Night raid
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Irvine Sensors snags subcontract to supply clip-on thermal imagers under $37.8 million US Navy special ops night vision contract. (Feb 8/10)

It was Christmas Eve 2007 and US Army Rangers were searching for suspected Al-Qaeda members in Mosul, Iraq. They were using their night vision goggles so they would have the element of surprise on their side. The story, detailed in a USA Today article, dramatically demonstrates the advantage night vision capabilities provide to US troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Rangers found 2 Al-Qaeda suspects who were holding an 11-year-old Iraqi boy hostage. Using their night vision capabilities, they were able to shoot the suspects without harming the boy. After that encounter, a firefight erupted between the Army rangers and Al-Qaeda insurgents, with 10 insurgents killed, including the head of an assassination cell, and no Army ranger losses. As former General Barry McCaffrey, commander of the US Army’s 24th Infantry Division in the 1991 Desert Storm conflict, commented: “Our night vision capability provided the single greatest mismatch of the war.” It still does.

This DID Focus Article will examine how this technology works, how its military application has developed over years, how the technology is used by troops in the field, as well as major DoD contracts for procuring night vision devices. The latest contract was awarded to Optics 1 to provide Clip on Thermal Imager systems for PVS-15A night goggles…

• Night Vision Technology
• Generations
• Riding the Omnibus
• Thermal Weapon Sight II
• Multi-Functioning Aiming Laser System
• Helicopter Systems
• Panoramic Night Vision
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
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DSP Satellite
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Major update to the article, which now offers a complete timeline and new materials. (Feb 5/10)

The USA’s “SBIRS High” missile launch early-warning satellites, which aim to replace the existing DSP fleet, have been facing
ongoing project issues. Massive cost overruns, technical challenges that continue to present problems, and uncertain performance all factor into the equation. Yet their mission – to detect ballistic missile launches and so serve as the critical first stage of the USA’s national early warning system – is too critical to abandon. What to do?

While some progress has been made on SBIRS-High, the search for alternative technologies is now well underway in a program called AIRSS the Alternate InfraRed Satellite System, also known as 3GIRS (3rd Generation Infrared Surveillance). The effort progressed well, but despite good performance and cost-effective development, the program is facing its end in the FY 2011 budget…

• For Every Action… SBIRS-High From $4B to $10+B
• Reaction: AIRSS & the “Full-Earth Sharing Sensor Assembly” [updated]
• AIRSS/3GIRS Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings [updated]
  
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GPS IIIA concept
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$75.9 million to Boeing to support GPS III precursor. (Feb 5/10)

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. It’s hard to be more significant than the USA’s Global Positioning System (GPS), which is widely relied upon for civilian uses, including timing services for stock trades and credit card processing. At the same time, military class (M-code) GPS guidance can now be found in everything from cruise missiles and various precision-guided bombs, to battlefield rockets and even artillery shells. Combat search and rescue radios use it, and so does a broadening array of individual soldier’s equipment. Disruption or decay of of the the critical capabilities provided by this line of communication in space would cripple both the US military, and many aspects of the global economy.

GPS-III satellites are a key part of this PTN (Positioning, Timing & Navigation) system’s future plan, offering several improvements over the existing GPS II family. When fully deployed, the current vision for GPS-III is that the new satellites will feature a new L1C civil signal; a cross-linked command and control architecture that allows the entire GPS constellation to be updated from a single ground station; and a spot beam antenna that provides resistance to hostile military jamming while improving accuracy and integrity. GPS III will also have limited interoperability with Europe’s ongoing Galileo GPS-type satellite constellation, per a 2006 agreement involving Lockheed Martin and EADS.

The latest additions include significantly upgraded background and contract information, GAO worries about the USAF’s ability to sustain its GPS capabilities if GPS IIF and IIIA encounter delays, and possible congressional funding cuts for GPS-III’s critical next-generation ground control segment…

• The Existing Array
• The GPS III Program
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
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Boeing gets $21 million contract to integrate, test, and store the 1.5 ship-sets of the WGS xenon-ion propulsion system. (Jan 29/10)

The WGS program is actually a set of 13-kilowatt spacecraft based upon Boeing’s model 702 commercial satellite. These satellites will support the USA’s warfighting bandwidth requirements, supporting tactical C4ISR (command, control, communications, and computers; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance); battle management; and combat support needs. The program name has been changed for some reason from “Wideband Gapfiller Satellite” to “Wideband Global SATCOM,” presumably to avoid the (correct) suggestion that it fills an emerging gap. Readers should be aware that references to either title in documents, archives, or the media denote the same program.

Upon its first launch into geosynchronous orbit, WGS Flight 1 became the U.S. Department of Defense’s highest capacity communication satellite. This is DID’s FOCUS Article covering the WGS program…

• WGS: Capabilities & Role
• The WGS Program & Schedule [updated]
• WGS Program: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  
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Reuters reports that draft FY 2011 budget documents show the Pentagon targeting at least 7 programs for cancellation. Nothing is final yet, and the Pentagon will not comment, but here’s the rundown.

Two of those programs are familiar. One is the F-35’s alternate-engine F-136 sub-program. The other is the C-17. The USAF has been trying to cancel production of this heavy transport plane for years, but lack of faith in the Pentagon’s mobility requirements studies, and frequent testimony that airlift into theater is a bottleneck, have led Congress to add funds to the final military budget year after year. Those efforts have had an export spinoff as well, as open production lines have allowed new orders from Australia (4), Britain (3 more), Canada (4), NATO (3), Qatar (2), and The UAE (6), with India expressing interest of its own (10) in late 2009. FY 2011 seems set to give the Department of Defense another attempt to end the program, which is currently set to go out of production at the end of FY 2012.

Other programs Reuters marks for the chopping block include:

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Delicate operation
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When you think of military healthcare, you might picture MASH doctors performing surgery on wounded soldiers. Or you might picture a US soldier injured by an IED being rehabilitated in a hospital state-side.

You probably don’t think of computers, networks and Web sites. But modern healthcare, whether military or civilian, depends on information technology for all of the advanced medical technology to work together seamlessly.

To procure military IT, the US Department of Defense developed a contract vehicle called the Defense Medical Information Systems/Systems Integration, Design, Development, Operations and Maintenance Services (D/SIDDOMS 3) contract. Just rolls off the tongue, don’t it.

While hardly Shakespeare, the contract vehicle enables US military services and the US Department of Veterans Affairs to buy medical IT equipment and services through task orders from a group of eager contractors operating under an $8 billion contract ceiling…

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Science Applications International Corp. received a task order from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) to provide modeling, simulation, and analytically based warfare analysis support to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations’ (OPNAV) Assessment Division (N81). OPNAV N81 provides capability-based analyses of naval warfare and support requirements

The task order has a 1-year base period, 4 one-year options, and a total value of more than $249 million, if all options are exercised. Under the task order, SAIC will provide warfare support, campaign, and mission-level analyses; and management, documentation, and modeling and simulation support. Work will be performed in the National Capital Region.

The task order was awarded under the US Navy’s SeaPort-e contract vehicle…

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AF DCGS

The US Air Force awarded General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems a 5-year $60 million contract to provide network management and mission operations support to the 480th Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Wing.

General Dynamics will support the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (AF DCGS) and 2 network operations centers in Virginia and California.

The AF DCGS is a globally networked intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system that integrates information collected by the U-2 high-altitude spy plane and the RQ-4 Global Hawk, MQ-9 Reaper, and MQ-1 Predator UAVs...

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Sun Tzu

The great Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu observed, “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”

This appears to the thinking behind the US Defense Advanced Research Agency’s (DARPA) new National Cyber Range (NCR) program.

DARPA is teaming with industry to develop technologies that will enable US personnel to simulate attacks on the USA’s cyber networks, which include most IT and computer systems as well as the infrastructure that depends on those systems, and devise strategies to thwart those attacks. By constructing advanced simulations, DARPA hopes the NCR will enable US defenders to anticipate attackers moves and outthink the enemy.

DARPA began the program in January 2009 with the award of 7 contracts for phase I NCR development; the agency recently awarded contracts for phase II…

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System F6 constellation
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A team led by Orbital Sciences in Dulles, VA won a 1-year, $74.6 million Phase 2 contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop the final design of System F6 (Future Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft).

The Orbital team beat out teams led by Boeing, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, and Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Sytems. The 4 four teams won DARPA contracts [pdf] in 2008 to participate in Phase 1 of the System F6 development.

The objective of the System F6 program is to develop and demonstrate the basic building blocks of a new space architecture in which traditional large, multi-functional satellites are replaced by clusters of wirelessly interconnected space modules to form a “virtual” satellite…

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