Despite Problems, SBIRS-High Moves Ahead

SBIRS-High

Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS)-High satellite program is a key component of the USA’s future missile alert system, designed to give maximum warning and monitoring of ballistic missile launches anywhere in the world. The new satellites will replace the existing Defense Support Program (DSP) fleet. Their infrared sensors have 3x the sensitivity of DSP and 2x the revisit rate, while providing better persistent coverage.

Unfortunately, the program has been beset by massive cost overruns on the order of 400%, technical challenges that continue to present problems, and uncertainties about performance. Despite these problems, the U.S. Air Force is proceeding with the program, and has terminated potential alternatives and supplements.

South Beached: Fire and Fixes aboard USS Miami

USS Miami

The nuclear-powered Improved Los Angeles Class (SSN-688i) submarine USS Miami was ordered in 1983 and built by General Dynamics Electric Boat. She was commissioned in 1990, is homeported in Groton, CT, and was the focus of Tom Clancy’s 1993 non-fiction book Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship. In May 2012, a civilian shipyard worker in Portsmouth Naval Shipyard caused a fire, which quickly spread through its forward compartments. It took the efforts of more than 100 firefighters at to save her, and the cost of the necessary facelifts and fixes was so extensive that there was serious talk about retiring the boat.

Navy panels have been conducting wide-ranging investigations trying to figure out why the fire spread so fast, how to reduce these kinds of hazards, and how to improve firefighting response in the future. In parallel, the Navy decided that they’d get more out of spending $400+ million to fix USS Miami to support her remaining 10 years of service life, than they would spending $2.5 billion to get a full 30-year lifetime of service from a more capable Virginia Class submarine. Now, work is underway – but budget cuts have the Navy re-considering their decision…

M1117 Commando APC Armored Vehicles for Colombia

pre-Colombian ICVs
(click to view larger)

Textron’s M1117 Commando ASV is a modern-day armored car, with armor, weapons, and mine protection that are superior to a Humvee jeep. Its 29,500 pound curb weight is lower than other MRAP vehicles, and the type failed MRAP testing. Nevertheless, it’s widely fielded in American Military Police units, has been exported to Bulgaria, and is in use by Iraq and Colombia in a stretched infantry carrier version.

Rapid Fire March 19, 2013: CBO Maps Paths to BCA Execution

• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examined 4 options [PDF] that should allow the Pentagon to remain within budget growth constraints set by the Budget Control Act once translated to constant dollars (i.e. once inflation has taken its toll). Their scenarios play with how much is asked from each main budget category: acquisition (i.e. RDT&E + procurement + military construction), operations, and/or cuts in force cuts to force structure. They think there is a significant shortfall:

“Because the inflation-adjusted costs of DoD’s plan will rise over time much more rapidly than the budget caps will, the reductions that DoD will have to make relative to its 2013 plan to comply with the caps will be larger in later years (see figure below). From 2018 through 2021, the caps will be about 12 percent below an extrapolation of DoD’s five-year plan and 19 percent below CBO’s projection of the cost of that plan.”