The Insider

Norsk Titanium, which manufactures aerospace-grade titanium components, said today it has hired three new defense industry executives.

Steve Carrington has been named vice president of sales and joins from L-3 Communications, where he was vice president of business development. Tony Prezioso, who was director of contracts at Bombardier Aerospace, has been appointed vice president of contracts at Norsk Titanium.

Nicholas Mayer has been named vice president of product development and has previously worked at Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Lockheed Martin.

The Joint Strike Missile, which is specifically designed to fit inside the F-35A weapons bay, completed its first flight test in the United States last week.

The munition was launched from an F-16 at 22,000 feet over the Utah Test and Training Range, according to a Nov. 10 statement from the missiles manufacturer, Kongsberg.

"The test proved the maturity of the missile . . . and the missile flight control software," the statement reads.

The JSM is being developed by Kongsberg in partnership with Raytheon for the Norwegian Armed Forces. The missile will complete its qualification program in 2017.

"This is a major accomplishment for the JSM program, and in addition several critical capabilities beyond the scope of the test were verified. The test demonstrates that we are on track with the qualification of JSM, which brings critical capability to [the] F-35 and the warfighter," Kongsberg Defence Systems President Harald Ånnestad said in the statement.

The munition is planned to be integrated into the Air Force's F-35A Joint Strike Fighter conventional-takeoff-and-landing variant but can be used on other types of aircraft.

"This successful flight test further validates that JSM will be an ideal solution for the medium-range anti-ship and land-attack mission," Mike Jarrett, Raytheon Missile Systems vice president of Air Warfare Systems, said in the statement.

Inside the Navy reported in June that Kongsberg and Raytheon will likely team up to offer their joint Naval Strike Missile, a variant of the JSM, as an over-the-horizon solution for the Navy's future frigate program.

The NSM has already been successfully demonstrated in the United States, Kyrre Lohne, vice president of strategic communications for Kongsberg wrote in a June 22 email to ITN, noting that the Navy fired the weapon aboard the Coronado (LCS-4) in September, 2014. NSM was also successfully launched July 10, 2014, from the Norwegian frigate Fridtjob Nansen during the Rim of the Pacific maritime security exercise off the coast of Hawaii.

Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said he's committed to doing his part to speed the military acquisition process.

However, he acknowledged, there are certain elements that simply can't move faster.

"I think everybody recognizes that it takes a certain amount of time to build a plane, build a ship," Neller said, adding that the equipment has to work and can't be tested in combat. "That just by its inherent nature is going to drag the process out."

But what military officials must do, he said, is "figure out those things that we do that unnecessarily drag out the process."

While many in government and industry hold up Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles as an example of how fast each can move when they must, Neller said it's not a perfect example.

MRAPs "weren't really that complicated," he said. "That's going to be difficult to do with something that has stealth and a lot of technology and a lot of communications."

"You are not going to get that overnight, but we still have to be committed to do that faster," Neller added.

Highlights from this week's edition of Inside the Navy:

1. Deliberations over the Navy's fiscal year 2018 budget will include what one official sees as a key decision point in the service possibly pushing more money toward offensive mining capabilities.

Full story: Navy official sees 2018 as key year in reviving offensive mining

2. The Marine Corps validated two cooperative security locations during the most recent deployment for the service's crisis response force supporting U.S. Africa Command.

Full story: Marines validated two cooperative security locations during deployment

3. Program executive offices at Naval Air Systems Command will soon have to implement open architecture in all new projects and upgrades they make to their software systems.

Full story: NAVAIR programs plan to implement open architecture in new projects

Will the Army, as it begins crafting its fiscal year 2018 budget proposal, establish a new budget line focused on modernizing its legacy humvee fleet? That's the potential $5-billion-to-$6-billion question prompting Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) and 15 other senators to ask Army leaders: what's the plan for the estimated 50,000 humvees the active component intends to retain as part of the force?

“Specifically, what are the near-term requirements to recapitalize and maintain the legacy HMMWV fleet? And, to what extent has the Army prioritized HMMVW recapitalization     and maintenance in its resource planning decisions in connection with building-up the fiscal year presidential budget request?”

The answer to that question, from a Oct. 16 letter to the Army secretary and chief of staff, could put a new modernization program in play, potentially worth billions over decades, as the service sets out a strategy to keep its legacy humvees running along side its newer Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.

Inside the Army's Ellen Mitchell this week reported the service is conducting an analysis that aims, among other issues, to answer just the sort of questions the senators are asking.

Scott Davis, program executive officer for combat support and combat service support, said the Army expects to consider the results of an analysis early next year, which includes a look at force structure, the procurement time line of the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and "lots of other variables that feed into that."

Of course, industry would love to know the answers, too. Oshkosh, winner of the competition to build the JLTV would surely love to build the Army more new trucks. And AM General, original humvee manufacturer and one of the losing JLTV bidders, would no doubt be keen on a codified, long-term program to improve the capability of the portion of the humvee fleet the Army intends to retain beyond the 2040s.

Industry officials speculate that a humvee modernization program could be built -- depending on what the Army wants each truck to be capable of -- for between $100,000 to $120,000 per vehicle.  Were a modernization effort built around those numbers, the scope of the project for 50,000 trucks could run between $5 billion and $6 billion.

Earlier this week, Inside Defense broke the story of why an Army surveillance blimp broke free from its tether north of Baltimore. We have the most complete version of exactly how the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System broke free from its mooring station, based on an early internal Army assessment.

Read the full story.

In an investor day held this week, executives at the soon-to-be-created CSRA said the company will be well positioned in a changing government services market.

The new company will be created by separating the U.S. public sector work of Computer Sciences Corp. and merging it with SRA International to create a new contractor known as CSRA and led by industry veteran Larry Prior.

The new company will have about $5.5 billion in annual sales – about $2.9 billion in civil work and $2.6 billion in defense and security business.

About 76 percent of the company's work will be related to information technology, while 24 percent will be mission services, company executives told investors. Prior said IT is an area where federal agencies will simply have to invest.

“They've got to modernize their legacy IT systems to next-gen,” Prior said. “It's just inevitable.”

He told analysts about 42 percent of CSRA's contracts are fixed-price, a higher rate than many peers, and described the company as “so frugal.”

“I share a table with 12 other people,” Prior said. “It is a discipline and a commitment to put your investment in places that make a difference around technology, as opposed to having a walnut-covered office.”

“Those days are gone,” he continued. “Any C-Suite where it's got oriental carpets and it's got wood paneling -- short the stock.”

Size is key to CSRA's efforts to reposition in the market. Mike Lawrie, the chief executive of CSC who will run the remaining commercial and international business once the government unit is separated, said he expects continued consolidation within the government services market.

At one point, he said, CSC considered trying to get bought by someone else.

“Fundamentally, we at CSC and the board made a decision to be a consolidator as opposed to a consolidatee,” he said this week. “That was a change in strategy.”

That switch, Lawrie said, came when the board and the leadership team started “to get comfortable that we could actually begin to grow this.”

“We reversed strategy, reversed course and decided to be the consolidator and be one of the first to drive that process,” he said.