Lockheed Martin [LMT] is aiming for a New Year’s Day 2015 groundbreaking for its $915 million Space Fence ground-based space situational awareness (SSA) radar, according to a company executive.
Lockheed Martin Vice President for Advanced Systems Steve Bruce told sister publication Defense Daily
Sept. 9 the company hit the ground running in early June after it prevailed over Raytheon [RTN] for the contract to supply the Air Force’s next-generation radar. Bruce said the company completed its software reuse demonstration; a site survey on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, Space Fence’s future home; and its first quarterly program review.
Bruce said the software reuse demo is part of the process for getting Space Fence’s software approved. The company spent a day demonstrating to the Air Force the software’s functionality, explained where the software originated and ensured it will perform as expected. Bruce called the software reuse demo “really important” because it almost sets the baseline for the software. Bruce said 40 percent of the software that will be used in the next phase will come from its Space Fence prototype.
“We went through various scenarios to show how the software works and that it performs the functions you say it’s going to perform,” Bruce said. “A lot of it is to give the government a little bit of comfort factor that what we’re starting from is sort of a good base, and then we can use that going forward.”
The site survey at Kwajalein Atoll, Bruce said, was a more-detailed site survey where Lockheed Martin performed deep borings where various facilities would be located and hashed out the final facility details. Bruce said the company also covered in its site survey things like where housing for workers would be located as well as equipment to be used.
Lockheed Martin also completed its first quarterly program review last week, which Bruce said was relatively uneventful due to the Space Fence program’s relative infancy. But Lockheed Martin is about to embark on a series of major milestones in the next six months. Bruce said the company has a “big” integrated baseline review that will take place in November where the Air Force will evaluate Lockheed Martin’s approach to executing the program’s baseline.
If all goes well with the integrated baseline review, Lockheed Martin will move to a possible groundbreaking, Bruce said, which will require environmental assessments and permits approved. Bruce said once Lockheed Martin breaks ground, it will have a ground walk-through, a kind of preliminary review of all the material the company will go through at its critical design review (CDR). Bruce expects CDR to take place in March.
“The next six months is just a tremendous amount of design activity,” Bruce said.
Bruce said a potential congressional resolution (CR) to keep the federal government working beyond Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, should not have any effect on Space Fence’s progress as the Air Force, he said, is using funding from fiscal years 2013 and 2014. As the prospects of completing the normal appropriations process by the end of Sept. 19 grows less likely, Congress would need to approve a CR to keep the federal government working at FY ’14 levels.
The Kwajalein Atoll site is one of two sites, along with western Australia, that the Air Force would like to develop for Space Fence, although the service is holding off on the Australia site due to other funding priorities. Space Fence has an initial operational capability (IOC) goal of 2018. The total contract value of Space Fence is valued at greater than $1.5 billion over an eight-year period if all options are exercised.
Space Fence is an S-band, phased-array radar designed to help the Air Force identify and track space debris that could damage satellites or other space assets. Bruce said, in addition to General Dynamics [GD] and AMEC, Space Fence subcontractors include Cree Inc. and TriQuint, makers of radio frequency (RF) components.