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The US Coast Guard commissioned the seventh and eighth national security cutters (NSCs), Kimball and Midgett, at their Honolulu homeport Aug. 24. The unique joint commissioning ceremony marks the official start of NSC operations in Honolulu where the cutters will carry out activities to safeguard the nation’s maritime safety, security and economic interests.

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A US Navy's T-45C Goshawk began Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) performance testing at the Runway Arrested Landing Site (RALS) located at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, according to a picture released on August 27.

This series of testing ensures the new recovery system can support the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) air wing. In April, the trainer aircraft completed 60 arrestments at RALS during a five-day, risk-reduction test period utilized to evaluate AAG system integrated performance.

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The Program Executive Officer for Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC) granted Milestone C approval to the Knifefish Surface Mine Countermeasure Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Program. The decision clears the way for low-rate initial production (LRIP) of the system, PEO USC announced Aug. 23.

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Lockheed Martin won a $326,998,037 missile defense agency (MDA) contract to design, develop, integrate, test and certify the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) 6.0 capability.

Aegis BMD 6.0 will provide an increased BMD capability by incorporating the Air and Missile Defense Radar, now designated AN/SPY-6(V)1 , for introduction on the first DDG Flight III.

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Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Newport News Shipbuilding division successfully completed the initial sea trials on the newest Virginia-class submarine, Delaware (SSN 791).

The submarine, in the final stages of construction, spent three days at sea proving all of its systems, components and compartments. Delaware submerged for the first time and performed high-speed maneuvers on the surface and underwater.

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The first Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band Engineering Development Model pod arrived at Naval Air Station Patuxent River after a trek across America late July.

The pod will start various verification and test procedures in preparation for the second pod delivery early fall.

Raytheon will deliver 15 EMD pods for mission systems testing and qualification as well as 14 aeromechanical pods for airworthiness certification.

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Jura said:

Today at 7:33 AM
related:
Pentagon terminates program for redesigned kill vehicle, preps for new competition

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also located Jun 1, 2015
issues

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The Pentagon will not seek repayment from industry for money tied to the now-canceled

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, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin confirmed Tuesday.

Griffin, delivering a keynote address at the

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, said that the money spent still provides a return for the department, even though the program ended in a failure that will set U.S. missile defense efforts back “a few years.”

“We

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, not default. There are no paybacks due, and we learned quite a lot that we’ll carry forward into the next-generation interceptor,” Griffin said. “The money, which was spent, did not go toward hardware which will be mothballed somewhere — it went towards the acquisition of knowledge, which will inform our future.”

The Redesigned Kill Vehicle would have replaced the current Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle on the Ground-Based Interceptor, which makes up the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system designed to protect the homeland from ballistic missile threats.

The redesigned variant would have also been fielded on all future ground-based interceptors — ultimately a total of 64.

Griffin made the decision on Aug. 14 to terminate the program due to what was termed “technical design problems.” The Pentagon plans to move forward with a new, next-generation interceptor competition.

More than $1 billion have been spent on the program, primarily to Boeing and Raytheon.

“Obviously we weren’t pleased,” Griffin said of the decision. “Not every new development works out. ... We chose to recognize that fact rather than just continue to throw money at it.”

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Jura said:

the point is
August 29, 2015
To Prove Its CAS Capabilities, F-35 To Face Off Against A-10

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The

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will not be one of the planes the U.S. Air Force requests to retire in its upcoming fiscal 2021 budget request, a senior service official confirmed.

During a speech at the Defense News Conference on Wednesday morning, acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan stoked speculation that the service will retire the A-10 after announcing that its FY21 budget request will include “controversial changes” such as

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.

But speaking at the conference later that day, Lt. Gen. Timothy Fay, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, confirmed that the A-10 is not one of the aircraft under consideration for divestment and will stay in service until the 2030s.

“Short answer: No,” Fay said, when asked whether the Warthog is on the cutting block. "I will tell you, I wish the response had been that the Air Force is actually bold enough to get after the threats that we’re facing.”

The decision to retain the A-10 likely prevents another major battle with Congress over the fate of the aircraft — one in which the Air Force found itself when proposing to mothball the fleet in FY15. After several unsuccessful requests to retire the plane, which lawmakers rebuffed, the Air Force decided to keep it in its FY18 budget.

It then restarted an effort to replace the wings on a portion of the A-10 fleet,

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in August to produce 27 wing sets. Under a previous contract,

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, including one that crashed, and its latest contract could be worth as much as $999 million if the Air Force decides to re-wing the rest of the 109 A-10s that need replacements.

But Air Force leaders have not committed to replacing the wings on all 281 A-10s currently in service.

“We are not confident that we’re flying all of the A-10s that we currently possess through 2025 with our plan,” said Lt. Gen. Jerry Harris, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements,

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in 2018.

The Air Force is considering divesting aircraft as part of a Pentagon-wide review directed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper. As the Army’s secretary, Esper oversaw a similar

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to divert funds from legacy programs into ones deemed necessary to combat Russia and China.

“We need to shift funding and allegiance from legacy programs we can no longer afford due to their incompatibility with future battlefields and into the capabilities and systems that the nation requires for victory. There’s no way around it,” Donovan said earlier at the conference.

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