The USA is adapting the Standard air-defence missile for anti-ballistic missile (ABM) use via the Standard Missile-3. These interceptors have managed to hit their targets in five out of six recent tests, and their naval mobility makes them well suited for forward defense in and around high threat areas like Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
Land-based ABMs, on the other hand, have had a more mixed record. Yet DefenseTech.org reports that cuts may lie ahead for the SM-3 ABM program.
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston, SC has issued a pair of indefinite-delivery /indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-incentive-fee, performance-based, multiple-award type contracts for engineering, analytical, technical, and programmatic support services re: the U.S. Army Prophet/Cobra program and project office. Both are one-year contracts with four one-year option periods, with an immediate cumulative value of $103.4 million and a potential cumulative value of $530.5 million.
Prophet, which is being developed under the Army Program Executive Office, Intelligence, Electronic Warfare & Sensors (PEO IEW&S), is is a lightweight tactical signals intelligence and electronic warfare system designed to support the US Army division and brigade forces.
International Systems, LLC in San Diego, CA received a $32.3 million modification to a previously awarded cost-plus award-fee/ cost-plus fixed-fee contract for the FY 2005 demonstration, test and evaluation phase of the Affordable Weapon System. Work will be performed in San Diego, CA, and is expected to be complete by September 2006. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Wash. DC issued the contract (N00024-04-C-6301).
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has a program to use commercially-based equipment to build a “cruise-like” missile with good performance at a price ten times less than the norm. The new missile is called, appropriately, the Affordable Weapon. Launched from its shipping container by a small rocket booster and powered in flight by a small turbojet engine, the Affordable Weapon is designed to carry a significant payload to a target several hundred miles away. Equipped with both line-of-sight and satellite data links, the Affordable Weapon can fly directly to its target guided by the Global Positioning System (GPS). Alternatively, it can fly to an area and loiter until a forward observer directs it to a target. It can also be retargeted in flight – an observer can direct it to switch to a target different from the one the weapon was originally sent to attack.
The Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, MD is exercising a contract option with Lockheed Martin Services Inc. for P-3 Orion aircraft phased depot maintenance, special structural inspections, and enhanced special structural inspections. Lockheed’s Aircraft and Logistics Center in Greenville, SC is receiving an $81.2 million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract (N00019-03-D-0007). Work will be performed in Greenville, SC and is expected to be complete in May 2006.
Stanford University in Stanford, CA, is being awarded a $13.1 million cost contract for R&D to design, build, calibrate, test, and deliver a flight-qualified very low frequency receiver and transmitter. Very Low Frequency (VLF) communications transmitters use digital signals to communicate with submerged missile ans attack submarines on at frequencies of 3-30 kHz. The supporting infrastructure for these submarines includes connectivity links such as the Extremely Low Frequency (ELF), Very Low Frequency (VLF), and TACAMO Airborne VLF communications systems.
Work will be performed at Stanford University in Stanford, CA and Lockheed Martin Corp. in Palo Alto, CA. Solicitation began March 2004, negotiations were completed May 2005, and work will be complete by March 2009. The Headquarters Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, MA issued the contract (FA8718-05-C-0027).
I.E. Discovery Inc. in Austin, TX won a cost-plus fixed-fee task order contract in the amount of $8.8 million for general litigation support services to the Navy Litigation Office of the Office of General Counsel. This contract includes one base year and four one-year option periods, which if exercised, bring the total approximate value of the contract to $45.8 million. Work will be performed in Washington, DC, and is to be complete by September 2010 if all options are exercised. This contract was competitively procured through FEDBIZOPs. The Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Norfolk Detachment in Philadelphia, PA issued the contract (N00600-05-D-0186).
The U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD has issued $8.5 million in delivery orders on firm-fixed-price contracts for Moisture Wicking T-Shirts. There were an unknown number of bids solicited via the Internet on Nov. 8, 2004, and 55 bids were received.
Small business qualifier Linchpin Services in Wichita, KS won a delivery order amount of $5.2 million as part of a $26.4 million contract (W91CRB-05-D-0020). Work will be performed in Wichita, KS and is expected to be complete by May 1, 2008. Sahara Sportswear in El Paso, Texas, won a delivery order amount of $3.3 million as part of a $21.5 million firm-fixed-price contract (W91CRB-05-D-0021).
