Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Key Issues Mercury CEO DOD's COVID-19 spending plan Lockheed CFO
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than two decades -- including stints with Defense News and Armed Forces Journal -- he has covered the Pentagon, defense industry, the military budget, weapon system acquisition and defense policy formulation as well as reporting on technology, business, and global arms trade. Jason has traveled to more than 40 countries, studied medieval history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and lives in Brooklyn.
The lead craft in the Navy's Ship-to-Shore Connector program -- a $5.4 billion project to modernize the fleet of combat hovercraft used to move Marine Corps ground vehicles, cargo and personnel from sea to land -- is readying to execute next week the final stage of builder's trials, a prelude to follow-on government acceptance trials and then delivery this fall.
A House-proposed cut to the Pentagon's fiscal year 2020 request for the Conventional Prompt Strike program -- the U.S. military's marquee hypersonic strike project -- would knock both the Army and Navy off schedule from current plans to deploy variants of the new ultra-fast, boost-glide weapon in 2023 and 2025 respectively.
The Marine Corps is weighing integrating parts of the Israeli-designed Iron Dome air and missile defense system with the service's existing capabilities -- including the AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) -- to address an urgent warfighting requirement and is planning to soon execute a live-fire demonstration, according to sources.
Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's chief technology officer, is canceling plans to produce detailed spending justifications for high-priority projects sought by combatant commanders -- jeopardizing more than a dozen new projects proposed this spring for the U.S. military's fiscal year 2021 budget request.
The first Initial-Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense vehicle will be on display in Washington in October, showcasing the new air and missile defense Stryker variant and the fruit of a new prototyping process that will deliver a combat vehicle 13 months after inking agreements with industry for an IM-SHORAD to harden ground forces in Europe from Russian threats.
The Missile Defense Agency has completed a proposal for a new multibillion-dollar project to develop and field a defense against hypersonic weapons, that -- if included in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2021 budget request -- would expand the agency's focus to a new class of maneuvering, ultra-fast threats.
The Defense Department has awarded Lockheed Martin a $405 million contract to re-purpose a Navy rocket designed for submarine launch for use by the Army to give ground forces the means to fire a hypersonic glide body, marking a major development by the Pentagon to ready a new class of ultra-fast conventional weapons to strike high-priority targets in the open salvos of a major fight.
Government negotiators from the United States and Israel are finalizing contract terms for the Army to purchase two Iron Dome batteries from state-owned Israeli defense contractors, an approximate two-month delay that nevertheless will not impede service plans to meet the Oct. 1, 2020 fielding goal, according to an Army official.
Lockheed Martin has delivered to Clear Air Force Station, AK, the first of an eventual 20 radar panels that will make up the Missile Defense Agency's new Long Range Discrimination Radar, moving the 27-foot tall sensor 5,000 miles from Moorestown, NJ on a truck as part of plan to have the new ballistic missile defense sensor ready for delivery to the U.S. military in 2020.
The estimated price tag for the Defense Department's roster of big-ticket weapons projects has grown to more than $2 trillion, an increase of $101 million compared to last year as the U.S. military prepares for great power competition with China and Russia, laying plans for more missiles, ships and aircraft.
The Presidential Aircraft Replacement program will cost $5.2 billion, the Pentagon revealed last week, roughly $500 million more than the $4.6 billion Air Force estimate for the pair of new highly modified Boeing 747-8s presented to Congress in March -- and a year after President Trump claimed White House negotiations saved more than $1.4 billion on the VC-25B development contract.
NEWPORT, RI -- The Navy plans to observe more than 70 new technologies that aim to bolster undersea security at naval ports and ranges as part of the 2019 Advanced Naval Technology Exercise, a rolling event that began earlier this year and will culminate this month with a two-day exercise designed to both showcase technologies as well as incubate collaboration and innovation among industry, academia and the U.S. military.
WEST LAFAYETTE, IN -- The Defense Department is conducting a pair of assessments of the U.S. industrial base to identify potential weak links in its ability to ramp up hypersonic weapons production -- findings expected to help guide targeted government investment in manufacturing tools and space to ensure timely delivery of these new ultra-fast missiles.
WEST LAFAYETTE, IN -- The Defense Department is drafting a national science and technology investment strategy to support a recently codified Hypersonics Roadmap.
Northrop Grumman has retained its role as design agent for the AN/SPQ-9B, a rotating X-band radar on Ticonderoga-class cruisers, San Antonio-class landing transport docks and other large ships whose primary mission is to detect and track low-flying anti-ship missiles.
With the Navy's final order for multimission MH-60R helicopters recently placed, Lockheed Martin now expects orders from foreign customers for the anti-surface and submarine-hunting aircraft to keep the production line going for at least another two years, according to a company official.
The new two-year budget agreement means the Defense Department will absorb about $580 billion in reductions between fiscal years 2012 and 2021, far less than the $1 trillion worst-case scenario that originally loomed as part of the 2011 Budget Control Act, but still substantial reductions compared to plans set by U.S. military leaders in 2011.
The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.4 billion contract for production of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors on behalf of Saudi Arabia, a major down payment toward a planned $15 billion acquisition by the desert kingdom of seven THAAD batteries.
The Trump administration wants to retain the option to develop a road-mobile variant of the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, objecting to legislation that would extend through 2030 the current statutory ban on truck-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles -- which are more difficult for an adversary to target than silo-based weapons.
At the prompting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the presumptive next defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff both declined to endorse a controversial reorganization of the Strategic Capabilities Office under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, pledging to review the proposed change.