Nouvelles

By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — It's realistic for the U.S. Army to wait and see how the new coronavirus might affect its ambitious plans to modernize the force, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told Defense News in a March 18 interview. With major economic centers on both U.S. coasts restricting public gatherings, and with most of the country attempting social distancing to avoid the spread of the virus, industry as of this week appeared to still be sorting out how it would handle its own workforce and keep employees safe from infection. Much of what the Army is doing to address its top modernization priorities depends on industry collaboration and efforts. “We're watching what is happening,” McConville said. “We do have some high-priority tests that we think are continuing to go, and industry is doing the same thing that we're doing — they're putting measures in place with their people. They're weighing risks to the force and, really, risk to their missions as they do that.” Some high-priority tests will continue, he said, while “other ones will slow down.” While he did not list all high-priority tests that would likely go on, McConville noted that the Army is still moving forward with contract awards and making progress where it can. He pointed to the service's recent contract awards to Bell and Sikorsky to continue to develop and test aircraft for the Army's Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program. That contract was awarded on the expected timeline. The Army also tested its Extended Long-Range Cannon Artillery system at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, on March 6, but that was only as uncertainty was just beginning to build in the U.S. regarding the spread of COVID-19. The service has an abundance of important milestones planned across its modernization priorities this year, to include a robust flight test program for the Precision Strike Missile at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and a likely imminent flight test of a jointly developed hypersonic glide body. The Army also plans to award contracts to build Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft prototypes this month. But it's unclear how other programs will move forward. The previously troubled Integrated Battle Command System for air and missile defense is finally slated to go into a limited-user test in May this year, which is critical to the program's success. The Army planned to conduct a series of industry days to restart its effort to competitively procure a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle replacement, but according to sources, a virtual industry day to kick things off has been postponed and the Army plans to post informational slides to industry on Beta.Sam.Gov in the near term instead. “The acquisition cycle continues to move on,” McConville said, “and we'll have a better idea over the next 30 to 60 days, as more measures are implemented in certain states, what and how that really plays out.” https://www.defensenews.com/smr/army-modernization/2020/03/19/army-chief-how-covid-19-will-affect-army-modernization-is-a-wait-and-see-situation/

By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The new coronavirus pandemic may have dampened the U.S. Army's major division-level exercise in Europe, but the service's chief told Defense News in a March 18 interview that important lessons have already been learned. Defender Europe was slated to be the third-largest military exercise on the continent since the Cold War and was meant to test the Army's ability to deliver a force from forts to ports in the United States and onward to ports in Europe, and from there to operational areas throughout Europe from Germany to Poland to the Baltic states and other Eastern European nations, Nordic countries and even Georgia. The Army began to move troops and equipment into Europe beginning in January, with the meat of the exercise occurring in April and May this year. But as COVID-19 has spread across the globe, with Europe designated as the newest epicenter of the virus, the Army decided last week that it would scale back Defender Europe, according to a statement from U.S. Army Europe. “We have modified exercise Defender Europe 20 in size and scope,” a March 16 statement read. “As of March 13, all movement of personnel and equipment from the United States to Europe has ceased. The health, safety and readiness of our military, civilians and family members is our primary concern.” The Army decided to cancel linked exercises that would have been a part of Defender Europe, which already happen on a regular basis in Europe, to include Dynamic Front, the Army Joint Warfighting Assessment, Saber Strike and Swift Response. The service said it anticipates the armored brigade combat team already deployed to Europe will conduct gunnery and other combined training events with allies and partners as part of a modified exercise, and that forces already deployed to Europe for other “linked exercises” would come back to the U.S. Also last week, U.S. Army Europe announced that its commander, Lt. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, and his staff were exposed to COVID-19 at a land force commanders conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, on March 6. Out of an abundance of caution, the service decided to quarantine those exposed. According to an Army spokesperson, the quarantine has no effect on operations, and the general and his staff continue to carry out duties from an isolated location. Much was riding on Defender Europe when it comes to teaching the Army where it stands in terms of its ability to rapidly deploy a combat-credible force to Europe to support NATO and the U.S. National Defense Strategy. The exercise was also going to help the Army get more clarity on its Multi-Domain Operations concept as it morphs into official doctrine. The service had also hoped to assess through the exercise whether its pre-positioned stock in Europe had the right equipment and was in the right place. The Army made the difficult decision last week to reduce the size and scope of the exercise to “protect our troops,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said. The service had already deployed roughly 6,000 soldiers and 3,000 pieces of equipment from the U.S. beginning in January in support of the Defender Europe exercise, McConville said, and also deployed a brigade combat team and a division-sized headquarters. The Army also has moved about 9,000 vehicles and pieces of equipment from Army pre-positioned stocks in Europe for the exercise, he noted. “One of the big objectives of this exercise was what we call strategic readiness,” McConville said, “the ability to dynamically employ our forces from the United States, and we were able to demonstrate most of those capabilities. We were able to get our forces over there, we have a draw from the pre-positioned stocks and we're still able to train with our allies and partners, although at much less capability.” Those units that won't be able to train through some of the linked exercises in Europe are already “tactically ready” and could maintain readiness through home station training, McConville added. Lessons learned will directly feed into how the Army crafts its future doctrine and help validate that the service is ready to execute what is laid out in the National Defense Strategy. But the other thing the Army has learned from the spread of COVID-19 and its effects on the exercise is that the service is agile, McConville stressed. “We had to adapt the plan, we were re-missioning some units during the actual deployments; some units may go other places, and that's why this was a very good exercise for us,” he added. For those deployed for the exercise, McConville said that the Army has put in place a rigorous screening process for troops returning home when the exercise is complete, where they will be screened for infection before coming back and then screened again upon return to installations and posts, then quarantined as necessary. While the Army has exercised strategic readiness, testing the ability to move seamlessly from country to country throughout the modified exercise may not get a full shake due to how European countries may choose to handle the pandemic. Border crossing was a challenge in past years. For now, there are too many uncertainties to know whether border crossing and mobility across countries will pose a problem or a challenge for the Army, according to McConville. “Italy was a little ahead of us” in coping with the spread of the virus,” McConville said, “but Europe is probably right along the same lines where we are right now, where leaders are taking a hard look at how they want to try to contain this.” Meanwhile in the Pacific region, where COVID-19 originated and where many countries have been hard hit, the Army was able to complete a recent exercise — Cobra Gold in Thailand, McConville said. The service continues to conduct risk assessment for each upcoming exercise in the theater. The Army is also likely to stick to its plan to focus more largely on a division-sized exercise in the Pacific in 2021 and hold a smaller version of Defender Europe, rather than ramp up the European exercise back up to the intended size for 2020, McConville said. But there are still many unknowns, he added, and the Army will continue to assess its options. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/army-modernization/2020/03/18/covid-19-dampens-european-exercise-but-army-chief-says-all-is-not-lost/

NAVY Lockheed Martin Space, Titusville, Florida, is awarded a $601,332,075 fixed-price-incentive, cost-plus-incentive-fee and cost-plus-fixed-fee modification (P00005) to exercise options under a previously awarded and announced contract N00030-19-C-0100 for the submarine-launched ballistic missile (model) Trident II D5 production and deployed systems support. Work will be performed in Magna, Utah (33.5%); Sunnyvale, California (13.7%); Denver, Colorado (10.6%); Cape Canaveral, Florida (6.9%); Titusville, Florida (4.7%); Orange, Virginia (4.4%); Kings Bay, Georgia (3.4%); Kingsport, Tennessee (3.4%); Pittsfield, Massachusetts (3.3%); El Segundo, California (2.4%); Lancaster, Pennsylvania (2.2%); Inglewood, California (1.6%); Clearwater, Florida (1.3%); and other various locations (less than 1% each, 8.6% total). Work is expected to be complete by September 2024. Fiscal 2020 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $499,278,762; United Kingdom funds in the amount of $93,325,301; and incremental fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $500,000 are obligated on this award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was awarded on a sole-source basis under 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1) and was previously synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities website. Strategic Systems Programs, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. AECOM Technical Services Inc., Los Angeles, California (N62470-19-D-8022); Aptim Federal Services LLC, Alexandria, Virginia (N62470-19-D-8023); CH2M Hill Constructors Inc., Englewood, Colorado (N62470-19-D-8024); Environmental Chemical Corp., Burlingame, California (N62470-19-D-8025); Fluor Intercontinental Inc., Greensville, South Carolina (N62470-19-D-8026); and Perini Management Services Inc., Framingham, Massachusetts (N62470-19-D-8027), are awarded an $85,000,000 modification to increase the maximum dollar value of an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple award contract for global contingency construction projects. Work will be predominately construction, worldwide and is expected to be complete by March 2024. The work to be performed provides for the Navy on behalf of the Navy, Department of Defense and other federal agencies. The construction and related engineering services will respond to natural disasters, humanitarian assistance, conflict and various projects with similar characteristics. The contractor may be required to provide initial base operating support services in support of the construction effort, which will be incidental to construction efforts. After award of this modification, the total cumulative contract value will be $1,060,000,000. The term of the contract is not to exceed 60 months. No funds will be obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on subsequent modifications for work on existing individual task orders. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity. Environmental Chemical Corp., Burlingame, California, is awarded a $9,788,756 firm-fixed-price task order modification (N62470-20-F-9001) under the global contingency construction, multiple award contract for the exercise of Option One, which provides for the design, fabrication, transportation and installation of a waterside obstacle system at Mina Salman, Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain. Work will be performed at Mina Salman, NSA Bahrain, and is expected to be complete by August 2020. The total task order amount after exercise of this option will be $14,772,620. The task order also contains three unexercised options, which if exercised will increase the cumulative task order value to $16,427,558. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $9,788,756 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Europe Africa Central is the contracting activity (N62470-19-D-8025). KOAM Engineering Systems Inc., San Diego, California, is awarded a $9,711,022 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. All work will be performed in San Diego, California, at government facilities (50%) and contractors' facilities (50%). The work provides for systems engineering integration, engineering analysis, installation, testing and evaluation, fleet troubleshooting, configuration management, integrated logistics support, deploying group systems integration testing and combat systems ship qualification trials of tactical data link systems. The period of performance of the base award is from March 19, 2020, to March 18, 2021. If all options are exercised, the period of performance would extend through March 18, 2027. This one-year contract includes six one-year options, which will bring the potential value of this contact to an estimated $71,051,742 if exercised. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated as task orders are issued using operations and maintenance (Navy); other procurement (Navy); research, development, test and evaluation (Navy); Foreign Military Sales; and funding from other government agencies such as the Air Force on fiscal year spending plans. This contract was competitively procured as a small business set-aside solicitation by a request for proposal N66001-19-R-0044, which was published on the Federal Business Opportunities website and the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command's e-Commerce website. Four proposals were received and one was selected for the award. Naval Information Warfare Center, Pacific, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N66001-20-D-0044). Innovative Defense Technologies LLC, Arlington, Virginia, is awarded an $8,067,432 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification to previously awarded contract N00024-20-C-6116 to exercise and fund options for Navy engineering services, required material and travel. Work will be performed in Fall River, Massachusetts, and is expected to be complete by December 2020. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funding in the amount of $3,300,000 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp., Groton, Connecticut, is awarded a $7,307,480 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to exercise Options 5 through 9 to previously awarded contract N00024-09-C-2104 for planning and execution of U.S. ship South Dakota (SSN 790) guaranty. Work will be performed in Groton, Connecticut, and is expected to be complete by December 2020. Electric Boat Corp. will perform planning and execution efforts and material procurement in preparation to accomplish work on the U.S. ship South Dakota (model SSN 790) during its guaranty period. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $7,307,480 will be obligated at award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. These exercised options will bring the total cost-plus-fixed-fee award to $16,889,161. The Supervisor of Shipbuilding Conversion and Repair, Groton, Connecticut, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE AECOM International Inc., Neu-Isenburg, Germany (FA5641‐20‐D‐0003); Arcadis, London, United Kingdom (FA5641‐20‐D‐0004); Cardno GS Inc., Charlottesville, Virginia (FA5641‐20‐D‐0005); Jacobs Government Services Co., Arlington, Virginia (FA5641‐20‐D‐0006); Tetra Tech Inc., Pasadena, California (FA5641‐20‐D‐0007); and Wood Environment and Infrastructure Solutions Inc., Blue Bell, Pennsylvania (FA5641‐20‐D‐0008), have been awarded a $90,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for environmental services and environmental construction. This contract provides a broad range of environmental services including operations and maintenance activities associated with environmental programs, environmental construction, repair and demolition work including remediation, restoration and abatement on real property in support of the Department of Defense environmental mission. Work will be performed at various installations within the U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command areas of operation and is expected to be completed by June 14, 2031. This contract is the result of a competitive acquisition and six offers were received. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $2,500 are being obligated for each awardee at the time of the award. The 764th Enterprise Sourcing Squadron, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, is the contracting activity. ARMY Lagan Construction LLC, Woodbridge, Virginia, was awarded a $29,716,940 firm-fixed-price contract for the design, build repair and replacement of runways and overruns. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work will be performed at Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts, with an estimated completion date of July 9, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance, Defense funds in the amount of $29,716,940 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky, is the contracting activity (W912QR-20-C-0010). AECOM Management Services Inc., Germantown, Maryland, was awarded a $22,497,260 modification (P00005) to contract W58RGZ-19-F-0301 for repair or recap efforts of aircraft structures, engines, transmissions, blades, and components for various rotary wing aircraft. Work will be performed in Corpus Christi, Texas, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2022. Fiscal 2020 Army working capital funds in the amount of $22,497,260 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Red Stone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. CHC/SJH JV LLC, Miami, Florida, was awarded a $21,481,049 firm-fixed price contract for long-term riprap repair of the Walter F. George Dam. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work will be performed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 10, 2021. Fiscal 2019 civil works funds in the amount of $21,481,049 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W91278-20-C-0011). AECOM Management Services Inc., Germantown, Maryland, was awarded a $12,177,497 modification (P00003) to contract W58RGZ19-F-0304 to support the Aircraft and Aircraft Components Production Directorate, including facilities maintenance, supply logistics and administrative duties. Work will be performed in Corpus Christi, Texas, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2022. Fiscal 2020 Army working capital funds in the amount of $12,177,497 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Federal Prison Industries,** doing business as UNICOR, Washington, District of Columbia, has been awarded a maximum $12,720,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Army physical fitness uniform jackets. This is a one-year base contract with two one-year option periods. Locations of performance are Florida and Washington, District of Columbia, with a March 18, 2021, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-20-D-F055). UPDATE: Kohler Co., Sheboygan, Wisconsin (SPE8EC-20-D-0056), has been added as an awardee to the multiple award contract for commercial portable power equipment, issued against solicitation SPE8EC-17-R-0010 and announced Dec. 10, 2018. (Awarded March 18, 2020) *Small business **Mandatory source https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2118872/source/GovDelivery/

The mobile TITAN satellite ground station is a critical node in Army plans for all-domain operations. By THERESA HITCHENS WASHINGTON: The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) wants commercial vendors to submit prototypes for the Army's planned mobile ground station that can fuse sensor data from multiple ISR satellites — including both national security and commercial — into a common operational picture for battlefield commanders. While this solicitation, released late yesterday, focuses on space-based sensors, ultimately the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) is envisioned as a “unified” ground station that can take data not just from satellites, but also from high-altitude, aerial and terrestrial ISR sensors to provide targeting data directly to Army Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) networks. The Army describes TITAN as a “scalable and expeditionary intelligence ground station.” It is envisioned as a critical enabler of Army all-domain operations command and control. The satellite terminal is the first step in what will be a modular development of the TITAN terminal's capabilities over time — with a goal to deploy and initial operating capability early in fiscal 2022, as Brig. Gen. Rob Collins, Army program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, explained at the giant Association of the United States Army (AUSA) show in October, DIU's Space Portfolio Director Steve Butow explained in an email that the prototype ground stations should be “capable of rapidly and semi-autonomously tasking, receiving, processing, exploiting, fusing, and disseminating space based sensor data to provide networked situational awareness and direct tactical support to Army commanders at echelon.” One of the key goals is “to reduce sensor to shooter latency.” Latency is the term of art to describe the time it takes to send information from the satellite to the user on the ground. The prototype ground stations — which as with all DIU projects are envisioned to be rapidly fielded — must be capable of “rapid deployment to diverse operational environments via strategic lift and once deployed, be capable of rapid setup, tear down, movement, and assembly to meet operational commander's needs.” They also must be able to function “for a reasonable period of time” through “any loss of non-local communications or networks.” American contractors have until April 3 to put forward a proposal. Proposed prototypes “should include everything required to operate during a designated exercise(s) and demonstration(s) as well during real world operations, including the vehicle/trailers, power generation/conditioning, antennae, communications/network hardware/software (to include line of sight and beyond line of sight), processing hardware/software, and analytical hardware/software,” the solicitation states. Further, prototypes should be able to store and process data from multiple commercial providers. This means that the “access node should be a modular, open systems architecture, making it easy to upgrade software/firmware, analytics/algorithms, and ingest additional data streams as commercial vendors and national data become available.” This includes being able to store and process both classified and unclassified data. The project will run for 24 to 30 months, and will include the delivery of at least two and as many as six working prototypes. They must be ready for immediate testing and evaluation in a theater exercise. DUI is looking at two phases. Phase 1 includes the “development, integration, testing, accreditation and delivery” of two prototypes by January 2022. Phase 2 “includes the testing, assessment, and refinement of the prototype systems based upon participation in and feedback from several exercises and evaluations,” both in the US and theaters abroad. Phase 2 also includes the option of delivering up to four additional prototype systems. DIU generally uses Other Transaction Authorities as a contracting vehicle, as will this program. The solicitation notes that DoD is “also pursuing a separate parallel effort for the objective TITAN ground station design to accommodate Aerial and Terrestrial sensors as well.” Thus, the contractor(s) chosen will need to work ensure designs for the satellite terminal can be integrated with, and that all the software is transportable to, that design via agreements with the other companies involved. The Army issued a Request for Information on Dec. 4 about technologies to enable the “objective” TITAN terminal that can integrate all types of ISR sensors. That RFI was updated on Dec. 18. The RFI explains that TITAN eventually will replace the Army's current Tactical-Intelligence Ground Station, Operational-Intelligence Ground Station, Advanced Miniaturized Data Acquisition System Dissemination Vehicle and Remote Ground Terminal. It also must be “to operate at Brigade, Division, Corps, and Field Army echelons, in vehicles and shelters organic to the formation,” the solicitation said. According to a Q&A transcript of the Army's Dec. 4 industry day on TITAN, the service currently sees potential deployment platforms: a larger version for integration with on one variant of the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) with a shelter; and a smaller one to be integrated on “a four-seater tactical vehicle — either a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) or a Humvee. What is unclear is how this DIU effort relates to the earlier sole-source award to Peraton for the Satellite Ground Terminal (SGT) Prototype, that on the face of it is being designed to do exactly the same thing. Under that Nov. 19 award, which supports the Army's Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities (TENCAP) program, Peraton was to develop a fully-tested prototype to the Army within 20 months. SGT is expected to transfer up to 1,000 times more satellite data to operators than currently possible, according to Peraton. Queries to the Army, DIU and Peraton about this were not answered at press time. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/diu-seeks-prototype-sat-terminal-for-army-all-domain-ops

The company is using extensive automation and a new generation of high-efficiency gallium nitride materials to accelerate development of the Lower-Tier Air & Missile Defense Sensor, LTAMDS. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on March 19, 2020 at 7:01 AM WASHINGTON: Last October, the Army gave Raytheon a new kind of contract for a new kind of radar. Originally envisioned as simply an upgrade for the iconic but aging Patriot missile defense system, the Lower-Tier Air & Missile Defense Sensor has evolved into a multi-purpose radar that can share data with multiple kinds of command posts and launchers, not just Patriot, over the Army's new IBCS network. Its components use gallium nitride (GaN), instead of the traditional gallium arsenide (GaS), which means less electrical energy wasted as heat and more pouring out of the radar to detect incoming threats at greater distances. The program also takes a new approach to acquisition, using both the Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and Section 804 Mid-Tier Acquisition processes to shortcut around the cumbersome conventional process known as DoD 5000. Even the manufacturing process uses new forms of automation to speed up the process, helping to meet the Army's ambitious timeline. In this interview, sponsored by Raytheon, the company's Integrated Air & Missile Defense director, Bob Kelley, talks to Breaking Defense about what makes LTAMDS different. Q: What's special about the way the Army and Raytheon are developing LTAMDS? A: I think this is a great example of an Other Transaction Authority and Section 804 type of rapid prototyping program. It's very ambitious to go from a sense-off in the spring/early summer timeframe at White Sands Missile Range in 2019, to fielding radars to US Army soldiers in 2022. It is an ambitious schedule, but thus far we are on or ahead of schedule. I think a lot of that has to do just with the level of collaboration and transparency that you get from these types of acquisition programs. The OTA is a rapid prototyping program. This is not a [standard] 5000-series DOD acquisition program. The Army is looking for an urgent material release in fiscal year '22. And so, you back that up, you've got to deliver radars for testing in '21, and you had contract award in October of '19. Within 4 months of contract award, we had the first main array antenna, the one that goes on the front – there are two smaller ones to the rear. The first large front array is complete. Call it a prototype zero. That will be ready to start running contractor tests on this year. Q: What's your manufacturing process like to build these systems? A: We have our own nationally certified GaN Foundry on our site of our manufacturing facility in Andover, Massachusetts. So we're literally manufacturing the GaN chips about a couple hundred yards away from where we turn those into circuit cards, so that we can make GaN radio frequency elements to go onto the front of a radar antenna. So once those GaN chips are made, they come over to the circuit card assembly line, and from that point on there is very little touch labor. What you have is you have people that are supervising machines that are making these chips. It's not that people can't make great circuit cards, but you're going to be far more efficient and you're going to make a lot more. The machines are calibrated that every single card will be identical. Now, you need the humans there to make sure that it's identically right, not identically wrong, because if the first one's wrong they're all going to be wrong. But we take a lot of steps with a lot of quality control and testing to make sure that those are all done properly. Something else that's new this time around is adding some larger robots to our factory. We literally have a robot taking those circuit cards — that were assembled on a circuit card assembly line by machines — and delivering those circuit cards to another robot, and that robot will put them in place and install them on onto the radar. It allows us to have more identicality throughout the entire manufacturing process, but also to manufacturer these products much faster. A Patriot radar is still a very viable radar on the battlefield today, and we have partners that are purchasing them, but there's a lot of human touch labor on there, because some of the designs are a few decades old. This makes it so that we can create and manufacturer a radar in a much shorter period of time — and that's one of the things that is what's allowing us to go quickly here and meet the Army's ambitious timeline. Q: You mentioned Gallium Nitride – why is your ability to make that for LTAMDS so important? A: From our perspective, it's the power efficiency. So our radar takes power in and then it needs some of that power to power all the internal systems inside the radar: There's a whole bunch of signal processors, there's a cooling system — just like your car, there's all these auxiliary things that have to be operating to make the radar work. Then you're left with an amount of power that you are going to try to turn into radio frequency power, to push out and do things that radars do – detect, identify, classify, discriminate. The ranges and altitudes that you can do that at is a function of the efficiency of your RF transmitters and how much power you're putting in. What you'll see with gallium nitride is the efficiency, the output, the power output efficiency is unparalleled by any technology that's out there today. With the same amount of input power, you can see much further, see much higher and see much clearer. That's important when you want to build a ground-based air defense radar that has to be able to be driven around, that you want to be able to deploy on, say, a C-17 aircraft from the United States to some hotspot in the world. Well, that will limit you on the size that your radar can be. What you want to have is the most efficient radar that you can make, so with that size you can get the most performance and capability out of your radar. And we believe that's what we've done. This is not our first gallium nitride radar we've made. But with the improvements we've made to our gallium nitride over the past five to 10 years, we're calling this next-gen GaN technology. The efficiency on this radar far exceeds the efficiency on any other GaN radars that we produce. The main LTAMDS array is roughly the same size as the array on a Patriot, but provides more than twice the performance of the Patriot that's out there today on the battlefield. Q: What's the importance of the side arrays? Patriot didn't have them. A: The battlefield used to be linear – the good guys were on one side, the bad guys were on the other side – so bad things were going to come at you from generally the way you were facing. Well, the battlefield is nonlinear today. Now I can maneuver these missiles to attack from any direction I want. I know what your capability for sensing is; if I want to stay out of that, go all the way around you and come in from the rear, I can do that to you. You can be attacked by tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, electronic attack in the form of jamming, UAVs, fifth gen fighters. And they can bring them all in the same time and space to overwhelm your sensor capability. It's gotten to the point now, with the evolution of the threat and where the threat is going, that there is a requirement to have 360 degree protection. That's why we ended up with three fixed and staring arrays, so that we are always looking in all directions. Q: It's not just about LTAMDS itself – you also have to make this work with Northrop Grumman's Integrated Air & Missile Defense Battle Command System network, IBCS. A: There's a lot of intersections with IBCS as it gets ready to go into its limited user test, coming up in the next couple of months. This is the first US Army radar that is being designed and manufactured to be a native to the IBCS network. With Patriot and Sentinel, there are these adaptation kits that will adapt those radars and those shooters to the IBCS integrated fire control network. Those kits are not required with this radar: It is being designed and optimized specifically to operate in that network. It was actually part of the requirement: You had to demonstrate that you understood how to do that and make it happen. We get the interface document from the United States government and they say, “This is what you have to interface with.” It's that simple. [Editor's note: IBCS is a Northrop Grumman product, not one of Raytheon's, but the US government owns the necessary data rights and can share the interface control documents with other contractors whose products need to plug in. That's actually a novel approach to contracting and central to the military's pursuit of interoperable open architecture.] This interview transcript was edited for clarity and brevity. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/raytheon-robotized-factory-speeds-up-army-ltamds-radar

By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — In a letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly, the congressional delegation from Maine has requested quicker payments and relief from contractual obligations for the defense industrial base, including local shipyards, impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. In the letter sent Thursday, the delegation — Republican Sen. Susan Collin and Independent Sen. Angus King, as well as democratic Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden — warn that “the Department of Defense and the Navy must immediately act to protect our nation's defense industrial base, including our nation's shipyards.” Maine is home to Bath Iron Works, owned by General Dynamics, which produces both the Zumwalt and Arleigh Burke class destroyers. The delegation has three key demands. The first is for the department to “work to mitigate cash flow and other financial burdens” on contractors and subcontractors as a result of the outbreak, “to include relief from contracting requirements that are uniquely impacted by COVID-19.” The contract relief being sought involves waiving schedule and price requirements in case delivery times are impacted by loss of workforce due to coronavirus-inflicted travel bans, closures, quarantines or travel restrictions. It could also potentially give cover should a subcontractor be unable to deliver a part on time. Second, to take “any actions possible to accelerate or advance payments or new contract obligations in order to provide immediate stability to the industrial base.” The lawmakers offer to “immediately assist” the department if additional funding or “new legal authorities” are needed to make such sped-up payments possible. And third, the delegation calls for the department to clarify “planning and public guidance to ensure a stable industrial base while also ensuring the health and safety of the defense industrial base workforce” — that is, to make clear what workers must stay at work, and which could potentially work from home. A spokesman for General Dynamics told Defense News earlier this week that they are allowing anyone who can work from home to do so, while curtailing travel and pausing participation in trade shows. “An outbreak of COVID-19 at one of our nation's shipyards or other large defense contractors could truly be devastating to our national defense,” the delegation writes. “We ask you to work with and support industry to take all the necessary protective actions.” King is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, while Collins sits on the appropriations defense subcommittee. Pingree is a member of the House Appropriations Committee while Golden is on the House Armed Services Committee. It is expected that Collins, at least, will be speaking directly to Modly about the issue in the near future. https://www.defensenews.com/coronavirus/2020/03/19/maine-lawmakers-want-contract-relief-quicker-payments-for-industry-to-combat-covid-19-impact

L'Armée de l'air a accueilli deux équipages de Reaper venus d'Espagne, à l'occasion de leur stage de requalification. 33e escadre de surveillance, de reconnaissance et d'attaque. Le 13 mars, l'Armée de l'air française a annoncé avoir participé à la formation de deux équipages de drones Reaper espagnols. Il s'agissait en fait d'un stage de requalification, une procédure courante pour les pilotes de drones, qui s'est déroulé au sein de la base 709 de Cognac-Chateaubernard, qui accueille la 33e escadre de surveillance, de reconnaissance et d'attaque. La 33e ESRA est celle qui met en œuvre les drones Reaper français et forment les équipages à travers l'Escadron de transformation opérationnelle drone (ETOD) 3/33 « Moselle ». Coopération franco-espagnole. Les deux équipages espagnols ont ainsi pu suivre ce stage du 3 au 14 février. Le capitaine Redondo, de l'Ejercito del Aire, a déclaré à cette occasion : « c'est une grande chance pour nous de pouvoir bénéficier du retour d'expérience des pilotes et instructeurs français qui travaillent sur ces drones depuis plus longtemps. Nous avons pu échanger sur nos connaissances et nos missions respectives et sommes reconnaissants d'avoir pu apprendre de leur vécu », rapporte l'armée de l'Air. En effet, la livraison du premier système de drones Reaper à la France remonte à 2013, lequel a immédiatement été employé en Opex, dans le cadre de l'opération Barkhane. Un dispositif différent. La France a ainsi accompagné les deux pilotes et les deux opérateurs capteurs espagnols dans ce stage de requalification, qu'ils ont pu valider à l'issue de deux semaines de formation. Les équipages ont particulièrement travaillé sur les procédures de décollage et d'atterrissage de l'aéronef, sur l'emploi du radar ainsi que sur les différentes procédures d'urgence. Mais alors que les équipages espagnols s'articulent autour de deux personnes, la France adopte une approche différente dans ce domaine, avec un équipage à quatre. « Nous travaillons en équipage de deux personnes et les informations recueillies sont envoyées par satellite pour traitement. L'Armée de l'air française forme quant à elle deux personnes de plus qui intègrent l'équipage : un officier renseignement et un opérateur qui traitent les informations instantanément et sont en liaison directe avec leur commandement », met en avant l'Ejercito del Aire. Une distinction dont la France est fière et qui lui permet de transmettre rapidement un renseignement enrichi auprès des décideurs et du C2 lors des missions Reaper. https://www.air-cosmos.com/article/reaper-des-quipages-espagnols-viennent-se-former-en-france-22777

Par Michel Cabirol Le salon international de défense et de sécurité terrestres et aéroterrestres Eurosatory maintient pour le moment ses dates du 8 au 12 juin. Alors que les organisateurs du salon aéronautique ILA de Berlin ont été contraints d'annuler l'édition de 2020 (13 au 17 mai 2020), le salon international de défense et de sécurité terrestres et aéroterrestres Eurosatory, maintient quant à lui et pour le moment ses dates du 8 au 12 juin au Parc des Expositions de Paris-Nord Villepinte. Le Coges, qui organise Eurosatory, a mis tout son personnel en télétravail. "Nous nous employons à préparer avec soin le salon tout en assurant la sécurité et la protection de tous les participants", a précisé le Coges. Une décision concernant la tenue du salon ou son annulation sera prise avant fin avril. "Nous espérons que cette crise sanitaire sera la plus courte possible ; nul ne sait aujourd'hui comment cette crise va évoluer", a fait observer le Coges. https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/defense-le-salon-eurosatory-est-pour-le-moment-maintenu-842676.html

Tony Osborne The UK declared the F-35 operational even though the fleet was suffering from availability, infrastructure, logistics and security issues, auditors have revealed. The UK National Audit Office (NAO) found that the December 2018 initial operating capability (IOC) from land bases was granted with 67 exceptions, with almost one-third of those still yet to be resolved more than a year later. It is not clear on how many criteria IOC (Land) was judged. In its report studying how new capabilities are delivered into front-line operations, the NAO reported that in the run-up to the milestone there had been delays in the provision of synthetic training facilities. This impacted the availability of pilots and maintainers, while operational availability of the aircraft “hampered the ability to deliver training.” The report appears to confirm the reasons behind a 34-day flying break by the UK-based fleet in the late summer of 2018 reported by Aerospace DAILY. Plans to use simulators for training have been frustrated by “technical difficulties and delays in security vetting.” The NAO said the UK Ministry of Defense is able to use exemptions when bringing a new capability into service. Capabilities that do not meet specifications but are deemed good enough would be given an exemption. The NAO also says that IOC acceptance criteria for the F-35 was not finalized “until several years” after business case approval in the second half of 2017. Exemptions arose from “not being able to demonstrate deployability through a planned exercise,” because of aircraft availability, a reliance on contractors for mission support because of a lack of trained Royal Air Force personnel, and a lack of access to mission support training facilities in the U.S. Another challenge was an inability to program aircraft with UK mission data independently of the U.S. This has since been addressed with the opening of the Australian, Canadian and United Kingdom Reprogramming Laboratory (ACURL) at Eglin AFB, Florida, which was declared operational in February. The NAO notes that some 20 of the exemptions had still not been resolved as of last month. But the NAO says the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy have made progress in the areas of training personnel and logistics. The UK now has 15 F-35Bs based in the country flying with front-line unit 617 Sqdn. and with 207 Sqdn, a training unit. Since their arrival to the UK, the aircraft have been deployed to Cyprus and flown operational missions in the Middle East. They also recently took part in a Tier 1 Red Flag exercise with Five Eyes partners Australia and the U.S. A Lockheed Martin spokesman said that while it was for the customer to answer questions concerning IOC, “the F-35 program globally continues to mature, and Lockheed Martin has made significant steps in terms of reliability and aircraft availability, with the global fleet averaging greater than 65% mission-capable rates and operational units consistently performing near 75%.” Questions to the UK Ministry of Defense had not been answered at the time of publication. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/uk-declared-f-35-operational-despite-issues-auditors-say