Kratos Drone. Eric DeMarco, president and CEO of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, says “we are now confident” that the company-funded Unmanned Tactical Aerial Platform (UTAP-22), an unmanned combat jet designed to survive in hostile environments, “will be receiving government funding either later this year or in 2017.” The UTAP-22 is a modified BQM-167 unmanned aerial target that participated in three demonstration flights at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., in late 2015. Those flights included formation flying with manned and unmanned aircraft.
Aegis Hawaii. North Korea’s Aug. 3 launch of two ballistic missiles, one of which landed in the Sea of Japan, prompted the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) to urge the U.S. government to activate the Aegis Ashore missile defense test complex in Hawaii for operational use. But such a change seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. Since the site was built for testing, “further study would need to be done to assess the site’s effectiveness in that role,” a Missile Defense Agency spokesman says.
No Protest. Lockheed Martin, which lost a recent competition to build three medium-range ballistic missile test targets for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), says it has decided against protesting the contract award to Orbital ATK.
Missile Defense Leader Dies. Army Maj. Gen. John Rossi, incoming commander of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, passed away suddenly July 31 at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. Rossi, 55, previously served as the commanding general of the U.S. Army Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, Okla. The cause of death is under investigation.
Naval Researchers. Rear Adm. Mathias Winter, chief of naval research, will become deputy director of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, replacing retiring Rear Adm. Randolph Mahr, the Pentagon announced Aug. 5. Rear Adm. David Hahn will succeed Winter at the helm of the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
UH-1N Replacement. The Air Force continues waiting for an approved acquisition strategy for the UH-1N replacement program, according to service spokesman Maj. Robert Leese. Service officials once deemed replacing the UH-1Ns helicopters that perform the nuclear missions so important that they originally wanted to award a contract without competition. But the Air Force reconsidered and decided to hold a competition for new aircraft. Possible bidders include Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky, Bell Helicopter Textron, Airbus and Leonardo. A replacement contract could run in the range of $800 million to $900 million.
AFLCMC Industry Day. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) hosts its inaugural Life Cycle Industry Days Sept. 14-16 at the University of Dayton’s River Campus, according to a service statement. The event is designed to encourage new relationships between government and industry. Featured speakers from across multiple agencies will discuss a variety of topics to include experimentation and prototyping, hot issues in source selection, weapon systems cyber resiliency, small business discussions and sustainment technology. Agenda, speaker list and additional information are available at http://www.wpafb.af.mil/lcid.
28th NGB Chief. Air Force Lt. Gen. Joseph Lengyel become the 28th chief of the National Guard Bureau on Aug. 4 during a ceremony at the Pentagon. Lengyel succeeds Army Gen. Frank Grass, who retired. Prior to his current assignment, Lengyel served as vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. As chief, he ensures nearly 450,000 Army and Air National Guard personnel are accessible, capable and ready to protect the homeland and to provide combat resources for the Army and Air Force.
USAF Superior Suppliers. The Air Force in late July released its 2016 Superior Supplier rankings, which are based on fiscal years 2013, 2014 and 2015 Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) data associated with Air Force-managed prime contract activity categorized as “systems” work. Tier I suppliers are: BAE Systems; Ball.; Boeing; CACI International; Honeywell; L-3; Leidos; Lockheed Martin; Orbital ATK; Rolls Royce; Sierra Nevada; and United Launch Alliance (ULA).
SM-3 Deal. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) exercised a $523 million contract option with Raytheon to produce, test and deliver 48 Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB interceptors for operational testing and deployment. This is the fiscal year 2016 option under the $2.4 billion contract for Standard Missiles awarded to Raytheon in 2015. The guided missiles are used by the Navy to provide regional defense against short-to-intermediate-range ballistic missile threats.
Naval Center for Space Technology. John Schaub on July 24 took over as director of the Naval Center for Space Technology at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), according to a service statement. Schaub previously served as the senior executive in charge of the spacecraft engineering department, part of NCST. The center’s mission is to preserve and enhance a strong space technology base and provide expert assistance in the development and acquisition of space systems that support naval missions.
Army Audits. The Defense Department Inspector General (IG) announced it will audit the Army’s ability to secure electronic health records. The audit begins this months and targets whether the Army designed and implemented effective security procedures to protect electronic health records and “individually identifiable health information” from unauthorized access. The audit of Army Medical Command is the first in a series of audits of military department security protocols over electronic health records, the IG says in its Aug.1 memo to the Army.
… DISA audit. The IG also announces the launch of an audit of the Defense Information System Agency’s software management procedures in response to unspecified allegations from the DoD whistleblower hotline. “Our objective is to determine whether the Defense Information Systems Agency complied with federal and DoD mandatory processes for software lifecycle management,” the IG says in a memo dated Aug. 2. “Specifically, we will address the allegations by determining whether the Defense lnformation Systems Agency is effectively following Federal and DoD policies and procedures for defining software development requirements, ensuring software security, performing software testing, and using open source software.”
A Brit on Board. General Dynamics’ board of directors has elected Peter Wall, a former British military officer, as a director. Wall was chief of the general staff for the British Army from 2010 to 2014 and before that served as commander in chief of Land Command, and director of operations in the U.K. Ministry of Defense. He is now director of Amicus, a strategic leadership advisory firm working in the U.K. and overseas.
Best Value vs. LPTA. Government services and solutions provider Engility Holdings is seeing a shift away from Low Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) contract toward best value contracting for highly technical services that are close to the customer’s missions, Lynn Dugle, the company’s CEO, tells investors. She says LPTA contracting is still being used for services “that might be provisioning bases or some kind of maintenance contract.” The shift is good for Engility, she says, “Because we are definitely a mission critical skills type of company.”
Arctic Leasing. A number of national security specialists, all with leadership experience as former military and defense officials, are arguing that the Department of Interior should maintain two areas of the Arctic in a proposed program to sell up to 13 areas of America’s outer continental shelf for oil and gas exploration. “The strategic significance of the Arctic is growing due to rapid change in the physical and geopolitical environments,” they say in statement in July. Excluding the Arctic from the program would harm our ability to protect our interests and to promote cooperation in the region.” The statement’s signatories include former Defense Secretary William Cohen, former Coast Guard Commandants Adm. James Loy and Adm. Robert Kramek, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others.
…National Security Interests. The main arguments that the Interior Department has been hearing around the proposed 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program are between those advocating drilling and those concerned with negative impacts to the environment, Loy tells Defense Daily. But another “dimension” to the debate is “national security,” hence the statement from this group of former leaders that has had to keep the Arctic in mind at different points in their careers, he says. Keeping the various lease options in the program doesn’t commit the government to making sales so keeping the Arctic areas preserves options, he adds. “Don’t shut any door before you have to,” he says.
Sea Base. The Navy formally kicked off construction of its fourth Montford Point-class ship, the USNS Hershel “Woody” Williams, at an Aug. 2 ceremony in San Diego. The 784-foot-long Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB-4) will have a 52,000-square-foot flight deck and will accommodate MH-53 and MH-60 helicopters and possibly MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. It will support various activities, including air mine countermeasures, counter-piracy operations, maritime security and humanitarian missions, according to General Dynamics NASSCO, which plans to finish building the ship in the first quarter of 2018.
BAE Leadership. BAE Systems appointed Stephen Hyde as vice president and general manager of the company’s Global IT Solutions business areas within its intelligence & security sector and Bijon Ray as vice president of finance. Hyde formerly worked at CSRA and Northrop Grumman and has over two decades of experience in various business leadership positions supporting government and intelligence community customers in intelligence analysis and computing/IT integration, and cloud computing. Ray first joined BAE in 1993 and previously served as the company’s director of finance for the applied intelligence business area.
Symantec Acquires Blue Coat. Symantec completed its acquisition of Blue Coat, Inc. to become a larger combined cyber company. The deal was first announced June. As previously agreed, Blue Coat CEO Greg Clark takes over as CEO of Symantec, Dan Schulman remains the company’s chairman, Thomas Seifert continues as executive vice president and CFO, and Michael Fey becomes the president and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Symantec.
Surveillance Contract. The U.S. Army awarded Bravura Information Technology Systems Inc. a nearly $306 million cost-plus-fixed-fee indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract for Persistent Surveillance Systems – Tethered support. Bids were received via the internet with the Army receiving four offers. Funding and work location are to be determined with each individual order. The estimated completion date is July 31, 2020. Army Contract Command in Aberdeen. Md., is the contracting activity.
SRI Software Contract. The U.S. Air Force awarded SRI International a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for software worth over $7 million. The software is for the Threat Intelligence for Grid Recovery, a project under Technical Area 3 of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA) Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation and Characterization Systems (RADICS) program. RADICS is meant to enable skilled cyber and power engineers to restore electrical service within seven days of an attack that overwhelms the recovery capabilities of an impacted organization. The contract is the result of a competitive acquisition with 70 offers. Fiscal 2016 RDT&E funds of over $1 million were obligated at award time. Work will be performed at Menlo Park, Calif., with an expected completion date by July 28, 2020.
Vencore Contract. The U.S. Air Force awarded Vencore Labs Inc. (formerly Applied Communication Sciences) a $9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for software development. The contract specifically calls for Vencore to provide research, development, demonstration, and delivery of a Scalable and Holistic Energy CybeR-weapon Localization and Characterization (SHERLOC) system. The SHERLOC is meant to be capable of rapidly localizing and characterizing cyber-weapons that have gained access to power grid infrastructure and able to map industrial control systems, gather configuration data, determine which devices are behaving incorrectly, and discover/characterize malware. This contract is the result of a competitive acquisition with 70 offers. Fiscal 2016 research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) funds of over $1.5 million are obligated at award time. Work will be performed at Basking Ridge, N.J., with an expected completion date of July 28. 2020.