Army Ammo. The Army has selected General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems and Northrop Grumman for a new $3.05 billion contract to manufacture medium caliber training cartridges, the Pentagon announced on March 29. The two companies, who were the only firms to submit bids, will each compete for orders under the new deal. Work on the contract is expected to be completed by April 2029.
CNO On Carrier Push.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti recently said she hopes to limit issues with how the Navy pushed back the planned procurement of the future Ford-class aircraft carrier CVN-82 from FY ‘28 to ‘30. The Navy’s FY ‘24 budget request pushed back the carrier due to decisions to comply with budget caps from the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. During the pre-recorded Defense One State of the Navy event on March 27, Franchetti said, “these are some of these hard choices that we need to make. And I’m committed to working with the administration, with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, with industry partners, to understand how to best put that together.” She highlighted the budget included some advance procurement for CVN-82 “to keep the smaller suppliers in the game. And we know that that’s a concern on industry’s part.”
…On Lasers. Franchetti said on directed energy weapons that “there’s a full court press in the R&D community to get those found, get them developed and get them out on our ships as quickly as possible.” She added that the Navy is working with the joint force to see how it can leverage capabilities in other services that could be possibly used on ships “and get that capability employed very quickly.” The CNO said she thinks that may be the most effective way to get these kinds of weapons deployed on ships as quickly as possible.
LHD-5 Work. The Navy awarded General Dynamics NASSCO’s Norfolk facility a $311 million contract on March 21 for the maintenance, modernization, and repair of the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD-5) in its fiscal year 2024 docking selected restricted availability. The contract includes options that, if exercised, would raise the total value up to $344 million. The work is expected to be finished by May 2026. The announcement noted this was procured in an open competition with one other offer received. As is standard, the government did not disclose the other competitor. This contract was announced on March 26.
T-ATS-10. The Navy held a keel laying ceremony for the future USNS Muscogee Creek Nation (T-ATS 10) at Bollinger Houma Shipyard in Louisiana on March 20. This will be the fifth Navajo-class towing, salvage and rescue ship. Keel laying ceremonies mark the formal start of a ship’s life and joining of modular components, with the keel serving as a ship backbone. The ultimate 10 Navajo-class ships will replace the capabilities of the Powhatan and Safeguard-class ships that are nearing the end of their service lives. The shipyard is also constructing the future USNS Navajo (T-ATS 6), Cherokee Nation (T-ATS 7), Saginaw Ojibwe Anishinabek (T-ATS 8) and Lenni Lenape (T-ATS 9).
Tomahawk Recertification. The Navy awarded RTX a $287 million modification on March 27, adding scope to an earlier contract to provide for recertification and modernization of 166 Tomahawk Block IV All-Up-Round Missiles to ensure the missiles remain operational for up to another 15 years of service. The missiles are divided into 142 for the Navy and 24 for unspecified Foreign Military Sales customers. The award also covers missile obsolescence and health monitoring, software maintenance, depot support, and associated hardware procurements. Work is expected to be finished by March 2026. All funding will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued, with no money obligated at the time of award.
Army’s Aviation Pivot. Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo said he believes the response to date from Congress and the industrial base on the Army’s recently detailed aviation rebalance, to include canceling development of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, has been “largely supportive.” “That’s mostly because a lot of what we addressed with the shift in resources was to identify well-known and observed areas of need,” Camarillo told reporters at this week’s AUSA Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. Camarillo specifically cited positive reception to the Army’s decision to avoid potential closure of the CH-47 Chinook and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter production lines and what would have been the associated industrial base impacts. “It was a risk we did not want to take. And I think being able to address that area of concern very directly was a move that I think was largely supported by Congress and I think also reflected our shared commitment to stabilizing the industrial base,” Camarillo said.
FVL CFT. Gen. James Rainey, head of Army Futures Command, also told reporters this week’s at AUSA Global Force Symposium he doesn’t expect new priorities to be added to the Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team’s (FVL CFT) portfolio as a result of the aviation restructure, noting the organization’s continued focus on the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program and expanded work in the area of unmanned systems and launched effects. “They’re not looking for work. That’s a busy, important team. And not just the CFT, the [Program Executive Offices] and [program managers] that are critical partners of that. FLRAA is not going anywhere…there’s a lot of work to make sure that we follow through on that. And then the ecosystem, the launched effects, is the other priority for the FVL CFT. And you’ll see them getting a little bit more involved in some of the new approaches to the way we’re going to attack the UAV challenge at echelon. So [there’ll] be a little bit of extra capacity there,” Rainey said.
M109 Support. BAE Systems has been awarded a new five-year, $318 million deal from the Army to continue support services for its M109A6 and A7 self-propelled howitzers and M992A3 carrier, ammunition, tracked vehicles, the company said on March 27. The new contract covers “ongoing engineering and logistics services to provide new capabilities, maintenance and testing on the family of vehicles,” according to the company. “The M109 Self-Propelled Howitzer continues to prove itself as the ‘King of Battle’ as it provides the firepower and maneuverability to dominate the battlefield,” Dan Furber, director of ground vehicle production for BAE Systems’ Combat Mission Systems business, said in a statement. “Sustainment services for the M109 allow the U.S. Army to maintain a high level of operational readiness to take this powerful capability to the fight.”
Space Systems and Bagpipes. The recently minted head of U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC), Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, plays the bagpipes—a skill he said he learned from his cousin, the late Norval “Sandy” Jones, who was pipe sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Pipe Band when it played Mist Covered Mountains on Nov. 25, 1963 at Arlington Cemetery as an honor guard moved President John F. Kennedy’s body from the caisson to the burial site. “If you watch old footage of Pres. Kennedy’s funeral [at St. Matthews Cathedral], he [Jones] was the lone piper behind the casket,” Garrant says. “I’ve played for a very long time.” Before assuming command of SSC in December, Garrant was the deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements. Early in his career, Garrant worked at the National Security Agency.
Last Delta IV Heavy. The last Delta IV Heavy rocket by United Launch Alliance (ULA) was to loft the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) NROL-70 mission into space on March 28 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., but SSC postponed the launch until March 29 and said that the delay was “due to an issue with the gaseous nitrogen pipeline, which provides pneumatic pressure to the launch vehicle systems.” While initial reports, including from ULA CEO Tory Bruno, indicated a problem with a pump, ULA said on March 28 that it “continues to troubleshoot the pipeline and more time is needed to instill confidence in the system.” ULA–a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin–said that it “will continue to work with our customer to confirm our next launch attempt and a new date will be provided upon resolution.”
Venus Aerospace Test. Venus Aerospace last week said it flew its 300-pound supersonic flight test drone on Feb. 24, successfully demonstrating one leg of the ultimate Rotating Detonation Rocket Engin, flight controls, stability, telemetry, ground operations, and air launch. The drone was dropped at an altitude of 12,000 feet, reach a top speed of Mach 0.9, and flew for 10 miles. The hydrogen peroxide monopropellant engine was limited to 80 percent thrust so as to not exceed Mach 1. “Up next is RDRE flight, and ultimately hypersonic flight, proving that the RDRE is the engine that unlocks the hypersonic economy,” Sarah “Sassie” Duggleby, CEO and co-founder of Venus Aerospace, said in a statement.
Picogrid Raise. The defense technology startup Picogrid, which has developed a cloud-based application programming interface to connect and control third-party autonomous systems, has raised $12 million in a seed round. The funding round was led by Initialized Capital and includes Starburst Ventures, Credo Ventures, Giant Step Capital, Domino Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. Picogrid is one of multiple awardees on the Pentagon’s $950 million contract to mature and demonstrate software and algorithms to enable Joint All-Domain Command and Control, also called JADC2. The company says it software can connect and control drones, unmanned vehicles, and artificial intelligence-driven surveillance tools. Picogrid’s technology is also being used by Ukrainian military forces.
HSSTAC Restart. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is reestablishing a science and technology advisory panel that last met in September 2018. A notice in the Federal Register last week said the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee (HSSTAC) will support the department’s Science and Technology Directorate perform its duties through scientific and technical advice.
Leidos’ LPVs. Two Leidos-designed uncrewed and autonomous-capable low-profile vessels (LPV) participated in the Army’s recent Project Convergence (PC) capstone demonstration, the company said on March 29. The LPVs had been delivered last year to the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and their use in the PC demo is part of the ongoing testing and technical assessment effort, Leidos said. “The prototypes we’ve delivered will help create new disruptive logistics capabilities for the Marine Corps. Its low profile and long range are intended to help the vessels achieve a higher mission success rate supporting dispersed Marine fire units than conventional methods,” Dave Leidos, senior vice president of Leidos’ sea systems business area, said in a statement. Leidos said the LPVs, designed in partnership with Montana State University’s MilTech research lab, are build to “reduce probability of detection” with capability to “transport a logistics payload of up to five tons over a range of 2,000 nautical miles, and have been built to experiment with different autonomous control systems.”