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:
In the early weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US military satellite communications capacity was overwhelmed by the demand from US troops for satellite bandwidth to transmit voice and data communication. In response, the US military dramatically increased its use of commercial satellite capacity to meet the explosion of demand.
A study by the Satellite Industry Association found that 80% of all US military satellite communication during the Iraq invasion was carried on commercial satellites. Then-US assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration, John P. Stenbit, estimated that the US military purchased between $200 million and $300 million worth of commercial satellite services during the first year of the war.
Recognizing the military’s reliance on commercial satellites, the US Navy undertook an effort, called the Commercial Broadband Satellite Program (CBSP), to develop and deploy satellite communication terminals specifically designed to increase the Navy’s commercial satellite communications capability…
CACI International received an $81 million task order from the US Army to support the consolidation of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) resources to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
CACI will assist in consolidating C4ISR resources from Fort Monmouth, NJ; Fort Belvoir, VA; Eatontown, NJ; Huntsville, AL; and Fort Knox, KY, to Aberdeen as required by the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission.
The company’s support includes the planning/preparation, disassembly, transport, and synchronized reconstitution of components involving information technology, systems engineering, and network automation…
