The Insider

General Dynamics Land Systems is getting a $330 million contract to outfit Stryker infantry carriers with 30 mm cannons, the Defense Department has announced.

The pick of GDLS was widely expected because the company is the manufacturer of the vehicle and owns the requisite data packages to make substantial design changes, such as those required by installing the more powerful weapon.

Army officials have said they need the larger gun on the vehicle to destroy lightly armored vehicles. The unit that initiated the lethality upgrade is stationed in Germany, and its Strykers could be dispatched quickly to any flashpoints along the border with the Baltic states and Russia if war were to break out.

According to a May 6 DOD announcement, General Dynamics is expected to complete work under the contract by Jan. 15, 2021. The Army obligated $105 million of the total sum at the time of the award.

The company conducted a turret and gun competition last year on the government's behalf and eventually picked the Kongsberg medium-caliber weapon station that includes an ATK XM813 30 mm cannon. The system also features a coaxial machine gun.

The bill for the German-based Stryker conversions, covering 83 vehicles of the brigade, could top $400 million. The Army has a total of eight Stryker brigades that are candidates for lethality upgrades if the service can secure the money for them.

While the cannon upgrade is now a done deal, Army and industry officials have suggested some details remain to be worked out. Opinions differ, for example, about whether the plan would penalize the troop-transport capability of the infantry carrier version of the vehicle. The remote weapon station setup and the extra ammunition to be stored could eat up space for soldiers in an already cramped vehicle.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel to California and Colorado this week, the Pentagon announced today.

Carter is slated to visit the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental -- or DIUx -- in Palo Alto, CA, where DOD said he will "meet with staff and deliver brief remarks about the future of DIUx, as well as host a breakfast reception for tech leaders."

In Santa Clara, he will join Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker at the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and will speak about the Pentagon's emerging technology priorities.

Carter will also travel to Colorado Springs to visit the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center and meet with leadership and troops. At the U.S. Air Force Academy, he will meet with cadets, tour the cyber lab and innovation center and deliver remarks, DOD said.

Carter will also attend the change of command ceremony for North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, where Air Force Gen. Lori Robinson will replace Adm. Bill Gortney.

Major defense legislation is winding it way through Congress this week, while the Defense Department's acquisition chief is scheduled to speak at a Washington think tank.

Monday

The Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee marks up its portion of the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill.

Tuesday

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's acquisition chief is scheduled to speak at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Senate Armed Services subcommittees on seapower, readiness and management support, emerging threats and capabilities, and strategic forces are all scheduled to mark up the FY-17 defense authorization bill.

David Thompson, chief executive of Orbital ATK, is slated to speak at the Washington Space Business Roundtable luncheon, which begins at 11:30 a.m.

DynCorp International is expected to hold a conference call on its quarterly earnings.

Wednesday

The House appropriations defense subcommittee is scheduled to mark up its version of the FY-17 defense spending bill.

The full Senate Armed Services Committee will consider the FY-17 defense authorization bill.

The House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will hold a 10 a.m. hearing on U.S. industry perspectives on the Pentagon's policies, roles and responsibilities for foreign military sales. Remy Nathan of the Aerospace Industries Association and M. Thomas Davis of the National Defense Industrial Association are slated to testify.

Boeing will hold an investor conference, featuring CEO Dennis Muilenburg as well as Leanne Caret, the new head of the company's defense business.

Thursday

Defense Secretary Ash Carter will deliver the commencement ceremony speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Some must-reads from this week's issue of Inside the Navy:

1. Senate authorizers have expressed support for several shipbuilding initiatives similar to what was included in the House Armed Services Committee's defense policy bill, but how those plus-ups will be funded in the upper-chamber committee's version of the legislation remains a key question ahead of the panel's mark-up this week.

Full Story: Shipbuilding topline questions hang in balance ahead of Senate mark

2. The Marine Corps remains "confident" in the Joint Strike Fighter's logistics system's ability to deploy and support a full range of military operations although the Government Accountability Office in a recent report discovered that pilots, maintainers and administrators are concerned the system may not be deployable.

Full Story: Marines 'confident' F-35 logistics system is deployable despite GAO report

3. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has tasked the service's acquisition chief with examining research and development funding mechanisms to ensure they're being used to harness innovation to the maximum extent possible.

Full Story: Mabus calls for examination of research and development funding

The Pentagon is readying for as many as 10,000 participants in a program through which the defense industrial base can share cybersecurity information, according to a new Federal Register notice.

The Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity program -- dubbed the DIB CS program -- was established to "enhance and supplement DIB participants' capabilities to safeguard DOD information that resides on or transits DIB unclassified networks or information systems," the Pentagon says on the program website.

The public-private partnership allows the Pentagon and participants to share unclassified and classified information about cyber threats.

According to an April 28 notice, the office of the DOD chief information officer is renewing proposed public information collection. The notice lists the number of respondents at 10,000 and says the responses per participant could number five each year. The average response would take seven hours, the notice says.

Alan Chvotkin, counsel at the Professional Services Council, said the document stands out both for the number of anticipated respondents as well as the frequency of those responses.

"It may signal that DOD is being more realistic or more fearful about how many pings are on networks that are likely to trigger the need for a report back to DOD," he said, though he added that "not every report is a breach and not every report is the exfiltration of data."

He said DOD appears to be "anticipating or hoping that a lot more people would participate than are now participating."

"The goal would be, over time, to expand the program and to maybe go government-wide,” Chvotkin added.

Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall has a "pet peeve" when programs "go into the ditch."

Kendall told an audience at a Defense Acquisition University seminar April 27 that the term "'realized risk' is becoming a pet peeve of mine," according to slides he presented.

"There are a couple of formulations of this that I've seen fairly often over the last few years," the slides state. "When a program goes in the ditch, what I hear from the [program manager] or [program executive officer] is 'schedule is being adjusted to reduce risk,' or 'because risks that were accepted were realized the program is being restructured.'"

Kendall finds such characterizations demonstrate an abdication of responsibility.

"Frankly, I find this a little irritating," the slides state. "It seems like an attempt to say that we all agreed to roll the dice, and gee look what happened, guess we'll have to make some adjustments. I feel that this is basically a way to duck responsibility. The fact is that a program plan which was submitted for approval and justified as being executable wasn't executed. End of story. The reasons can be anything from poor planning to poor performance, to acts of god, but the formulation that 'risk was realized' strikes me as a way to 'spin' failure as something else."

Kendall acknowledges some aspects of program management cannot be controlled, but stressed that adjustments should be made continuously to manage risk.

"We are not, or should not be, spectators to our programs waiting to see what happens," the slides state. "Our job is to be on top of events and steer them to get where we need to go as efficiently as possible. Program management is not a spectator sport."

Highlights from this week's Inside the Air Force:

1. The Air Force Research Laboratory is moving forward with an effort to demonstrate a high-energy laser and is reaching out to industry for a podded system that will allow for more cost-effective laser integration.

Full Story: AFRL seeks podded system for fighter jet laser demonstration

2. The Senate Armed Services Committee will mark up its version of the fiscal year 2017 defense policy bill next week, which may include language that could impact the shape of key Air Force plans, including the service's strategy to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine and its approach to contracting for the B-21 Long-Range Strike Bomber.

Full Story: Senate mark expected to impact Air Force's RD-180, B-21 plans

3. The Air Force is working closely with Boeing to ramp up Joint Direct Attack Munition production in order to meet continued demand for the precision-guided weapon.

Full Story: Air Force eyes additional JDAM production