Explanation for drop in contract amounts; $105M more in SE region. (Sept 26/11)

Around 1997/98, the Defense Logistics Agency changed their business practices, and entered into Prime Vendor long term sustainment contracts with various suppliers to provide materials needed to support the maintenance, repair, and operation (MRO) of its facilities. Items such as plumbing, electrical components, heating/ ventilation/ air conditioning (HVAC), lumber, fixtures, other hardware supplies, etc. would be included. The Prime Vendors need not make these items; the idea is to use purchasing power and commercial purchasing practices to consistently get the US Department of Defense the best prices on these civilian items, delivering them quickly and with little overhead.

These contracts are not small; collectively, they represent billions of dollars each year. Unless otherwise stated, the contracts are issued by the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP, now referred to as Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support) in Philadelphia, PA. Specific purchases then take place via orders under the overarching contracts described below, up to the limits mentioned. The USA is divided into a number of regions, and these contracts also include locations abroad; DID has used the same geographical groupings in describing these contracts, and the firms receiving them. Coverage will end at the end of FY 2011.

At present, awards seem to be dropping to 1/10 of previous levels. This is not a typo. The DLA says that it’s a series of bridge contracts, issued while they prepare solicitations for the next contract sets. Those solicitations are due out in about a month.

• USA: Northeast Region
• USA: North Central Region
• USA: Northwest Region
• USA: Southeast Region [updated]
• USA: South Central Region
• USA: Southwest Region
• CENTCOM Region
• Pacific Region
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BCTM B-Kit in Hummer

With SUGV pending wind-down, early materials order for SUGV sets 2-3. (Sept 14/11)

Concerns about cost overruns, vehicle design, and contract structure prompted the Pentagon to cancel the US Army’s Future Combat System (FCS) program in June 2009.

Instead of a single FCS contract, the Pentagon directed the Army to set up a number of separate programs to undertake parts of the FCS program. One of those programs is the Brigade Combat Team Modernization (BCTM) Increment 1. The BCTM Increment 1 capabilities – which include ground robots, UAVs, ground sensors, and vehicle (B-Kit) network integration kits – were planned to be fielded to up to 9 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams beginning in 2011. Now it’s more like 2015 for the 1st brigade, and it will happen without most of the original components…

• BCTM/ E-IBCT Increment 1
• Contracts and Key Events, FY 2007-2011 [updated]
• Additional Readings
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USS Abraham Lincoln
going virtual

The US Department of Defense (DoD) and the individual services are turning more and more to virtualization to improve the efficiency and flexibility of their IT networks. This technology allows multiple virtual machines with different operating systems to run side-by-side on the same physical machine. The main benefit is a decrease in needed hardware, space, and power to perform the same IT operations, thus saving money and weight on military IT systems and platforms.

At the same time, virtualization raises security concerns because traditional IT security products, such as firewalls, do not work in the virtual environment.

• Virtualization: What Does It Mean?
• DISA Out in Front
• GD’s TVE Project
• Navy’s Virtual Strike Force
• Air Force Goes Virtual Early
• Security Challenges/Benefits
• Key Contacts
• Additional Reading
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3 firms added to 5-year SITEC multiple-award contract. (July 14/11)

US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) has been extremely busy since Sept 11/01. That is creating corresponding demands on their support infrastructure, much of which is contracted. SOCOM is famous for having a practical, results-oriented, “get it done now” approach to contracting, which creates more freedom for contractors but also means a certain degree of added pressure. Much like the lives of SOCOM’s operators.

The L-3 Communications conglomerate does a lot of work with US SOCOM, and this article covers a few of those key contracts. Their Joint Operations Group’s profile describes the nature of their work with SOCOM – and it is extensive:

Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) in McLean, VA recently won a $9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for an unusual effort:

”...research in the detection of insider threats based on sensor data from routine activities of members of a group, and possibly social networks.”

Call it the WikiCaulking contract. Work will be performed in McLean, VA; Amherst, MA; Corvallis, OR; Pittsburgh, PA; and Atlanta, GA, with an estimated completion date of May 31/13. Bids were solicited through a broad agency announcement, with 7 bids received by U.S. Army Contracting Command in Durham, NC (W911NF-11-C-0088).

LEMV concept

The rise of modern terrorism, sharply increasing costs to recruit and equip professional soldiers, and issues of energy security, are forcing 2 imperatives on modern armies. Modern militaries need to be able to watch wide areas for very long periods of time. Not just minutes, or even hours any more, but days if necessary. The second imperative, beyond the need for that persistent, unblinking stare up high in the air, is the need to field aerial platforms whose operating costs won’t bankrupt the budget.

These pressures are forcing an eventual convergence toward very long endurance, low operating cost platforms. Many are lighter-than-air vehicles or hybrid airships, whose technologies have advanced to make them safe and militarily useful again. On the ground near military bases, Raytheon’s RAID program fielded aerostats, and then surveillance towers. Lockheed Martin has also fielded tethered aerostats: TARS along the USA’s southern border, and PTDS aerostats on the front lines. The same trend can be observed in places like Thailand and in Israel; and Israeli experience has led to export orders in Mexico and India. At a higher technical level, Raytheon’s large JLENS aerostats are set to play a major role in American aerial awareness and cruise missile defense, and its ground and air scanning ISIS radar was developed under a DARPA project, to pair with Lockheed Martin’s fully mobile High Altitude Airship.

The Army’s LEMV project fits in between RAID and HAA/ISIS, in order to give that service mobile, affordable, very long term surveillance in uncontested airspace. Its technologies may also wind up playing a role in other projects:

• The Army’s LEMV
• Surveillance Options, and the Rise of the LTAs
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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24th Air Force

As the US defense budget is seeing targeted cuts, one area that seems to be getting more money is cybersecurity. The US military has announced plans to spend billions on technology to secure its networks.

In response to this shift in priorities, traditional defense contractors, such as BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman have been on a buying spree, snatching up cybersecurity firms left and right. At the same time, a number of these companies have proven vulnerable to cyber attacks themselves, with some analysts seeing a tie to a security breach at RSA, which provides technology for remote access of employees to their corporate networks.

This article examines this shift in the US defense industry and defense spending regarding cybersecurity. In particular, the article examines where the money being earmarked for cybersecurity is going and what kind of initiatives are being undertaken by the US military.

• Buying Spree
• Where’s the Money Going?
• US Cyber Command
• Pentagon’s Cyber 3.0
• Is the Boom a Bust?
• Key Contacts
• Additional Reading
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• US Supreme Court throws out lower court ruling that would have required Boeing and General Dynamics to repay $3 billion to the federal government for the cancelled A-12 Avenger fighter program.

• Does SpaceX have lessons to teach NASA? After it spends under $400 million to do what would have taken NASA around $4 billion, Congressional testimony says “yes!”, and SpaceX underscores its cost positions. Next step? Falcon 9 Heavy, which aims to challenge the current Boeing/Lockheed EELV heavy lift platforms on cost and payload.

• FLIR Systems, a supplier of thermal imaging and threat detection systems, agrees to pay $39 million to two former executives to settle litigation related to its 2004 acquisition of Indigo Systems.

• L-3’s Systems Field Support division gets contract worth up to $300 million to provide C-12 aircraft logistics support and maintenance to the US Navy and USAF.

• SAIC snags contract worth up to $85 million to provide fighter operational test and evaluation services at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center.

• US Army honors the MQ-5B Hunter UAV as “the little program that could,” with a history going back to 1989. Hunters still serve on the front lines, and some are now armed with GBU-44 Viper Strike mini-weapons.

• Smiths Detection receives $30 million order to provide battlefield chemical agent detectors for the US DoD’s Joint Chemical Agent Detector program.

• China’s submarine buildup is creating pressure on Asian countries to improve their anti-submarine capabilities – and add subs of their own. Given the volume of Chinese shipping that must pass through narrow chokepoints in and around Indonesia, it’s not a good strategic trade for China.

• Crews for India’s ordered Scorpene diesel-electric submarines are due to begin training in France, soon. The goal is now delivery by 2015, with all 6 delivered by the end of 2018.

• Loose or broken bolts caused South Korea to suspend operations for its 3 type U214 subs through much of 2010, and into 2011. The problem was fixed, and contracts to build its next set of 6 more U214s continue.

THz flow

In 2009, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began awarding contracts for innovative research proposals under its Terahertz (THz) Electronics Program. Readers will probably be asking the same question that crossed our minds, namely, “when can I expect this, instead of my 2 GHz laptop?”

If Moore’s Law continues, the answer is somewhere between 2025 – 2030. The military thinks “why wait?”, and DARPA has a long history of helping to fund computing breakthroughs – from that minor nuisance we call the Internet to modern work on Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors, non-thermionic transistors, research into graphene circuits, and more. Now, their Terahertz (THz) Electronics program is looking for technologies to enable revolutionary advances in electronic devices and integrated circuits, allowing them to reach THz frequencies (at least a trillion cycles per second):

• THz Electronics: Goals & Barriers [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings [NEW]
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Northrop Grumman gets $26M order to provide B-1 bomber aircraft mission planning capability. (March 24/11)

In some core ways, mission planning hasn’t changed all that much since World War 2. The technology has changed radically, however, and now involves loading computerized data sets into mission planning systems, with data showing up on moving map displays for use and even pre-flight rehearsal. In June 2010, the 951st ELSG/PK at Hanscom Air Force Base, MA handed out a 10-year, $919.6 million multiple-award contract called Mission Planning Enterprise Contract-II (MPEC-II).

The USAF began the original MPEC program in 2004, to shift from existing USAF, Navy and Army systems into a single Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS). The USAF is moving to JMPS from its PC-based PFPS and Unix-based MPS, while the Navy will move from its TAMPS and the Army from its MPS.

MPEC-II extends that effort. Major MPEC I/II awards, and some delivery order examples, include: