HACM Partnership. Under the more than $985 million contract the U.S. Air Force awarded to Raytheon Technologies last week for the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), Northrop Grumman is to continue its partnership with Raytheon to build scramjet engines for HACM. Northrop Grumman said it has been working with Raytheon since 2019 to build propulsion for Raytheon’s air-breathing hypersonic weapon designs. “HACM is a first-of-its-kind weapon developed in conjunction with the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, a U.S. and Australia project arrangement,” per Northrop Grumman. Air Force Secretary Kendall has said that air-breathing hypersonic weapons have shown more promise than boost glide hypersonic weapons.
New Northrop Defense Chief.
Northrop Grumman last week said its board has elected Roshan Roeder as corporate vice president and president of its nearly $6 billion Defense Systems sector, effective Oct. 17. She will succeed Mary Petryszyn, who plans to retire effective Jan. 13, 2023. Roeder, who has been with Northrop Grumman for 20 years, is currently vice president and general manager of the Airborne Multifunction Sensors Division in the Mission Systems sector. She graduated from Virginia Tech in Dec. 2001 with a BS in computer engineering. Petryszyn will continue as corporate vice president until her retirement.
Radar Upgrades. Raytheon Technologies announced on Sept. 19 it finished a second generation computer, cyber, software and radar upgrade to all five U.S. Upgraded Early Warning Radars (UEWRs). These radars help conduct precise tracking of space objects simultaneously, like incoming ballistic missiles and aim to quickly help classify threat versus non-threat objects. The radars are at Thule Air Base, Greenland; Beale AFB, Calif.; Clear Space Force Station, Alaska; Cape Cod Space Force Station, Mass.; and Royal Air Force Fylingdales, United Kingdom. Paul Ferraro, president of Air Power at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, said with these upgrades, the Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Space Force “have increased detection capabilities for even the most advanced threats.” This effort aims to upgrade the UEWRs to exceed 21st century standards.
CH-53K Exercise. The Marine Corps deployed a CH-53K King Stallion helicopter for the first time during a fleet exercise in Mountain Home, Idaho recently, the service announced on Sept. 15. The helicopter operated in Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH)-461. “The benefits are endless. We practice our external [lifts] with a Light Armored Vehicle, and we never have power issues. HMH-461 had its first operational flight for the CH-53K in April 2022, and has been training with it ever since,” Staff Sgt. James Ganieany, airframes division chief for HMH-461, said in a statement. An instructor noted that routinely training with the Light Armored Vehicle was new for them. Training with the LAV for an external load showed the aircraft has “got power for days [so] you can do anything you want,” Staff Sgt. Dakota Schneider, a crew chief instructor with Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1, said. The Marine Corps chose the Idaho location for the first deployment for training with the Sikorsky-built aircraft because it has different climate and terrain features compared to HMH-461’s home state of North Carolina.
Daunting Task. U.S. Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter says that accomplishing the service’s operational imperatives won’t be easy. Those imperatives “present a very daunting task to the acquisition community because we have a lot of capability to deliver in order to be able to accomplish the missions that are defined in the operational imperatives, and we have a very short time frame in which to do it,” Hunter says. “We have to field capability in the mid-to-late 2020s. In the acquisition world, that is right around the corner.” In January, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall laid out an evolving list of seven operational imperatives: a resilient space order of battle architecture; operationalizing the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS)–the Air Force’s part of Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2); a system of systems approach for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program and the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider; effective ground moving target indication and air moving target indication; resilient basing; and being able to mobilize, move, and support military forces effectively, including protecting personnel, logistics, and transportation systems from cyber attacks.
New UAS Facility. General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) announced on Sept. 20 its newest composite manufacturing facility to build a next generation of autonomous unmanned aircraft is set to be completed and opened by mid-2023. The Secure Advanced Manufacturing (SAM) facility will be in GA-ASI’s Poway, Calif. Campus. GA aims to centralize its advanced engineering and manufacturing teams at one location where they will design, build and integrate new unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The company specified the SAM site will be used for end-to-end development of advanced UAS and a self-contained entity with engineering on the floor with manufacturing, finance, contract and supply chain staff. “ This new facility will provide a very streamlined and agile manufacturing environment, which carries the company’s integrated product development culture,” GA-ASI said.
SASC Advances Nominees. The Senate Armed Services Committee on September 22 voted unanimously to advance 3,751 pending military promotions, including Space Force Lt. Gen. Bradley Saltzman to be the next Chief of Space Operations and Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton to serve as the next commander of U.S. Strategic Command. SASC also unanimously advanced three nominees for senior DoD civilian positions, including Milancy Harris to be deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, Brendan Owens to be assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment and Dr. Laura Taylor-Kale to be assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy. All the nominations were reported to the floor for full Senate consideration.
Digital Shield. The U.S. and Israel conducted a four-day bilateral naval exercise in the Gulf of Aqaba ending Sept. 22 called Digital Shield. The U.S. Navy said the exercise was focused on enhancing maritime awareness using unmanned systems and artificial intelligence in support of vessel boarding operations. This included unmanned systems like the MARTAC Devil Ray T38 and Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessels. The exercise occurred under Task Force 59 under Naval Forces Central Command and focused on integrating unmanned and artificial intelligence systems into operations.
Saudi THAAD. The Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin a $48.5 million modification to an earlier Phase II contract to provide development, production, and installation/uninstallation of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Software Operator Trainer and THAAD Radar Virtual Trainer within the U.S. The THAAD trainer systems are part of a Foreign Military Sale to Saudi Arabia. The modification increases the total Phase II contract from $994 million to $1.042 billion. Work will largely occur in Dallas, Texas and Sunnyvale, Calif. and has a performance period lasting through Aug. 2027.
DARPA COFFEE. DARPA has awarded BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development arm a $6.5 million deal for work on filter technology to improve performance of DoD Radio Frequency (RF) and microwave systems, the company announced on September 22. BAE Systems said the COmpact Front-end Filters at the ElEment-level (COFFEE) program “aims to provide elemental-level protection for these systems against interferers that could adversely impact the operation in congested environments.” Chris Rappa, chief technologist at BAE Systems’ FAST Labs, said in a statement that “Wideband, highly integrated RF systems are essential to enable mission critical operations; however, high-bandwidth receivers often have limited dynamic range that can leave them vulnerable to electronic jamming. COFFEE will provide filtering technology to protect systems and make them more robust and resistant to interference.”
Supplier Concerns. Inflation is increasing material and supplier costs for prime contractors and creating uncertainty for their suppliers, says Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer Frank St. John. The supplier issues are more concerning because they are becoming reluctant “to engage in long-term contracts,” which typically result in savings that are passed on to the customer, he said last week during a defense industrial base panel hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What we’re getting back from the supply chain now is that there’s so much uncertainty in their own costs and their own material, that they’re unwilling to do that,” he said. Government customers can help by “recognizing that uncertainty and building in clauses in the contracts that will allow for adjustments as those prices come into view down the road, he added.
CG-61 Exits. The Navy held a ceremony to decommission the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers USS Monterey (CG-61) on Sept. 16 at Naval Station Norfolk, Va. CG-61 was built at Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Maine and commissioned in June 1990, before the BIW was bought by General Dynamics. Over the ship’s life of 32 years it conducted 14 deployments. The Monterrey was one of five cruisers the Navy planned to decommission in Fiscal Year 2022. The first of the decommissionings occurred in August with the USS Vella Gulf (CG-72). In September, the Navy also plans to decommission the USS Anzio (CG-68), Port Royal (CG-73), and Hué City (CG-66).
NavalX Director. Capt. Casey Plew succeeded Capt. Benjamin Van Buskirk as the new director of NavalX during a ceremony held by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) on Sept. 13. “Capt. Van Buskirk has done an outstanding job of taking NavalX from a start-up environment to an established organization with codified processes and procedures for innovation. I look forward to building on the valuable work he’s done by using those processes to bolster innovation partnerships, find game-changing ideas and technologies, get them into requirements for acquisition, and ultimately deliver them as capabilities to warfighters,” Plew said. Plew previously served in NavalX supporting the transition and combining of the assistant Navy secretary for research and acquisition’s agility cell efforts with the ONR technology-acceleration cell efforts and also as commanding officer of Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Va.
People News. Google last week announced that Karen Dahut will be the new CEO of Google Public Sector, which was recently launched as a new subsidiary aimed at helping U.S. federal, state and local governments and educational institutions with their digital transformations. Effective Oct. 31, she takes over from Will Grannis, who designed and launched Google Public Sector and will return to his role as chief technology officer of Google Cloud. Dahut previously was sector president at Booz Allen Hamilton in charge of the company’s $4 billion defense business. Leidos has appointed retired Navy Vice Adm. David Lewis as senior vice president, Maritime, which includes the Gibbs & Cox naval engineering and ship design subsidiary.
SpinLaunch Funding. SpinLaunch, the California-based company developing a ground-based, kinetic launch system for low-cost access to space, has closed a $71 million Series B funding round to further develop and commercialize its high-cadence mass accelerator launch system and complementary satellite product line. The funding round was led by ATW Partners and includes Kleiner Perkins, GV, ATMA Capital, ONA Capital, Lauder Partners, McKinley Capital, Tyche Partners and six individuals. SpinLaunch’s total funding is now $150 million. SpinLaunch has completed a 33-meter Suborbital Mass Accelerator and is preparing to build its full-size Orbital Launch System.
DHS Going EV. The Department of Homeland Security has introduced its first electric vehicle, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, which is fitted for law enforcers at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers’ operations in Cheltenham, Md. The Mach-E is the first of various EVs the department plans to field across its law enforcement missions in the U.S. “As the nation’s third largest federal agency and largest law enforcement agency, DHS has an inventory of more than 50,000 vehicles, with law enforcement vehicles making up 60 percent of its fleet,” says John Tien, deputy DHS Secretary, said in a statement. The Mach-E is being tested by the Federal Protective Service to ensure it meets the demands of DHS law enforcement missions.