The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Kendall On Sequester. Pentagon acquisition officials “will continue open dialogue with industry to keep you informed about our plans and to understand your concerns” about the sequestration cuts triggered March 1, which are poised to reduce investment accounts by $18 billion until Sept. 30, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Frank Kendall tells defense companies in a March 4 letter. Kendall says “damage to the (Defense) Department and to industry is unfortunately unavoidable at this point.” He adds: “We will do our best to minimize the negative effects of the decisions we must take as we move forward, and we will delay some decisions where we can do so without unacceptable risk. Defense industry companies should anticipate that the automatic across-the-board cuts will cause the Department to reduce both the quantities of equipment and the levels of service that we acquire for the balance of this fiscal year and perhaps beyond. To the extent we can continue operations while delaying and deferring new obligations until the uncertainty is resolved, we will do so.” He says funding reductions “will affect the full range of the Department’s planned contracts and grants and adversely affect the efficiency with which we acquire goods and services.”
Senate QDR Picks. Previous defense leaders including retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, and retired Washington Democratic congressman Norm Dicks will serve on an independent panel that will assess the Pentagon’s work on the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review and report to Congress. Congressional leaders have chosen eight members. SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) announces March 4 he taps Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Flournoy. SASC Ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) the same day selects retired Air Force Gen. Gregory Martin, former commander of Air Force Materiel Command, and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
… House Choices. HASC Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) announces March 6 he chooses Dicks, the recently retired House Appropriations Defense subcommittee ranking member, and retired Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, former deputy commander of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command. HASC Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) says Jan. 29 he picks former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman and former Missouri GOP senator Jim Talent. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will choose the panel’s chairman and vice chairman. McKeon says the panel is “charged with a critical, challenging task.” He adds: “There has been a significant shift in defense strategy recently, including several rounds of defense cuts in the Budget Control Act and sequestration, as well as an emerging long-term partnership with our Afghan allies.”
Levin Leaving. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the former SASC ranking member, says working alongside Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has been one of the “great honors” of his career. “Despite the committee’s heavy workload, the pressures of the next election, or the partisan quarrels that often roil the Senate, Carl has managed to keep us working together and delivered, for the 51st straight year, the National Defense Authorization Act,” McCain says March 8, the day after Levin announces he will not run for reelection next year. McCain says he looks forward to “working closely” with Levin over the next two years on the new Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Levin chairs and on which McCain serves as the ranking member.
Long Lead For Kennedy. The Navy last week issued a contract modification to move forward on procuring additional long-lead material and advanced construction for the future John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), even as the Navy has said it may have to delay a contract to begin construction of the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier because of the possibility of a continuing resolution governing spending for the rest of the fiscal year. The Navy planned to start building the carrier this year. The long-lead modification provides $65 million to aircraft carrier builder Huntington Ingalls Industries and is based on a contract first issued in 2009.
Record Patents. The Navy has received its largest sum ever by the licensing of five patents, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) says. Kismet Mgmt Fund LLC has agreed to pay the Navy $500,000 for the five patents on technology developed by the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren. According to NAVSEA, the five patents were part of the development of the High Performance Distributed Computing (HiPer-D) system, which provides capabilities for real-time monitoring of computers, networks and software applications within a distributed computing environment. The technologies covered by the patents were developed over the last 13 years and had been basically sitting on the shelf until Kismet Mgmt Fund came along. “By its very nature performing research and development leads to some technologies being left on the shelf,” says Lorraine Kaczor, NSWC Dahlgren Technical Partnering Office Domestic Outreach lead. “Licensing these technologies to business partners gives them new life to find their place in commercially available products.” Kismet Mgmt Fund now has exclusive commercial rights to the technology, but the Navy retains the ability to use it itself, or provide it to non-profit organizations.
Northrop Grumman Exec. Northrop Grumman has named Kenneth Bedingfield as vice president of business management and its chief financial officer for its aerospace systems sector, the company says. Bedingfield previously held the position of corporate vice president, controller and chief accounting officer at the company’s corporate headquarters. He replaces Chuck Wands, who plans to retire later this year.
Carry-On Changes. Beginning April 25, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will allow certain items to be brought through aviation security checkpoints that are currently prohibited, including small pocket knives, ski poles, hockey and lacrosse sticks, pool cues and up to two golf clubs. The pending change to the prohibited carry-on items list is in line with the agency’s adoption of a risk-based approach to security. Items such as razor blades, box cutters, and full-size baseball, softball and cricket bats will remain on the prohibited list. One industry official tells Defense Daily that the change in prohibited items is unlikely to impact the use of technology at the checkpoint but that the challenge will be to educate and train the Transportation Security Officers to be able to differentiate the various knives they see during their screening duties.
Manufacturing And Homeland Security. The United States has lost the ability to manufacture key components to its critical infrastructure that create issues of economic and national security, says Tom Ridge, the nation’s first Homeland Security Secretary. He tells a forum hosted by Politico that “international dependency” on some basic manufacturing goods is a national security problem. Current Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano says an example of this dependency is large transformers used by utility companies to supply power. After Super Storm Sandy hit portions of the East Coast last fall, Napolitano says that she thinks one of the reasons it took a while to return power to affected areas was the need for transformers. This equipment is so large that governors have to sign highway weight limit waivers to allow trucks to carry the machines from a seaport to their final destination.
DHS, NIST MoA On Cyber. Following President Barack Obama’s issuance last month of an Executive Order on cyber security, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to make sure the two agencies integrate their efforts in carrying out the directive, Patrick Gallagher, under secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology, tells a Senate panel. Gallagher says that the MoA ensures that NIST’s work in working with industry on a Cybersecurity Framework that incorporates standards, best practices and metrics, “is fully integrated with the information sharing, threat analysis, response, and operational work of DHS. This will enable a more holistic approach to addressing the complex nature of the challenge at hand.”
NASA Biofuels. NASA researchers begin a series of flights using the agency’s DC-8 flying lab to study the effects of alternative fuels on engine performance, emissions and aircraft-generated contrails at altitude, according to a NASA statement. The Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions (ACCESS) research involves flying the DC-8 as high as 40,000 feet while an instrumented NASA Falcon HU-25 aircraft trails behind at distances ranging from 300 feet to more than 10 miles. During the flights, the DC-8’s four CFM56 engines will be powered by conventional JP-8 jet fuel or by a 50/50 blend of JP-8 and an alternative fuel of hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids that come from camelina plants. More than a dozen instruments mounted on the Falcon jet will characterize the soot and gases streaming from the DC-8, monitor the way exhaust plumes change in composition as they mix with air and investigate the role emission play in contrail formation. The flight campaign began Feb. 28 and is expected to last as long as three weeks.
Orbital’s MEXSAT. Orbital Sciences’ MEXSAT Bicentenario satellite completes March 5 on-orbit testing and is accepted by its customer, Mexico’s Secretary of Communications and Transportation, according to a company statement. Orbital says this is the first step to establishing a space-based communications network that will markedly improve Mexico’s satellite communications capabilities. Mexico becomes responsible for operating the satellite following a successful launch in December and completion of functionality testing. Bicentenario is the first of three satellites within the MEXSAT system, which will enhance communications for domestic, military, civil and humanitarian needs. Orbital produced Bicentenario under a subcontract with Boeing, MEXSAT’s prime contractor. Boeing is building the remaining spacecraft, two 702HP geomobile satellites called Centenario and Morelos 3, for launches scheduled for this year and 2014. Boeing spokeswoman Diana Ball says Friday Centenario is tentatively scheduled for a fourth quarter 2013 launch.
GAO CRH. The Air Force’s decision not to pursue competitive prototyping for the Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) “may still be sound,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a March 7 letter to Congress. The Defense Department in November tells GAO in November it waives the competitive prototyping requirement for CRH because the Air Force believes any technology risk reduction associated with, or potentially benefitting, the CRH program has already occurred during efforts to develop these in-production helicopters, including risk reduction that could be achieved through competitive prototyping. DoD also finds reasonable, in granting the waiver, the ARI Force’s conclusion that the estimated $725 million cost of conducting competitive prototyping exceeds maximum expected life-cycle benefits of $12 million. But GAO also finds the Air Force only evaluated one potential approach to implementing competitive prototyping, resulting in a higher cost estimate. Competitive prototyping can help DoD save money and reduce risk, among other things, and can only be waived if it meets certain objectives.
SBIRS GEO-2. The Air Force sets March 19 for the launch of the second Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO-2) Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., according to a Kennedy Space Center statement. The launch window is tentatively 5:21 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. EST. SBIRS GEO-2 will be launched on one of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V rockets, which will fly in the 401 vehicle configuration with a four-meter fairing, no solid rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage, KSC says. SBIRS is the Air Force’s next-generation nuclear-hardened missile warning constellation.
Action Plan Coming. The European Defense Agency’s Future Land Systems Study of the approximately $22 billion land defense industry recommends three areas for priority action: launching European demonstrator programs to mitigate gaps; take common action on key enabling technologies and modern design methods; and set out an industrial Future Land System roadmap with recommendations in areas with anticipated high impact on the supply chain.
…Main Focus Areas. EDA’s focus is on improving the efficiency of the land-related supply chain; mitigating the risk of losing critical skills; and to state priorities to commonly invest on identified critical technologies with priority on those dual use technologies. Other areas of focus include actions to mitigate erosion of key industrial capabilities in Europe; find areas to promote pooling and sharing among EU nations and, finally, identifying areas where members could launch demonstrator programs to mitigate shortfalls.
Turret Qualifies. Lâ€3 WESCAM says its MX™â€15D electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) designating turret receives Bell Helicopter’s qualification as an optional advanced targeting system for the Bell Helicopter 407GT. The MXâ€15D was tested extensively during live-fire operations at the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in late 2012, culminating in the successful demonstration of laser target designation for the BAE Systems APKWS guided rockets. The MXâ€15D proved to a capable sensor suite, giving the Bell 407GT sensor operator a superior tool for long-range target identification and laser-guided weapon designation. “We are pleased to be chosen as a key mission option for the Bell 407GT helicopter,” says Paul Jennison, vice president of government sales and business development for L-3 WESCAM. “The MXâ€15D can be configured with up to nine sensors, which further complements the power and targeting capabilities of this highly advanced armed reconnaissance platform.”
Taking A Look. SOCOM Commander Adm. Bill McRaven tells SASC he is required by law to look at the human rights record of individuals and units his special operations forces deal with. “We understand what right looks like,” he says, but one individual with human rights violations can “poison” the whole unit and, thus, his troops can’t work with them. SOF finds itself more restrained when what they need to do is to engage with such partners so they can reach the same understanding of doing what’s right. McRaven has been talking to the combatant commanders who have similar issues as well as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.