it was found that the safety of one of the two planned host communities could not be ensured without a hardware redesign that would be too time consuming and costly. “We couldn't move forward with this project, but still there are threats from North Korea,” Kono said at a news conference Thursday. Japan will discuss ways to better protect the country and the people from the North's missiles and other threats, he said. The Japanese government in 2017 approved adding the two Aegis Ashore systems to enhance the country's current defenses consisting of Aegis-equipped destroyers at sea and Patriot missiles on land. Defense officials have said the two Aegis Ashore units could cover Japan entirely from one station at Yamaguchi in the south and another at Akita in the north. The plan to deploy the two systems already had faced a series of setbacks, including questions about the selection of one of the sites, repeated cost estimate hikes that climbed to 450 billion yen (U.S. $4.1 billion) for their 30-year operation and maintenance, and safety concerns that led to local opposition. Kono said Japan has signed contract worth nearly half the total cost and paid part of it to the U.S. He said Japan is trying to get the most out of what it has already paid, though he did not elaborate. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has steadily pushed to step up Japan's defense capability, said last week that in light of the scrapping the government would need to reconsider Japan's missile defense program and do more under the country's security alliance with the U.S. Abe said the government would consider the possibility of acquiring preemptive strike capability, a controversial plan that critics say would violate Japan's war-renouncing Constitution. Kono on Thursday also raised concern about China's increasingly assertive activity in regional seas and skies. He said Chinese coast guard vessels are repeatedly in and out of Japanese waters around disputed East China Sea islands, and a Chinese submarine recently passed just off Japan's southern coast. “China is trying to change the status quo unilaterally in East China Sea, South China Sea and with Indian border and Hong Kong as well,” Kono said. “It is easy to make connections about those issues.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/06/25/japan-confirms-its-scrapping-us-missile-defense-system/

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  20 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  NASA Seeks Lunar Gateway Resupply Proposals

  Mark Carreau NASA has issued a request for proposals (RFP) from U.S. companies capable of carrying out up to $7 billion in re-supply missions to its planned lunar-orbiting, human-tended Gateway. The request asks for a service similar to how multiple commercial providers deliver pressurized and unpressurized cargo to and from the six-person International Space Station (ISS) under commercial resupply services contracts. The major difference is that the ISS orbits in a high inclination orbit about 250 mi. from the Earth's surface. The Gateway is to orbit the Moon in a near rectilinear halo orbit, an elliptical track that comes as close to the lunar surface as 1,875 mi. (3,000 km) and as far as 43,750 mi. Under the Gateway cargo RFP, the craft would remain parked at the Gateway for six months, followed by an automated departure and disposal. Responses to the RFP, issued Aug. 16, are due Oct. 1. Under the Artemis initiative unveiled by NASA earlier this year, astronauts will return to the lunar surface via the Gateway by 2024 as the agency pursues a sustainable presence by 2028 and prepares for the human exploration of Mars. Under the RFP issued through NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the agency is prepared to commit up to $7 billion to contract with multiple U.S. suppliers for 15 years on a fixed-price basis. Each resupply service would be assured at least two missions. NASA is asking RFP responders to address logistics, spacecraft design, cargo mass capability, pressurized volume, power availability for payloads and transit time to the Gateway. “We chose to minimize spacecraft requirements on industry to allow for commercial innovation, but we are asking industry to propose their best solutions for delivering cargo and enabling our deep-space supply chain,” said Mark Wiese, NASA's Gateway logistics element manager at KSC, in an Aug. 19 NASA statement. “In addition to delivering cargo, science and other supplies with these services, private industry also has the opportunity to deliver other elements of our lunar architecture with this solicitation.'' Once the initial contracts are awarded, NASA may issue additional lunar cargo contract opportunities to keep the operations competitive. With advance permission from NASA, its providers also may use mission capabilities to deliver, remove and/or return non-NASA cargo if the additional activities do not interfere with the prime mission. In late November, NASA announced the selection of nine U.S. companies under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, making them eligible to bid on the delivery of payloads to the lunar surface. The agency plans to invest up to $2.6 billion in CLPS over the next decade. https://aviationweek.com/space/nasa-seeks-lunar-gateway-resupply-proposals