TechFlow Gets $968M DHS Contract for Explosive Detection Tech Maintenance Support

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  20 novembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  UK: MOD awards £160m contract to prepare RAF Lakenheath for US F-35s

  The MOD has awarded a contract worth £160m to Kier VolkerFitzpatrick to deliver infrastructure to ready RAF Lakenheath for two squadrons of US F-35s. The Suffolk airbase will be the first permanent international site for US Air Force F-35s in Europe and continues the base's long and proud history of supporting US Air Force capability in the UK. Co-locating US and UK F-35 capability in the UK will help strengthen the historic military ties between the two nations as well as the partnership between the RAF and US Air Forces The contract awarded to Kier VolkerFitzpatrick includes the construction of a flight simulator facility, a maintenance unit, new hangars and storage facilities. The flight simulator will have the capacity to link to other simulators used pilots across the UK and beyond, allowing expertise to be shared and pilots from the UK and US to train together on a regular basis. At the height of construction, it is expected that there will be up to 700 contractors on site. The investment will also provide wider benefits to the local economy with over 1,000 personnel and family members living at the base. MOD is also working closely with Forest Heath District Council and Kier VolkerFitzpatrick to ensure that the opportunities to create employment and training are maximised to ensure they last beyond the end of construction. A ceremony, attended by representatives from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, US Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa (USAFE- AFAFRICA), Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC), Kier VolkerFitzpatrick and Forest Heath District Council, was held at the base to celebrate the award of the contract. Minister for Defence People and Veterans, Tobias Ellwood, said: For more than one hundred years now our armed forces have fought in defence of our common values and interests. Our two countries have developed the deepest, broadest and most advanced relationship of any two nations. Today marks another step towards reinforcing the strong partnership between our two nations and an exciting milestone for RAF Lakenheath. This investment will see substantial benefits to local economy, bringing 1,000 new personnel with their families and we will work hard to ensure that the benefits will last long after construction ends. USAF 48th Fighter Wing Commander, Colonel Will Marshall, said: This is an exciting milestone for the 48th Fighter Wing and for all our partners. We're transforming RAF Lakenheath together, and the work we do today is critical to the future security of the United States, the United Kingdom and the NATO Alliance. DIO Commercial Director, Jacqui Rock, said: We welcome this investment into RAF Lakenheath. This is an incredible opportunity for UK Defence and for the local area and DIO is pleased to be able to support the development of this key infrastructure which will make the beddown of the US F-35s possible. Managing director of aviation and defence at Kier, James Hindes, said: We're extremely proud to have been appointed to deliver another prestigious defence project for DIO. It builds on our extensive expertise in the defence sector delivering first-class projects within secure environments including facilities at MoD Lyneham and RAF Shawbury. We look forward to working closely with the DIO and our local supply chain to provide this crucial infrastructure and deliver this exciting opportunity ready for the arrival of the two permanent squadrons. Managing director of VolkerFitzpatrick's Civils division, Chris Evans, said: We are delighted to have been awarded this highly significant project with DIO. VolkerFitzpatrick has been working with the United States Air Force at RAF Lakenheath for over ten years and we look forward to bringing the knowledge we have gained to this new contract. The project will allow us to build on our substantial experience within the civil airports and defence sector, to deliver the highest quality infrastructure for the new F-35 Fighter Jet. The contract has been designed so that the enabling work can begin immediately on the award. Building work is programmed to start in the summer next year so that the base can welcome the first of the new aircraft in 2021. The contract award is the first in a wider programme of work to support US Air Force operations in the UK, with more than US$1bn expected to be in invested in the UK over the next seven to ten years. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-awards-160m-contract-to-prepare-raf-lakenheath-for-us-f-35s

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  31 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  The calculus of cheaper military comms satellites

  By: Kelsey Atherton Space is not so much hard as it is expensive. Satellites today are expensive machines, expensively built and expensive to launch, with the understanding that, once on orbit, they can work for years. That calculus assumes several eggs in every pricey basket, and as space moves from a home for military satellites to a domain where nations prepare for actual combat, building resilience in orbit means rethinking how satellites are done. It means rethinking costs in the billions and imagining them instead in the millions. And to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Paul “Rusty” Thomas it means creating a whole new ecosystem for payloads and launches. Thomas is the program manager for Blackjack, a DARPA initiative that wants to pilot a constellation of cheaper satellites for military communication, with the costs low, uplinks up and the resilience of the whole constellation baked-in. C4ISRNET's Kelsey Atherton spoke with Thomas about the program. C4ISRNET: There's a lot of interest in both low Earth orbit [LEO] and constellations of satellites. What is DARPA's specific goal with Blackjack? PAUL “RUSTY” THOMAS: Blackjack, as an architecture demonstration, will build a portion of a constellation, looking at about 20 percent of a fully proliferated LEO constellation. That's a range of 20 satellites, 20 percent of the 90 to 100 satellite constellation, which would give a ground user three to four hours per day or more of theater-level operations so that we could actually demonstrate what we're going to do with a full, fully proliferated 24/7 constellation that covers the entire Earth and gives global constant coverage and global constant custody. C4ISRNET: What was the logic behind accepting separate proposals for busses and payloads? THOMAS: Most exquisite spacecraft we built have been married to the bus and payload from Day 1. That's a wonderful model for exquisite spacecraft. But we're trying to build a proliferated LEO payload ecosystem — like the commercial commoditized bus ecosystem — that can match the numerous types of payloads. To do that you don't want to just show that one payload matches great and then move forward. That just gives you a great payload. To try and build that ecosystem out, you want to go to at least Program Design Review with the payload developers working to a generalized initial design covering numerous types of commoditized busses. Once you get deeper into the design phase, match that payload to a bus, which allows a large range of payloads to be developed. C4ISRNET: There's a lot of commercial interest in this space; does that pose any risk to deploying a new constellation? THOMAS: The goal of Blackjack is to prove you can leverage commercial approaches with potentially lower costs, lower cycle times, lower times for design and build. It also comes with the issue that we're not directing the approach to building the bus, we're not directing how the constellation is put together for these folks; therefore, the rest is getting the government itself to do that match and to put our systems into play in a way that marches in lockstep with them without directing their commercial elements will play. That brings risk. We have to learn how to do business a little different than it's been done in the past, and to move a little quicker than the government has in the past. C4ISRNET: So, there's no risk of LEO being too crowded to accommodate more constellations? THOMAS: No. Well, I wouldn't say no risk, there's always risk, the mega constellations that you're starting to see FCC filings for look like they're going to put hundreds, and some of them into the 10,000-plus range, and that's certainly going to be a challenge and it's going to be a risk. Fortunately, we have air traffic control systems on the ground that cover large numbers of aircraft in the air at any given time. We haven't actually taken that step into how to manage large numbers of spacecraft in space yet, but we believe that all the technology is there and it's just a matter of implementing an area where the government is going to be tracking what the commercial folks are doing. There's a risk — it's not major, space is big — but you absolutely need to track the spacecraft and make sure they can deorbit. But in terms of putting thousands or even tens of thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit, all of that seems very feasible and is not in the high-risk bucket. C4ISRNET: What's the rough timeline you're expecting for demonstrations? THOMAS: For the 20-satellite constellation, we plan to have the first two spacecraft that we have integrated to the commercial busses and the payload together ready by the end of 2020, with launch by early 2021. We will follow that in 2021 with the rest of the 18, once we've confirmed the first two are fine. We will have the full demonstration capability running late in 2021 with an expectation of theater-level autonomous operations from low Earth orbit in 2022. C4ISRNET: One argument for satellite constellations and against exquisite satellites is resiliency. How does that work here? THOMAS: You get a lower cost, the individual node becomes a bit expendable, you don't build your resiliency around the individual node, you don't try to protect that spacecraft to the nth degree like in exquisite billion-dollar-plus craft. If the Blackjack model works, spacecraft will be in the $3 million to $4 million range, $2 million to $3 million to put it into orbit. We're talking about a $6 million node, including the cost of getting it into space. Therefore, it's less than the cost of a high-end munition. The constellation itself becomes your resilient element. You can put your high-level availability, reliability and mission assurance at the constellation level instead of at the node, because of the numbers you're putting up. If one satellite has fallen, its replacement is coming over the horizon 10 to 15 minutes later. You have a different approach to resiliency, large numbers of spacecraft in play, which totally turns some of the counterspace elements on its ear. C4ISRNET: What counter-space elements might this be especially resilient against? THOMAS: You now have low-cost nodes, so a lot of the direct ascent type of methods out there no longer makes a lot of sense. Of course, you still have varied threats from non-kinetic and cyber. We still need to protect the constellation against all the other types of threats out there, so it probably helps the most on the kinetic side, but it certainly gives you lot of resilience in all the areas. C4ISRNET: What kind of communications presence will this enable? THOMAS: Blackjack is aimed at leveraging the new mesh networks being set up by these commercial companies. A user currently in the DoD might need to look up at two or three different options in space to actually talk and do communications in this space segment. Once we link up and do encryption, the user on the ground will look up and see hundreds or more potential network nodes overhead at any given point on the planet, North Pole to South Pole; it's going to drastically change how the DoD does communication. That is a bit independent of what Blackjack is going to do. If the commercial companies succeed and come out, that capability, call it raw gigabit-per-second class, not all of them it. But they all have many megabit data links from one point of the planet to another, at very low latency, 100-200 milliseconds, so you do really change the game for how any user, DoD included, does global communication. C4ISRNET: Is a desired end goal of Blackjack specifically a redundant spaceborne network that can function independently if access to internet on the ground is cut off? THOMAS: If you have a problem with your terrestrial network — whether it's a ground network system or point-to-point comms, fiber optics or others being interfered with — the space mesh network provides the ability to move the data up, move it through the space mesh, and move it back to the ground, without any other system being involved in that data transition. The switch network that Iridium has up right now, it's low bandwidth but a wonderful system in terms of moving data from one point to another on the planet through the Iridium gateways that DoD and its users have worldwide. Move that up to high broadband access, and not just two or three satellites overhead but dozens or hundreds, and it really does move us into a new realm. C4ISRNET: At what point in the program do bus and payload link? Is there a point where they're demoed together? THOMAS: In the [broad agency announcement] out right now, you can see we're looking for multiple payloads to go at least through phase one, potentially multiple buses to go through phase one. As we progress the programs through the preliminary design review into phase two and get critical design review, first two spacecraft built, we'll be selecting the ones to continue deeper and deeper into the program to match up and do the demo. We'll start with a wide range and narrow down to a smaller set to actually do the demonstration with a secondary objective of showing why a huge payload will work, why different types of payloads will be successful in this type of architecture, even though we've only got one or two of them. C4ISRNET: What does the future of Blackjack look like? THOMAS: We are looking at large numbers of types of payloads. We very much want to get into a rapid tech refresh cycle ... putting up payloads every two or three years that are newer version of the ones that have gone previously, have an open architecture standard so we can update over the air with better algorithms. https://www.c4isrnet.com/thought-leadership/2018/07/30/the-calculus-of-cheaper-military-comms-satellites/

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  11 janvier 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 08, 2021

  DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY US Foods Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina, has been awarded a maximum $377,791,948 fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-quantity contract for full-line food distribution. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a two-year base contract with one one-year option period and one two-year option period. Locations of performance are Virginia and North Carolina, with a Jan. 7, 2023, ordering period end date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2023 defense working capital funds. The contracting agency is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE300-21-D-3313). Science Applications International Corp., Fairfield, New Jersey, has been awarded a maximum $95,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for facilities maintenance, repair and operation supplies. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a one-year bridge contract with no option periods. Locations of performance are Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., with a Jan. 8, 2022, ordering period end date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2022 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE8E3-21-D-0005). Dispensers Optical Services Corp.,* Louisville, Kentucky, has been awarded a maximum $18,000,000 fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for optical lenses. This was a competitive acquisition with one response received. This is a three-year base contract with two one-year option periods. Location of performance is Kentucky, with a Jan. 7, 2024, ordering period end date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and federal civilian agencies. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2021 through 2024 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE2DE-21-D-0012). NAVY Alberici-Mortenson JV, St. Louis, Missouri, is awarded a $359,738,706 fixed-price-award-fee modification to exercise the first and second options under previously awarded contract N69450-20-C-0016 for design-bid-build recapitalization of the dry dock at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. The work to be performed provides for concrete repairs in various locations throughout the dry dock; overhauling and repairing the steel caisson; and upgrading power distribution, chilled water and fire detection and alarm systems. The project will also repair corroded steel members of the dry dock superstructure, re-coat the entire superstructure and replace roof and wall panels. The project will remove one bridge crane and overhaul two other bridge cranes. The scope also includes rebuilding/replacing sluice gates and actuators, roller gate rails, flap valves and frames and all piping. This project will also upgrade control systems and electronic components and upgrade the auxiliary seawater system. This award increases the total cumulative value of the contract to $554,465,051. Work will be performed in Kings Bay, Georgia, and is expected to be completed by October 2022. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $359,738,706 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Southeast, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity. Oceaneering International Inc., Chesapeake, Virginia, is awarded a $56,878,408 cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-only modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-18-C-6413 for configuration changes, engineering services, material, maintenance and repair. The total cumulative face value of the contract is $131,895,943. Work will be performed in Chesapeake, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by September 2021. No funds will be obligated at time of award. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. Atlantic Signal LLC,* Topeka, Kansas, is awarded a $45,128,388 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the purchase of up to a combined maximum quantity of 233,736 units inclusive of hearing enhancement devices, cables, push-to-talks, hygiene kits and helmet adapters. Work will be performed in Topeka, Kansas, and is expected to be complete by September 2025. Fiscal 2020 operation and maintenance (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $9,999,420 will be obligated on the first delivery order immediately following contract award and funds will expire on March 19, 2021. This contract was competitively procured via the beta.SAM.gov website, with seven offers received. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Virginia, is the contracting activity (M67854-21-D-1809). Raytheon Co., McKinney, Texas, is awarded $7,825,657 for a firm-fixed-price delivery order (N00383-21-F-PF03) under previously awarded basic ordering agreement N00383-19-G-PF01 for the repair of 10 line items associated with the APY-10 radar system used in support of the P-8A aircraft. Work will be performed in Jacksonville, Florida (70%); and McKinney, Texas (30%). Work is expected to be completed by May 2023. Annual working capital funds (Navy) in the full amount of $7,825,657 will be obligated at time of award and funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One firm was solicited for this non-competitive requirement in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), with one offer received. The Naval Supply Systems Command, Weapon Systems Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Hardwood Products Co., LP, Guilford, Maine, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $110,085,000 firm-fixed-price, undefinitized contract as a commercial contract for industrial base expansion of U.S. domestic production capacity for medical foam tip swabs. This contract is for the procurement of equipment and machinery to enable expanded production of foam tip nasal swabs. Work will initially be performed in Pittsfield, Maine, and is expected to be completed by October 2021. Fiscal 2021 other procurement funds in the amount of $34,220,000 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity (FA8730-21-C-0019). M1 Support Services, Denton, Texas, has been awarded a $77,369,924 firm-fixed-price contract for the back-shop and flight-line maintenance of multiple aircraft types. Work will be performed at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, and is expected to be completed by June 30, 2027, if all options are exercised. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and three offers were received. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance funds in the amount of $37,094,520 are being obligated at the time of award. The Acquisition Management and Integration Center, Langley-Eustis AFB, Virginia, is the contracting activity (FA4890-21-C-0002). iGov Technologies Inc., Reston, Virginia, has been awarded a $30,906,705 firm-fixed-price modification (P00015) to contract FA8730-18-F-0061 to exercise options for Tactical Air Control Party - Mobile Communications System Block Two kits, training and support of the system. This modification provides for the exercise of an option for an additional quantity of 142 production kits, along with the associated training Lot Two and second generation anti-jam tactical ultra-high frequency radio for the NATO licenses Lot One and Lot Two being produced under the basic contract. Work will be performed at various locations across the U.S., and is expected to be completed by September 2022. Fiscal 2020 other procurement funds in the amount of $1,189,383; and fiscal 2021 other procurement funds in the amount of $29,717,322, are being obligated at the time of award. The total cumulative face value of the contract is $81,006,838. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity. DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY Lockheed Martin Corp., Missiles and Fire Control, Grand Prairie, Texas, is being awarded a $58,905,062 modification (P00006) to previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract HR0011-20-C-0038 to exercise the contract line item number 0003 option for development of the integrated OpFires system. This includes risk reduction testing to achieve a system-level critical design maturity. Fiscal 2020 and 2021 research and development funds in the amount of $18,505,167 will be obligated at the time of award. Work will be performed in Grand Prairie, Texas (57%); Huntsville, Alabama (11%); and Elkton, Maryland (32%), with an estimated completion date of January 2022. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND Pollock Research & Design Inc., Reading, Pennsylvania, has been awarded a firm-fixed-price contract modification (P00007) on contract HTC711-19-CR001 in the amount of $7,954,311. This modification provides continued crane maintenance for the U.S. Army Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command. Services provide maintenance to ship-to-shore and rail mounted gantry cranes. Requirements include scheduled maintenance and on-call unscheduled maintenance. Work will be performed at the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, Southport, North Carolina; the Military Ocean Terminal Concord, Concord, California; and Naval Magazine Indian Island, Port Hadlock, Washington. The period of performance is from Jan. 9, 2021, to Jan. 8, 2022. Fiscal 2021 defense working capital funds were obligated at award. The U.S. Transportation Command, Directorate of Acquisition, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity. *Small business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2466843/