Pentagon says decision on full-rate F-35 jet production possibly delayed until 2021. Not clear what the FRP decision really means in this context, more than a dozen years after Low Rate Initial Production started. The Pentagon tentatively agreed to a $34 billion deal for 470 F-35s earlier this year. There’s probably not much pressure for an FRP decision when the production line is flowing. Perhaps they could split the F-35A into it’s own subprogram and authorize an FRP, bringing forward those production units in the sequence.
Pentagon Receives 2,000 Comments on Vendor Cyber Certification Program. 2,000 comments really isn’t that much considering how important the regulations will be. I’ve fielded many hundreds of comments just on cost data reports from a handful of contractors, while the CMMC will affect nearly 300,000 vendors. But the timeline — finalizing the CMMC framework in three months — might not be realistic.
The Army Modernization Strategy aims to counter Russia by 2028 and China by 2035 — but Congress can’t pass a budget for this year. First, I thought Russia and China were “near-peers” rather than ahead of the US. Second, I wonder how detailed the 16 year plan really is considering all the uncertainty and change that will happen between now and then. Hopefully it is more of a roadmap.
“The Army doesn’t want to buy any more Iron Dome air defense systems, but if it may have to buy more of the Israeli-made system if it can’t get its own program up and running by 2023.” The link is here. The reason Iron Dome isn’t sufficient? Supposedly, it doesn’t “slot directly into the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS).” OK, should that be a mostly a software upgrade, rather than something fundamentally wrong? Perhaps the Army isn’t comfortable sourcing too much from non-US contractors.
Report to Congress on U.S. Navy Ship Names. The Columbia-Class Submarine and the FFG(X) still have no naming rule.
Good arguments on AI: “An open research and development strategy should help the Defense Department be a global leader in AI research, even if only by a small margin. The AI competition hypothesis suggests that top performers tend to cluster around a certain level, but performance can vary widely at the lower end of the scale. The alternative to an open research strategy risks leaving the United States trailing by a wide margin.”
From the excellent Chad Millette: Sometimes Waterfall is the Way to Go. From the comments: “In my ivory tower of academia with my cynical ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ perspective, I recognize that agile is simply an implementation of good rapid spiral project management.”
Bruce Jette: “[Army Futures Command] has lead responsibility in the space between concepts creation and requirements definition… AFC transitions to a critical supporting role after the concept and requirement refinement milestones, and is essential in collaborative efforts during acquisition activities leading to production.” That sounds like AFC will be relegated to early-stage S&T activities, and the focus of all prototyping and development effort will be done across the “valley of death” in the PEOs formally controlled by Mr. Jette himself.
China builds 400 mph ‘flying saucer’ attack helicopter with stealth coating and missile system. Interesting picture of the “Great White Shark” at the link. What worries me most is not how effective the new concept is, but the fact that China seems to be rapidly experimenting with all sorts of designs that wouldn’t (and didn’t) pass muster in the US defense acquisition system — or would take many years to get approval and by then the original concept would have been corrupted and the designer would be disheartened. The Chinese have a very positive attitude: “Whether or not this particular helicopter can become practical, such explorations are beneficial to China’s technology development for future helicopters.”
Lockheed’s design of its future attack recon aircraft touts performance at the ‘X’. “The ‘X’ is defined by the Army as the terminal area where they actually have to go do the work, do the reconnaissance, do the attack mission.”
Thinking big: NASA engineer says new thruster could reach 99% speed of light.
US defence giant Lockheed Martin bets on blockchain. “These new cybersecurity approaches will enhance data integrity, speed problem discovery and mitigation, and reduce the volume of regression testing, which results in reduced schedule risk.” Here’s an interesting fact: China stole 50 terabytes of data on the F-35. Oy vey.
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