Roper Sees High-Low Mix for Hypersonic Missiles. A slice: “We could carry more of them on a bomber, but we also could carry them on our fighters, and that opens up the entire Air Force quiver,” he said… Roper said he’s “delighted” that the air-breathing hypersonic technology has “matured faster” than expected.
America’s New Frigate Will Blow Through Cost Estimates. I’m not surprised. “O’Rourke wondered how the new FREMM frigate—a ship that is about 76% of a Flight III Arleigh Burke class destroyer’s displacement (or size)— can be estimated to cost about 49% less.”
The Space Force Receives Its ‘Kobayashi Maru’ Space-Tracking System. Developed by Palantir, it is “… a real-time data display of high-interest information pertaining to the global space community such as upcoming space launches, potential satellite conjunctions, atmospheric re-entries of objects in space, sensor status, and other pertinent information.”
NRL researchers create electronic diodes beyond 5G performance. Diode yield rate increased from 20 to 90 percent. A bit more on that: “Our work showed that gallium nitride-based RTDs are not inherently slow, as others suggested,” Growden said. “They compare well in both frequency and output power to RTDs of different materials.” …. This kind of experimental flexibility is also required on the acquisition side.
Covid-19 industrial update from Jette: Of 10,509 defense facilities large and small that DCMA is tracking, 248 had closed at some point — but only 40 are still closed.
Navy to divide PEO EIS into two new offices for enterprise IT acquisitions. Good move. Will do a lot to support NWIC and the rest of the Navy department. Looks to be modeled on Air Force devsecops initiative. I wonder what the similarities/differences are at a detailed level.
ABMS holds Industry Day. Lots of competition: “Nearly 1,000 representatives from more than 400 companies participated in the Advanced Battle Management System Industry Day on May 13.” Also, there a new ABMS website at www.jadc2abms.com.
Related: Roper Targets Commercial AI, Data Analytics For Next ABMS Deals. Only about a dozen companies received ABMS contracts so far including Northrop and Anduril. ABMS will issue 3 Broad Agency Announcements.
US helos too expensive for Phillipines. “The Philippines has maintained it will choose just one of the two U.S. attack helicopter alternatives, but not both.”
CMMC with Microsoft Azure. A ten part blog series (six released) with lots of detailed information.
. Chaillan: We need to bring options, “One size fits all is never going to scale across the DoD,” he added.
Acquisition hype. AF hype. America Hype. Video on Air Force initiatives like pitch days and digital transformation.
Pentagon defends official’s removal from DPA role. Jen Santos was removed due to pressure from the White House.
24 Navy Ships Went to the Shipyard for Repairs. Only 3 Made It Back to Sea on Time. Schedule growth about 38%, but cost growth only 5% through multiple award contracts.
Air Force ‘Digital Century Series’ Fighters: Technologically Exciting, Operationally Unworkable. I don’t agree at all, but here are some counterpoints to agile, modular, and digital engineering principles for tactical aircraft.
RAND finds risk in Air Force plan to support two launch companies. Not a great headline bc RAND actually agreed with the two-provider strategy but cautioned support for a third. “RAND forecasts the launch market is going to be flat or decline over the next 10 years… we found no instance in history where anyone who said they’re going to fly next year, that it really was next year.”
Say Goodbye To India’s Super F-16. The F-21 is nixed for more domestic purchases.
DIU chief: Earnings focus thwarts innovation.
Raytheon Is Developing A Ramjet Artillery Round For The Army’s New Super Howitzers. Received $7.9 million from the Army for the XM1155. BAE is also developing a hypervelocity projectile.
Aerojet Rocketdyne defends SLS engine contract costs. NASA is paying the company to attempt to reduce costs by 30 percent compared to the Space Shuttle Main Engine. An SLS engine is about $145 million today. The SSME is perhaps $150 million in today’s dollars if each was $40 million in 1980.
Experts Debate: Should JEDI Cloud Be Saved? Save side: “The reason they did not go to an IDIQ with multiple vendors is they wanted a single source in order to reduce complexity.” Kill side: “Dude, just walk away. All you’ll be doing is years and years of litigation with people who have more money than God.”
US Air Force works towards in-flight updates of F-16 software. “The service believes updating software on the fly will reduce fielding time to its fleet by 50%.”
While the F-16 team seems to be getting it done: ‘Agile’ strategy fails to deliver as F-35 upgrade two years late and cost rise $1.5bn. Block 4, the first combat ready block, won’t be ready until 2026(!) Couldn’t the Air Force get a new fighter into production before then? There’s also this unhelpful line from the GAO: “The lack of a complete cost baseline hinders insight and oversight into the programme’s costs, plans, and progress to date and going forward.”
DIU awards $45M contract for weapon systems cybersecurity. Goes to ForAllSecure, a silicon valley based startup. “In 2016, the company’s Mayhem platform won the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Cyber Grand Challenge, an automated defensive cybersecurity competition.”
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