Rapid Fire: 2010-06-30

• Pentagon acquisition chief Carter issues guidance for “acquisition professionals” to reduce overhead costs associated with the $400 billion per year spent on contracts.

• Can We Talk?: In response to the Carter memo, the Aerospace Industries Association called on the US to implement a set of policy initiatives, including easing export controls, to enable the industry to improve productivity and efficiency.

• Across the Pond: Not to be outdone, the new UK government is looking to reduce its spending on defense, even though the nation’s defense spending has been steadily shrinking as a percentage of GDP since the 1980s.

• High casualties put Danish military under pressure to buy blast-resistant vehicles, but military says they can’t do it within their budget.

• US Defense Acquisition Board waffles regarding next steps for the RQ-4 Global Hawk program, after problems surface.

• Bigger Bang: General Dynamics snags $14 million in US Army contracts to supply 30mm M789 High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) ammunition for the AH-64 Apache helicopter and develop 25mm scalable fuze technology for the Army Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Marine Corps LAV-2.

• Crypto-philosopher: Cracking Plato’s code. Meanwhile, modern cryptologists are working on Quantum Decoys and Quantum interference.

• By Any Other Name: Vought Defense Systems, a Dunedin, FL-based maker of Minuteman and Borderguard surveillance UAVs, is changing its name to ALAS (Air Land and Sea) Defense Systems.

Carnegie Mellon Contracted for Software R&D

Carnegie Mellon has long been one of the USA’s best universities for computer science, and was well known in those circles long before Prof. Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture made it more broadly famous around the world. Platforms like Alice are gaining wide traction for teaching computer science, and their Capability Maturity Model for software development has become a certification goal for many defense industry systems integrators. On the security side, their Software Engineering Institute’s Computer Emergency Response (CERT) group remains one of top public resources in the world for computer security, and their CyLab is a multi-disciplinary cybersecurity education and research center, involving 6 colleges from Carnegie Mellon, over 50 faculty, and over 130 graduate students.

The SEI was established in 1984 at Carnegie Mellon University as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) dedicated to advancing the practice of software engineering and improving the quality of systems that depend on software. Their CMMI defines 5 levels of proficiency under a Total Quality Management approach; most commercial organizations are at Level 1 or Level 2. Through its sponsor, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, the SEI carries out its mission by focusing on software engineering management and technical practices.

BAE Contracted for a Persistent Battlefield Infrared Stare

BAE Systems in Arlington, VA received a $49.8 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to develop an infrared system “that provides a real-time, high-resolution, wide area video persistent surveillance capability that allows joint forces to keep critical areas of interest under constant surveillance with high degree of target location accuracy.” At this time, $6.4 million has been committed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH (FA8650-10-C-7044).

Common Transponders Perform Uncommon Role in Preventing ‘Friendly Fire’

APX-117, APX-118 transponders

Article closed.

Identification friend or foe (IFF) systems enable forces to recognize friendly aircraft, surface vessels, and submarines to avoid inadvertent firing on friendly forces. The technology, in use since World War II, has two main components: interrogators, which ask the questions, and transponders, which provide the responses.

BAE Systems supplies its AN/APX-117, AN/APX-118, and AN/APX-123 common digital transponders (CXP) for IFF systems, as well as associated equipment and components to the US Army, US Navy, US Coast Guard and a number of foreign countries. This article explains the products, and covers sales over a defined window from 2008-2010…