Federal Trade Commission blocks Lockheed Martin’s acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne. (Space News) FTC statement: “Lockheed will use its control of Aerojet to harm rival defense contractors and further consolidate multiple markets critical to national security and defense.” … Aerojet supplies power, propulsion and armament systems used in missiles made by Lockheed and other defense prime contractors… As a subcontractor, Aerojet has had access to prime contractors’ sensitive information about their products and business strategies. The FTC alleges that post-acquisition, “Lockheed would have an incentive to exploit its access to its rivals’ proprietary information to gain an advantage in competitions against them.””
Lockheed Martin’s optionally unmanned surface vessel. (Naval News) “The OUSV concept is a response to the U.S. Navy’s future plan to field Large Unmanned Surface Vessels (LUSV) to perform “shooter” missions, firing strike missiles from Mark 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells hidden in 40-foot ISO shipping containers.” [OUSV can fire Tomahawks, Naval Strike Missiles, SM-2, SM-6, SM-3, ESSM, and the CPS hypersonic missile. It also boasts SEWIP Block II electronic jamming systems for protection against incoming missiles.]
US Navy adopts new strategy prioritizing ‘the building blocks’ of unmanned tech. (Defense News) “The U.S. Navy is unlikely to pursue a formal program for unmanned surface vessels in the next five years, instead focusing on the enabling technologies first… The Navy in fiscal 2020 laid out an aggressive plan to buy a handful of prototype medium and large USVs and then quickly transition into a program of record using shipbuilding funds… After two years of Congress pushing back against this quick move into unmanned programs, the Navy has quietly acknowledged a change in strategy…. lawmakers were “crystal clear” in the fiscal 2021 defense authorization bill that they didn’t want to invest in programs of record until it’s clear hull, mechanical and electrical systems would work for weeks or months at a time without sailors… “Have any of you ever seen a propulsion plant that can operate for 45 days without a person touching it on a ship?””
Four carriers being prepped for Navy’s project overmatch. (Breaking Defense) “Ford-class is designed to take in systems like the Project Overmatch capabilities — most of it without significant hot work,” Downey said. “Historically about 40% of the modernization work goes to rip out — and that was specifically designed into Ford to not have to deal with that.”
Chinese satellite observed grappling another satellite out of its orbit. (Fox News) “China’s Shijian-21 satellite, or SJ-21, disappeared from its regular position and reappeared while making a “large maneuver” to move closer to a dead BeiDou Navigation System satellite. The SJ-21 then pulled the BeiDou out of its orbit and placed it a few hundred miles away in a “graveyard orbit” where it is unlikely to interfere or collide with active satellites.”
The Army’s new infantry assault buggy is a useless garbage pile. (Task and Purpose) “Designed to provide enhanced mobility to a nine-soldier light infantry squad and all their gear, the Army’s 5,000-pound Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) is intended to support a squad over 72-hour operations, and be employed by airborne and air assault Brigade Combat Teams… OT&E report concluded that the vehicle “lacks the capability to deliver effective fires, provide reliable communication, and force protection,” to an infantry squad… The ISV proved so ineffective at providing rapid mobility capabilities to the squad during testing that the unit “concealed their ISVs and drivers close to the objective and dismounted eight soldiers per vehicle to accomplish missions before recovering their [vehicles],” basically ditching their rides in favor of a dismounted engagement.”… The service awarded GM Defense a $214.3 million contract in June 2020 to manufacture 649 ISVs for soldiers and, eventually, support the potential production of up to 2,065 vehicles over eight years with additional authorization.”
As COVID grinds on, defense sector braces for inflation hit. (Defense News) “We think the bow wave has passed in supply chain disruption for Lockheed Martin, but we’re still watching it closely,” Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet said. “Not all the risk is out of the system yet.”
New F-35 Lot 15-17 deal hung up on inflation, COVID-19 mitigation costs. (Air Force Magazine) ” last year that prices for F-35s, which fell below $80 million per jet for the conventional takeoff model in Lots 12-14, would likely be higher in Lot 15-17 because the services are ordering fewer aircraft, and because the Block 4 model of the airplane has new capabilities that cost more… Mollard said there are now 753 F-35s in the field, and this will see a “compounded annual growth rate” of 15 percent… The new plateau production rate of 156 F-35s a year is a consensus decision of Lockheed, its partners… the government is moving toward a five-year Performance-Based Logistics contract for the fighter, versus the three-year contract previously discussed.”
Pentagon’s director, operational test & evaluation 2021 annual report. (USNI News) “In 1995, then Secretary of Defense William Perry laid out five themes to guide the strategic direction for T&E. Four of them are equally valid now as they were 26 years ago: earlier involvement of operational testers in the acquisition process; more and more effective use of models and simulations; combining, where possible, different types of testing; and conducting operational testing and training exercises together.”
The Army is finally getting its futuristic heads-up display into more soldiers’ hands this year. (Task and Purpose) “for training and on-the-spot language translations; high-resolution night and thermal sensors; facial recognition software; and the ability to see what a location or objective looks like before they get there. It will even give soldiers the ability to see outside of a vehicle before they exit… 1st Lt. Luke Huen said being able to see “where everyone’s located on the battlefield at any given point in time” is “by far the best feature.” … But a recent report by Bloomberg said the heads-up display was found to have “not yet demonstrated the capability to serve as a fighting goggle.” The Army and Microsoft, who are developing the goggles, need to “improve display quality and reliability”… [e.g., how batteries will endure for a 72-hour mission.]”
Viral letter begging the military to ‘fix our computers’ reaches Pentagon leaders. (Task and Purpose) “Want innovation? You lost literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of employee hours last year because computers don’t work. Fix our computers… You tell us to accelerate change or lose, then fix our computers… My computer froze today when I renamed a file on my desktop, fix our computers.” …. “We’ll just have to work really hard to make sure that we are able to budget for the foundation of what every single one of our airmen and guardians needs,” the airman said.”
F135 engine upgrade best choice for F-35, says Raytheon Technologies boss. (Flight Global) “P&W is pitching an F135 Engine Enhancement Package (EEP) as an alternative to potentially replacing the existing 40,000lb-thrust (178kN) design with a so-called adaptive-cycle engine. The incumbent supplier and rival GE Aviation are both developing such systems to be compatible for integration with the F-35… “The adaptive engines are really targeted for a sixth-gen fighter, which won’t be fielded until the end of the decade… We hit about 80 overhauls of [F135] power modules last year, which is double what we saw in 2020. And that number is probably going to double again this year.””
As pilot IRS program expands, agency looks for more ways to ‘buy like a venture capitalist.’ (FedScoop) “How can we bite off small, manageable chunks to be able to identify, test and evaluate technologies — spending a smaller amount of time and smaller amount of money in an agile fashion — before we more fully deploy something or try and scale it in a sustainable way across a specific program or specific office or even more broadly across the agency?”… Pilot IRS has seen more than 420 proposals, about 50 per round, and reduced the time from RFI to award from 35 to 25 days.”
Navy, Marines would cut flying hours, cancel weapon purchases under full-year CR. (Defense News) ““If it does turn into a full-year CR, the dramatic impacts would be we would not do maintenance on five submarines and two aircraft carriers, and we would reduce the flying hour accounts to all our pilots, Navy and Marine Corps, by 10[%] or 20% in the last quarter and a half of the fiscal year,” he [Rear Adm. John Gumbleton, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget] said.” … He did not provide a dollar amount associated with the full-year CR’s impact to acquisition, but he said 32 new programs would not be allowed to start — 10 acquisition programs, 10 research and development programs and 12 military construction programs.”
Here’s what you need to know about budget delays and defense programs. (Air Force Magazine) ““The strategic environment is continually shifting,” Harrison added, noting that defense priorities continue to evolve. “So, it’s going to make it harder and harder for the Air Force to defend its budget request the longer that request gets delayed.”… “The last thing you want to do is release your budget, and then follow up with the strategy, because then it makes it look like the budget is driving your strategy,” Harrison said. “They want to show that the strategy is leading, and the budget is following.””
Israeli firm develops an infantry drone that can fire machine guns and springer rifles at targets while flying. (Yahoo!) “The Smash Dragon, designed by Israeli company Smart Shooter, can be mounted on different forms of unmanned aerial platforms, such as drones, and can strike targets while hovering over them… The weapon is “extremely lightweight” and uses a “unique stabilization concept,” which allows it to precisely hit targets no matter how fast the drone is traveling… The system has sophisticated computer vision capabilities and works during the day and the night.”
Unity made a dogfight simulation for the Air Force’s kill chain branch. (Vice) “AFSIM had an “irreplaceable physics engine” and its underlying data was informed by the intelligence community, the documents read. But AFSIM wasn’t the greatest looking simulation: it used a command-line interface to move units around… “Unity’s biggest strength, among its many offerings, is that it provides AAA quality, real-time graphics rendering in a three-dimensional simulation environment,” another section of the documents read. “Unity also provides foundations for extensions such as artificial intelligence training and agents, multiplayer support, cloud service, a huge developer base, streamlined workflows, etc. all of which may apply in future growth plans of this project.””
Army working to deploy first OCONUS cloud system in the Indo-Pacific. (Fed Scoop) “… Army Pacific is “analyzing information exchange, system, and service requirements to determine the optimal locations for cloud-hosted capabilities.” The Army plans to run a “series of exercises, experimentations, and basic application analysis” through fiscal 2023 on its journey for getting cloud to the edge in the Pacific… The Army is “integrating our commercial compute and store in the cloud with our on-premise resources that we have in our data centers.” … So far no contracts or task orders have been signed with cloud service providers that work with the DOD for this effort.”
Turkey’s ULAQ USV completes firing tests with new weapons system. (Naval News) “Having cruising range of over 400 kilometers, over 70 kilometers speed per hour, day/night vision possibility, autonomy, crypto and electronic warfare protected communication infrastructure, manufactured from advanced composite material… Turkey’s First Armed Unmanned Surface Vehicle ULAQ is equipped with a 12.7mm remote-controlled weapon system for critical base/facility and port defense purposes in addition to reconnaissance and patrol missions.
Department of Defense labs face $5 billion infrastructure shortfall. (Defense News) ““I need to understand from the $5 billion, which ones are most critical,” Shyu said. “If I don’t fund this, what happens? What are the implications if we don’t fund that?” … The group also wants a better sense of what sorts of budgets the organizations are working with, what processes they use to award contracts and what they’ve procured to date.”
Militarized dolphins protect almost a quarter of the US nuclear stockpile. (Military.com) “Since 1967, the Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions (and probably other marine life) for military applications such as mine clearing, force protection and recovery missions…. If a mine or other weapon is detected, the dolphin returns to its handler, who gives the animal a buoy to mark the location of the device on the surface…. For protection against enemy divers, dolphins will swim up to the infiltrator, bump into them and place a buoy device on their back or a limb using their mouth… Since Bangor, Washington, now houses the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world, it needs protection from all sides, including the seaward side… the animals have been defending the waters around the stockpile, holding roughly 25% of the United States’ 9,962 nuclear warheads, since 2010.”
For Navy’s new frigate, design changes carry risks and rewards. (Breaking Defense) “No matter how good a parent design may be, changes are always necessary to build the ship the service wants. That fact raises questions about how much the Navy, or a private shipbuilder, can tweak and tinker with a new vessel before the benefits of modeling off a proven warship begin to erode.”… “You don’t incur a lot of costs in making the ship bigger. That shouldn’t slow you down. That shouldn’t cause testing to fail,” he [CNA’s Willis] said… “Changing the overall dimensions of the ship is probably lowering the overall risk to the program, not raising it,” Collette told Breaking Defense.”
New CMMC-AB board chair Jeff Dalton wants to make CMMC ‘boring again.’ (Fed Scoop) “In November, CMMC was reduced in scope, a change that shrunk the number of contractors that would need a third-party inspection. This worried the AB’s CEO, Matthew Travis, that there could be a shortage in demand for assessors and CMMC assessments…. “There are two things that I worry about: One is the ruling-making timing, the fact that it might take a year or more,” Dalton said. “A significant delay to that might make some hardship.” The other concern is a lack of incentives from the DOD for companies to start adopting the model before it is required.”
US Army’s new lightweight tank will be better than the Abrams. (National Interest) “The US Army plans to build prototypes in the next several years of a new lightweight Mobile Protected Firepower armored vehicle…
KC-46 vision system problem lead to $402 million charge for Boeing. (Defense News) “Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said in a conference call with investors the pre-tax charge of $402 million was largely driven by “evolving customer requirements” for the tanker’s Remote Vision System, as well as factory and supply chain disruptions, including problems stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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