Tanker Delay. The Air Force says the Boeing KC-46 aerial refueling tanker will be late in arriving at its basing location because of problems with the primary systems used for transferring fuel to another aircraft in flight. The aircraft is expected to arrive at Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma – its first formal training unit location – and McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas – the first active duty main operating base – in spring 2017. Its arrival is pushed back to late summer or early fall of 2017, according to the Air Force.
… Boom Problems. Technical challenges with the aircraft’s boom design and certification of the centerline drogue system and air refueling pods have caused delays to low-rate initial production and initial aircraft deliveries from Boeing, says Brig. Gen. Duke Richardson, head of the Air Force’s tanker program office. “Throughout KC-46 development the Air Force remained optimistic that Boeing would quickly address these issues and meet the original goal,” Richardson says in a statement. “We understand that no procurement program is without challenges and the Air Force remains committed to ensuring all aircraft are delivered as technically required.”
… Delivery/Production. The Air Force plans to make a Milestone C decision to begin low-rate initial production of the KC-46 in August. That will allow Boeing additional time to fix an issue with higher-than-expected loads on the refueling boom experienced during a C-17 mid-air fill-up. Boeing projects delivery of the first KC-46 to the Air Force in August 2017 and the 18th to roll out the following January. Those aircraft will be equipped to perform all the required capabilities except the wing aerial refueling pods. Because of delays in certifying the pods, Boeing expects to complete their delivery by October 2019, the Air Force says.
Parsons Cyber Head. Marianne Meins, vice president of Parsons, is appointed manager of the company’s Federal Cyber Intelligence & Operations Sector. In the new role she is responsible for the execution and growth of Parsons’ business related to the intelligence community. Meins first joins Parsons in 2015 as a business development manager in the defense and security division and the national security division vice president for business development. Previously, she held executive positions in industry, growing profit-and-loss organizations for large and small businesses focused on national security, Parsons says.
DLA Contract. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) awarded CACI a nearly $13 million firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-incentive-free, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract team arrangement with Tritus Technologies Inc. for sustainment and development efforts to support wide area workflow e-business suite and electronic document access applications and capabilities. This is a one-year base contract with two one-year and one three-month transition-out option periods. Tritus’ share of the contract is over $2.5 million. The contract’s maximum overall value including all options is $48 million. The acquisition is said to be competitive with one response received. Performance locations is Virginia with a completion date of June 30, 2017. Customers include the DLA and federal civilian agencies. DLA is the contracting activity.
GD Air Force Software. General Dynamics won a nearly $15 million U.S. Air Force cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide software and reports. GD will specifically design, develop, integrate, test, and demonstrate the delivery of a Shadow Compass prototype to satisfy an intelligence need through the correlation of geospatial intelligence, signals intelligence, cyber indicators and warning data streams. The award comes after a competitive acquisition with two offers received. Fiscal 2015 and 2016 research, development, test, and evaluation funds of $4.7 million are obligated at award time. Work is to be performed at Oakton, Va., with an expected completion date of May 25, 2018. The contracting activity is Air Force Research Laboratory at Rome, N.Y.
AUSA Theme. The Association of the U.S. Army takes words directly from the mouth of Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley in assigning a theme to its annual confab in Washington, D.C. The theme of the 2016 AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition is “America’s Army: Ready Today, Preparing for the Future.” The concept tracks verbatim with Milley’s constant insistence that readiness is his top priority, as evidenced by the service’s fiscal 2017 budget, which raided modernization accounts to pay for preparation for a high-end fight at a moment’s notice.
F-35 Arrives. The Netherlands’ first two F-35As landed for the first time at Leeuwarden Air Base early this week, marking the jet’s first trans-Atlantic flight. Their arrival was broadcast live to the entire country, according to the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO). Known as AN-1 and AN-2, the jets are spending three weeks in the Netherlands to conduct aerial and ground environmental noise tests, perform flights over the North Sea range and then appear and fly at the Netherland’s Open Days, the largest airshow held annually in the Netherlands.
…Sound of Freedom. The F-35s are performing noise tests at the request of the Dutch defense minister. During meetings held in February 2015 with residents living in the surrounding area of the two air force bases, the minister promised to bring the F-35 over to the Netherlands to enable local residents to experience and compare the noise-level of the F-35 with that of the F-16 currently in use.
NASA RVLT. The House Appropriations Committee (HAC) supports NASA’s Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) initiative, according to the report accompanying the draft legislation the committee approved via voice vote on May 24. HAC directs NASA to provide a report within 90 days of the bill’s enactment that describes the agency’s current rotary wing and fixed wing vertical lift research as well as planned outyear investments in this area. The RVLT project develops and validates tools, technologies and concepts to overcome key barriers to the expanded use of vertical lift configurations in the nation’s airspace, according to NASA. RVLT research advances technologies that will increase speed, range, payload, and safety and decrease noise, weight, emissions and fuel burn. American Helicopter Society (AHS) Executive Director Mike Hirschberg said May 27 that though RVLT has a well-though-out roadmap to make the greatest impact possible within its current funding level, NASA’s work in transformative technologies applicable to vertical flight like distributed electric propulsion are scattered among various projects and programs.
Schafer SSA. Schafer Corp. forms a commercial space situational awareness (SSA) business unit to meet the growing need for technically accurate, timely and relevant information on the location of natural and manmade objects in orbit around the earth. The company says in a statement it is appointing retired Air Force Col. Donald Greiman as vice president and general manager to lead this new segment. Greiman and former astronaut retired Air Force Col. Mark Brown are assembling a team of eight companies to compliment Schafer’s expertise in SSA. These companies are: Aon, Design Knowedge, ExoAnalytic, Nanoracks, Seradata, SRI International and Vision Engineering Solutions. Products and services will range from pre-mission planning and modeling to launch and orbit operations through end-of-life management of commercial satellites.
NROL-37. United Launch Alliance (ULA) indefinitely delays the NROL-37 mission originally scheduled for June 4 at the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) request, the company says in an email. An email to the NRO is not returned by press time. The NROL-37 spacecraft and Delta IV launch vehicle are secure on Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., ULA says.
SpaceX Delay. Space Exploration Technology Corp. (SpaceX) on May 26 scrubbed its Thaicom mission due to a “tiny glitch” in the motion of an upper stage engine actuator, company founder Elon Musk says on Twitter. The company was to try again May 27 with the two-hour launch window opening at 5:40 p.m. EDT. Launch is to take place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The company was to also attempt another landing on its autonomous spaceport drone ship.
Planetary Resources Fundraising. Planetary Resources Inc., an asteroid mining company, secured $21 million in Series A funding, according to a company statement. The capital will be used to deploy and operate Ceres, an advanced earth operations business featuring the first commercial infrared (IR) and hyperspectral sensor platform to better understand and manage humanity’s natural resources. The funding is led by Bryan Johnson and the OS FUND and joined by Idea Bulb Ventures; Tencent; Vast Ventures; Grishin Robotics; Conversion Capital; the Seraph Group; Space Angels Network, a syndication of investors from Angel.co; and Larry Page. Earth observation will be another aspect of Planetary Resources’ operations in addition to prospecting and mining asteroids.
Harris USAF Contract. The Air Force awarded Harris Corp. $106 million in follow-on contract options to sustain ground-based systems that support missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance missions, according to a company statement. Harris continues to sustain ground-based systems that support six unique weapon systems in 12 locations under the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s (AFLCMC) System Engineering and Sustainment Integrator (SENSOR) contract. SENSOR was awarded in 2002 as a five-year base contract with up to 13 earned option years. This award represents the 10th option year. Under the agreement, Harris provides all support required, including depot-level maintenance, repairs and upgrades, contractor logistics support and more, to ensure the weapon systems are continually available and capable.
Capitol Hill Week Ahead. The House and Senate take their Memorial Day recess this week. After the break, the Senate on June 6 intends to take up the defense authorization bill and begin debating amendments. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) initially intended on starting debate on the bill before the holiday, but was stonewalled by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who wanted lawmakers to have more time to read the bill.
SM-3 Tests. The Missile Defense Agency, Navy and Raytheon conducted two successful flight tests of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB Threat Upgrade guided missile. During the tests, held May 25 and 26 at Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii, sailors launched two missiles to prove out design changes to the missile’s third stage rocket nozzle, MDA says in a news release. “Based on the early data, the missiles performed as designed and validated the design modifications we made to further improve the reliability of the SM-3 Block IB,” says MDA Director Vice Adm. Jim Syring. Raytheon plans to integrate the new design into the current production line.
Ship Maintenance. The Navy this month awarded contracts worth $62 million to BAE Systems for the repair and maintenance of two ships. The first $32.5 million contract covers the docking selected restricted availability of Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Farragut (DDG-99). That availability includes repairs to the propulsion, ventilation and auxiliary systems as well as to crew spaces. For the second $29.2 million contract, BAE would be responsible for the phased maintenance of USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43), including repairs to the hull, machinery, electronics and pipes. Both ships will be serviced in BAE’s Jacksonville, Fla. If all options are exercised, the value of the two contracts could grow to a combined of $68.6 million.
CVN-80 Planning. Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding scores a $152 million contract for advanced planning of the third Ford-class aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise (CVN-80). The work, which extends until March 2018, includes engineering, design, planning and procurement of long-lead time material. Construction would then begin in 2018 with delivery slated for 2027. Earlier this month, Matt Mulherin, corporate vice president of HII and president of Newport News, indicated the company would pursue a digital-only design for the Enterprise, eschewing paper blueprints for tablets that would contain all relevant information for construction.
TSA Reprogramming Part II. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Thursday sent a second reprogramming request to Congress, this one for $28 million, to immediately convert 2,785 part time Transportation Security Officers (TSO) from part-time to full-time status to help the Transportation Security Administration cope with increased travel volume at the nation’s busiest airports. Two weeks ago Congress approved a $34 million request from the department to enable the hiring of 768 new TSOs. TSA is under enormous pressure from the flying public and Congress to ease congestion and long wait times at aviation security checkpoints.
UAS Improvements for the Border. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Office is working with General Atomics on an automatic takeoff and landing capability for the Predator Unmanned Aircraft Systems the agency operates out of Corpus Christi, Texas, for border security missions, Randolph Alles, executive Assistant Commissioner for Air and Marine, tells a House panel. He says the Predators have a 20 percent higher flight cancellation rate than manned aircraft in bad weather. He also says CBP is looking to move the Predators based in Corpus Christi to other airfields in Texas that are better for operating from during the winter.
…Tactical UAS. CBP and the Border Patrol have an operational requirements document for tactical UAS for use by Border Patrol agents and believe this technology needs “to get into the hands of” these agents, Ronald Vitello, acting chief of the Border Patrol, tells the panel. Vitello says the Border Patrol is working with CBP’s acquisition office on the resources available for tactical UAS and how they would be deployed. The agency is working with the Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology branch to narrow the potential platforms that would be available and is working with the Federal Aviation Administration on a memorandum of understanding to iron out airspace deconfliction issues, he says.