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DEFENSEACQUISITION | November-December 2019 | 1

Department of Defense Selected Acquisition Reports DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE NEWS RELEASE (AUG. 2, 2019)The Department of Defense (DoD) has released details on major defense acquisition program cost, schedule, and per-formance changes since the December 2018 reporting pe-riod. This information is based on the comprehensive annual Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs) for the first quarter of FY 2019, as updated by the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget submitted to Congress on March 11, 2019.

SARs summarize the latest estimates of cost, schedule, and performance status. These reports are prepared annually in conjunction with submission of the President’s Budget. Sub-sequent quarterly exception reports are required only for those programs experiencing unit cost increases of at least 15 percent or schedule delays of at least six months. Quarterly SARs are also submitted for initial reports, final reports, and for programs that are rebaselined at major milestone decisions.

The total program acquisition cost estimates provided in the SARs include research and development, procurement, military construction, and acquisition-related operations and maintenance. These totals reflect actual costs to date as well as future anticipated costs. All estimates are shown in fully inflated then-year dollars.

The prior current estimate of program acquisition costs for pro-grams covered by SARs for the reporting period for December 2017 (83 programs) was $1,917,840 million. The current esti-mate for December 2018 (87 programs) is $2,018,684 million. Quantity changes account for the majority of the $101,000 million increase (+$51,000 million), in addition to scope changes (+$18,000 million) and revised indices (+$11,500 mil-lion). Sixteen of the 20 programs with quantity changes are either equal to or underrunning their current baseline costs, as well as 60 of the 84 SARs reporting Unit Cost this SAR cycle overall. View the full news release and SAR Summary Tables at https://media.defense.gov/2019/Aug/01/2002165676/-1/-1/1/DEPARTMENT-OF-DEFENSE-SELECTED-ACQUISITION-REPORTS-(SARS)-DECEMBER-2018.PDF.

AFRL’s Digital Hangar to Support Life Cycle Management of Aerospace Systems88TH AIR BASE WING PUBLIC AFFAIRS (AUG. 5, 2019)Bryan Ripple

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio—There is a new hangar under construction at Wright-Patterson AFB, but this one will not be made of steel and concrete, but rather digital ones and zeros.

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s “Digital Hangar,” a con-cept created by Dr. Rick Graves, an Aerospace Research Engi-

neer with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Design & Analy-sis Branch, part of AFRL’s Aerospace Systems Directorate, is a virtual repository containing digital surrogates of aerospace systems that have been gated through rigorous validation and verification processes.

One goal of the effort, Graves says, is to research and iden-tify high-value data that need to be maintained, or curated, to produce an enduring set of digital artifacts for aerospace platforms that can be shared with other AFRL researchers, Air Force Service Program Offices, as well as other agencies such as NASA.

Creation and curation of the Digital Hangar is part of a Depart-ment of Defense Digital Engineering initiative that began in June 2018, with the publication of a Digital Engineering Strat-egy that explains how DoD hopes to transform the way the services design, develop, deliver, operate, and sustain systems. To read the strategy, visit https://www.acq.osd.mil/se/initia-tives/init_de.html.

The strategy defines digital engineering as an integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of system data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support life-cycle activities from concept through disposal.

Graves, who grew up under the open skies of Oklahoma, used to dream about becoming an astronaut, though health issues ultimately prevented that from happening. He says he enjoys working at the lab where he interacts with other DoD civilian employees, as well as scientists and engineers who wear the uniform. He said this is fulfilling since he was unable to wear the uniform.

“I feel like I’m making a more direct contribution to the mission as we work together to deliver new technology faster to our warfighters,” Graves said.

AFRL’s Digital Hangar fits nicely into the mission of the Air Vehicle division where Graves works, which is to “Discover, develop, and deliver air vehicle technologies that revolutionize the capabilities of next generation air vehicles and affordably sustain and enhance the fleet.”

“We have a lot of really bright and talented people who are looking at defining how AFRL is going to digitally transform to meet some of the design challenges that we’re seeing going forward with many of our aerospace systems,” Graves said.

AFRL’s Digital Hangar continues to be developed and will eventually house high-value design information for digital representations of Air Force aerospace systems that will

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inform decision-making within AFRL and other stakeholder organizations.

The Digital Hangar is focused on the design and analysis phase of the acquisition life cycle, said Graves. “It’s a lot cheaper to address problems or to look at physics-based questions through simulation as a project moves up the scale to ground testing or even a flight test, where it becomes more and more expensive.

“We want to know what types of information we should be generating and using to make decisions during early design phases because that’s where a lot of the costs for an aircraft get locked in. We want to know what types of information we should be gathering over the life cycle of the airplane. The idea is to identify what data are worth keeping, and reuse that data.”

It’s a good idea to give decision makers the options to ex-plore concept development through digital means rather than going all the way to flight tests, Graves said, adding, “To look at preliminary concepts in terms of transitioning technology is something we really like to look at as early as we can. This helps us transition our technology more efficiently.”

Graves said he and other researchers plan to add new aero-space systems to AFRL’s Digital Hangar strategically, based on a set of rigorous validation and verification criteria.

“We are taking a few candidate test cases and maturing those to see how it looks and is received. It really isn’t just a digital description of a model—it’s all the data that go along with that model,” Graves said.

With a background in sensitivity analysis and uncertainty quantification, Graves says he has long had interests in data science, data engineering, and machine learning. As a gradu-ate student, he was employed by the National Center for At-mospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and was exposed to uncertainties associated with forecasting weather events. He hopes to apply these concepts and required skill sets to benefit AFRL.

AFRL’s Digital Hangar is an exciting area for young profes-sionals who are interested in working for AFRL, according to Graves. “We are defining what the digital transformation for AFRL is going to look like in the next 10 years. This is a time for new ideas and new approaches.”

One goal of AFRL’s Digital Hangar effort is to research and identify high-value data that need to be maintained, or curated, to pro-duce an enduring set of digital artifacts for aerospace platforms that can be shared with other AFRL researchers, Air Force Service Program Offices, as well as other agencies such as NASA. U.S. Air Force illustration by Bradley T. Bowman

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“We are looking at an area where we as scientists and en-gineers are trying to get the people who are accepting the technology we are developing to embrace more risk. The or-ganizations we deliver technology to may be risk-averse. You want to get them much more comfortable with the risk that you are taking to deliver them the technology that they really want. That requires a lot of communication between the two parties,” Graves said.

Graves’ advice for people who may be interested in working at the lab: “Come to the lab and be prepared to take risks; you are going to make mistakes. Feel free to make mistakes and learn from them.

“We bring students in and expose them to our modeling and simulation processes. Anyone who leaves our organization will have hands-on experience with developing the data that’s as-sociated with the models that might go in our Digital Hangar.”

Lydia Pinsenschaum, the Digital Hangar’s first curator, will be a senior this coming school year and enjoys participating in the Leadership, Experience, Growing Apprenticeships Commit-ted to Youth, or LEGACY program, which began in November 2016. The program was created to spark student interest in science, technology, engineering and math and, in turn, be-come part of the Air Force workforce.

Pinsenschaum, who is home-schooled, has been working with Graves this summer to research digital curations organiza-tion benefits for the Digital Hangar as part of the LEGACY program, and said she has considered pursuing the aerospace engineering career field. She has a goal of attending the Air Force Academy with the ultimate goal of becoming a pilot.

“This summer I’ve been learning about digital curation. I had never heard of it before and now I know a whole lot more about it,” she said.

“For anyone that says, ‘I want to go to the Air Force Academy, I think it’s my job to help them get there because I wanted to go there when I was Lydia’s age. Supporting this type of ambition is very important to me,” Graves said.

To close out her summer, Pinsenschaum delivered her final presentation to a packed audience of AFRL scientists and engineers, including AFRL Digital Engineering leadership led by Michael Hanke, director of AFRL’s Research Collaboration and Computing Directorate. There have also been follow-on requests for Pinsenschaum to brief other organizations at Wright-Patterson who are interested in digitally transforming. Her research findings will be presented at an upcoming Digital

Engineering Working Group Meeting hosted by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense.

To listen to Graves discuss AFRL’s Digital Hangar and the field of digital engineering, tune into AFRL’s “Lab Life” podcast at https://www.dvidshub.net/audio/59016/lab-life-episode-11-digital-hangar, or via Stitcher for Podcasts at https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/air-force-materiel-command/lab-life.

Digital Hangar is a trademark of the United States Air Force.

DoD Cloud Has Leading Uses for Warfighter, Officials Say DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE NEWS (AUG. 10, 2019)Terri Moon Cronk

Warfighters are “absolutely” waiting for the enterprise cloud so they can gain real-time data access and other tools, the Defense Department’s chief information officer told reporters in a media roundtable at the Pentagon.

“This is an imperative to what they need each and every day to defend and execute their missions,” Dana Deasy said.

“The warfighter needed the enterprise cloud yesterday,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. John N.T. “Jack” Shanahan, director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). “Dominance in [ar-tificial intelligence] is not a question of software engineering, but instead, it’s a result of combining capabilities at multiple levels. For AI across DoD, enterprise cloud is existential.”

Shanahan said without enterprise cloud, there is no AI at scale. AI remains a series of small-scale, stovepiped projects. An enterprise cloud platform will provide on-demand compute capabilities and data at scale, and substantial network advan-tages at all classification levels, Shanahan noted.

“Enterprise cloud allows AI cycle speeds that can be measured in updates across an entire enterprise in hours, as opposed to in months—six months or maybe even a year,” Shanahan told reporters.

The top AI companies are first and foremost cloud-data-based, data-centric organizations with a continuous development cul-ture where integrating, managing, and analyzing data at scale is the lifeblood of the organization, the JAIC director said.

“That’s where we want to be and need to be—an enterprise-cloud solution,” he added.

“Local military equipment that is connected to the JEDI [Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure] cloud hardware, could still operate and be used to execute missions in a degraded,

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disrupted, or denied environ-ment, extending enterprise cloud, in other words, all the way out to the tactical edge,” Shanahan said.

“It is also about joint, all-do-main warfighting,” Shanahan said. “Taking advantage of emerging technologies to de-velop new operating concepts for a kind of warfare will look completely different than what we’ve experienced for the past 20 years.”

In this future high-end en-vironment, DoD envisions a world of algorithmic warfare and autonomy in which com-petitive advantage goes to the side that understands how to harness 5G, AI, and enter-prise cloud in quantum into a viable, operational model.

“This digital modernization is a warfighting imperative,” Shanahan said. “It’s one that will be fueled by enterprise cloud solutions.”

Hypersonics Remain Top Priority for DoD DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE NEWS (AUG. 14, 2019)C. Todd Lopez

A hypersonic weapon moving at five times the speed of sound can travel across the Pacific Ocean in just over 100 minutes.

U.S. adversaries are developing such weapons now, said Mi-chael D. Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. “They are quite capable,” Griffin said. “The ad-vantage offered by a hypersonic offense is that it overflies air defenses as we understand them today, and it underflies our missile defenses. It goes into the gap between air defense and missile defense.”

Speaking during a discussion at the Hudson Institute in Wash-ington, Griffin told Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Rebeccah L. Heinrichs that hypersonic threats move so fast they’re almost too fast to stop.

“Dealing with the hypersonic threat is even more of an inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary problem than ground missile

defense was. By the time we can see it on defensive radar systems, it’s nearly too late to close the kill chain,” he said. “It would be difficult to close that kill chain for one threat. But in a raid scenario, you just can’t get there from here, ... so we have to see them coming from farther out.”

Detecting the threat from hypersonics in enough time to neu-tralize, Griffin said, will require new detection systems in low Earth orbit. “We need a proliferated layer of sensors, because we can’t see these things from a few spacecraft in geostation-ary orbit,” he said. “So the requirement leads you to a prolifer-ated sensor layer in relatively much lower orbit.”

Griffin said it’s the Missile Defense Agency where the Hyper-sonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor will be developed.

Connecting those sensors together into a network, he said, is a separate problem being developed at the Space Development Agency. He described what they’ve been asked to do as “a resilient, highly proliferated mesh network communications system in low Earth orbit, ... similar to what you see commer-cial companies talking about for LEO broadband.”

That communications layer, he said, is central to hypersonic defense. “The sensor layer is critical, but if it can’t talk among

Dana Deasy, the Defense Department’s chief information officer, and Air Force Lt. Gen. John N.T. “Jack” Shanahan, director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, host a roundtable discussion on the enterprise cloud initiative with reporters at the Pentagon, Aug. 9, 2019. Photo by Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Carroll

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itself, it will not be effective,” Griffin said. “The ability to com-municate underlays every other layer we wish to deploy, whether it is for space situational awareness, or hypersonic threat detection and tracking, or maritime domain awareness, or whatever. Whatever other functions we want, they are en-abled first by the ability to communicate in a resilient fashion, which we don’t have today.”

Hypersonic defense, he said, is not limited to just the Missile Defense Agency and the Space Development Agency. It’s an across-DoD effort that touches nearly everything.

“It touches space, it touches ground stations, it touches detec-tion and tracking algorithms, and fire control algorithms,” the undersecretary said. “Dealing with the hypersonic threat is even more of an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary prob-lem than ground missile defense was.”

Patriot Force Halfway Through Major ModernizationARMY NEWS SERVICE (AUG. 20, 2019)Gary Sheftick

FORT SILL, Okla.—The Army’s Patriot Air Defense battal-ions are upgrading their fire-control computers, communi-cations, radars, and operator interfaces while adding more

capable missiles in a refit that is scheduled to continue through 2021.

“Right now we’re conducting the most significant Patriot modernization since the early 1990s,” said Col. Mark A. Holler, commandant of the Air Defense Artillery School at Fort Sill.

About 25 years ago, units began receiving Patriot Advanced Capability 3—or PAC-3—missiles combined with an overhaul to com-mand and control systems and related software.

Upgrading again, the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhance-ment—or MSE missiles —fielded a few years ago brought extended range and more maneuverabil-ity due to a more powerful rocket motor and larger fins.

However, radar limitations prevented utilizing PAC-3 MSE mis-siles to their full capability.

Now Patriot units are undergoing a system-wide upgrade, to include radar improvements that will enable them to use the full capability of the PAC-3 MSE missile.

CONFIG 3+/PDB8An upgrade called Post-Deployment Build 8, or PDB8, is pro-viding Patriot units with a more capable radar by transitioning from analog to digital processing.

“It’s really a depot-level rebuild of much of the components of the Patriot System,” Holler said.

The internal components of the Patriot radar went from analog “70s- and 80s-based circuit-card technology to digital pro-cessing,” he said.

The AN/MPQ-65 radar for Patriot became AN/MPQ-65A with about 30% additional range and increased processing speed. “It also gives that radar a lot more reliability,” Holler said.

Air Force Cadet 2nd Class Eric Hembling uses a Ludwieg Tube to measure the pressures, tem-peratures, and flow field of various basic geometric and hypersonic research vehicles at Mach 6 in the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Department of Aeronautics, Jan. 31, 2019. Photo by Joshua Armstrong

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The new upgraded radar should also be cheaper to operate, he said, “because you’re not replacing so many parts.” In addition, he said it will be more survivable against an electronic attack.

Upgrade TimelineNine of the Army’s 15 Patriot battalions have already under-gone the upgrade.

Under PDB8, equipment is often replaced when a unit returns from deployment. However, some battalions have upgraded equipment while still overseas, as Holler did with 2nd Battalion of the 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment and 6th Battalion of the 52nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment when he commanded the 35th ADA Brigade in South Korea.

Those battalions were the first to undergo the PDB8 upgrade, which began in 2017.

“We brought some equipment from the States and from out-side Korea to maintain that ‘fight tonight’ readiness mission,” Holler said, “while we took two batteries at a time offline and upgraded them.”

Soldiers of Bravo Battery, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment set up a Patriot missile launcher during field training at Fort Sill, Okla., June 18, 2019. The 3/2 ADA has undergone the recent Patriot modernization refit, but the launcher here is configured with PAC-2 missile trainers. Photo by Gary Sheftick

The same type of forward upgrade of equipment was com-pleted for a Patriot battalion in Germany. In Japan, a Patriot battalion did a one-for-one exchange. It sent equipment back to the States and received modernized equipment in return. The battalion in Japan also received some of its newer equip-ment as systems redeployed from the Central Command area of responsibility, Holler added.

The next unit to be upgraded is the 1st Battalion of the 43rd Air Defense Artillery, which recently returned to Fort Bliss, Texas, from its deployment to the United Arab Emirates. The unit is scheduled to undergo recapitalization in fiscal year 2020 and its equipment is already being upgraded at Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania.

Analog to DigitalPatriot units are also upgrading their operator interfaces from analog to digital technology. The operator interfaces in a Pa-triot fire unit are manned by three operators. The interfaces have two consoles, including a digital weapon control com-puter and three radio relay terminals. “We updated the com-munications relays and fire-control computers,” Holler said.

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New digital display consoles replaced old cathode-ray tubes that had been in the system for over 50 years. The modern color consoles enhance operator situational awareness, said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric D. Maule, chief warrant officer of the Air Defense Branch. He said these improved operator interfaces are stepping-stones that enable future efforts like Warfighter to Machine Interface, a planned upgrade that will provide 3D displays and fully modernized and customizable Graphical User Interfaces.

Additional UpgradesAnother upgrade is the Combined Crypto Modernization Phase 1, which provides routers and connections at the op-erator interface consoles that allow both classified and unclas-sified internet to be available at the Patriot tactical site. It also provides Beyond Line of Sight capability with the Patriot Data Information Link, known as PADIL, allowing units to separate and maintain connectivity.

Before PDB8, Maule said it was difficult for the Patriot system to recognize if it had been affected by Advanced Electronic Countermeasures, or AECM, which could result in false tracks and firing on false targets. PDB8 AECM mitigation now uses advanced algorithms to determine AECM attack patterns and remove false tracks from the operator scope, he said.

Non-cooperative target recognition, or NCTR, is being added to the system. Operators can now request additional combat identification information about the target and Maule said, “This will help prevent fratricide.”

“Full Mode 5 Integration provides aircraft position data and provides more identification certainty when looking at aircraft that are closely spaced together,” Maule said.

“The overall achievement by doing this upgrade is we maxi-mize our search ability and we maximize the capability of the MSE interceptor,” Holler said. “It’s been a big success story,” he added about the Patriot upgrades.

Integrated Air DefensePatriot batteries are the Army’s primary High to Medium Air Defense, or HIMAD system, and are expected to remain in service for at least two more decades to provide defense against ballistic missiles and aircraft.

Eventually Patriot batteries will be connected to an Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, known as IBCS, that is being developed by Army Futures Command, Holler said. In fact, the IBCS is currently the No. 1 priority for modernizing Air Defense, he said.

A limited user test, or LUT, for IBCS is planned for next spring at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

A future Patriot radar, dubbed the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, will be compatible with IBCS and able to interface with all air defense systems, Holler said.

Plans call for fielding the first LTAMDS beginning in 2022, with an incremental fielding plan for all 15 Patriot battalions by 2031.

“The time that it’s going to take to upgrade all 15 battalions to LTAMDs, you’ve got to have something that maximizes the ability of your current interceptor and meets the advanced threats, which this upgrade does,” Holler said of the Config 3+/PDB8 refit.

Once the IBCS is operational, multiple different types of sen-sors will contribute fire-control level data to a common com-mand and control system, he said, adding all the ADA systems from Terminal High Altitude Air Defense, or THAAD, to Patriot and even the Short Range Air Defense, or SHORAD system, will benefit from it.

“Right now, if you’re going to fire Patriot, it’s got to be the Pa-triot sensor that holds that target,” he said.

With IBCS, “You might sense it with a THAAD radar, but the right thing to do might be to shoot it with an IFPC [Indirect Fire Protection Capability] missile or with a Patriot missile, or any combination of sensor and shooter,” he said.

“It’s really going to offer you a lot of flexibility in how you em-ploy forces,” he said of the IBCS. “You’re going to be able to optimize the right sensor to the right shooter.”

Global Markets, Shipping Shape Military Ops DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE NEWS (AUG. 21, 2019)C. Todd Lopez

About 85% of the joint force resides inside the continental United States. When they need to move to an operation over-seas, and their equipment needs to go with them, U.S. Trans-portation Command will be doing the heavy lifting.

Speaking at the Department of Defense Intelligence Infor-mation Systems Worldwide Conference in Tampa, Florida, Transcom’s commander said much of Transcom’s capacity to project U.S. military power around the globe relies on com-mercially procured transportation.

Just who is the ultimate owner of that commercial transporta-tion—friend or adversary—is something Army Gen. Stephen

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R. Lyons said is being looked at all the time. “When the sealift industry reorganized—when it was really in a downturn a cou-ple years ago and reorganized and came out with three major alliances—one of those alliances was led by a French company. CGM, I think, is the name of the company,” Lyons said.

CGM has alliances with COSCO Shipping, “the leading state-owned enterprise for China that is buying up all the ports glob-ally, owns all the sealift, includes the sealift that will support PLA activities,” he said.

The French-owned CGM also has an alliance with American-owned APL,” which is one of our U.S.-flagged companies,” Lyons said.

The general said he has spoken with the APL’s CEO to discuss concerns. “The question was, ‘What does that kind of alliance

mean?’” Lyons said. “You have to recognize that our traders have to trade with [the] Asia-Pacific. That’s the vast majority of the trade. But what does that really mean in terms of data sharing and their level of understanding?”

Right now, he said, “it’s a pretty clear bifurcation. But it’s some-thing we watch pretty closely, because we’re not only compet-ing for allies and partners, we’re also competing for business partners that we’re going to count on, that fly the U.S. flag, particularly on the sealift side.”

Lyons said a “vendor vetting cell” is helping Transcom keep abreast of who is partnering with whom—and who owns ships that Transcom may one day need to call on to ship troops or tanks overseas.

Sailors assigned to Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 1, NCHB 5 and NCHB 13 maneuver the docking module for the Improved Navy Lighterage System over the side of the maritime pre-positioning force ship USNS 2nd Lt. John P. Bobo during lift-on, lift-off opera-tions in Apra Harbor, Guam, July 10, 2019. The system is a causeway that resembles a floating pier made up of interchangeable modules, and it is used to transfer cargo to shore areas where conventional port facilities are unavailable or inadequate. Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class John Philip Wagner Jr.

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“It’s probably only one of two that are in the department,” he said. “[U.S. Central Command] has one focused on their Cent-com theater operations. But we have one ... [that] looks inside the subcontracting networks to make sure that our primes are doing business with the folks we want to do business with. We found a few that we didn’t want, and we’ve got to work that through the broader acquisition communities.”

Army to Take Industry Approach to Upgrade Capabilities ARMY NEWS SERVICE (AUG. 21, 2019)David Vergun

While automakers and other industries are good at streamlin-ing their processes to incorporate the latest technologies and roll out new models in a relatively short time to stay ahead of the competition, the Army traditionally has been slow to identify and field new capabilities, Acting Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy said.

McCarthy spoke at the Foundation for the Defense of Democ-racies Center on Military and Political Power in Washington.

From writing requirements to testing and fielding, new sys-tems traditionally take the Army upwards of 20 years, Mc-Carthy said, so Army leaders have made a business decision to completely revamp the Service’s structure to roll out high-priority weapon systems faster and at af-fordable prices, more in line with the way industry does it.

Driving this decision is the great power competition with Russia and China, he said.

The Army did three things to streamline the process and make better buying decisions, he said:

• Identified the six highest pri-orities needed for fighting near-peer or peer competi-tors: long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehi-cle, future vertical lift, the net-work, air and missile defense, and soldier lethality. The bulk of the Army’s science and technology budget is now being directed to 31 systems that will support those six pri-orities, McCarthy said.

• To fund those six priorities, the Army divested legacy sys-tems and cut back on others. “We truncated the buys on 93 programs and terminated 93 others. We made some very big, hard choices,” he said, citing examples of winding down purchases of Bradley fighting vehicles and Chinook helicopters to save funding for a next-generation combat vehicle and a future vertical-lift aircraft.

• The Army made its biggest organizational structure change in nearly half a century, standing up Army Futures Com-mand, which reached full operational capacity July 31.

Army Futures Command is about “bringing all the stakehold-ers together for unity of command and effort to reduce the timespan it takes to make informed decisions,” McCarthy said. The new organization fuses futures and concepts, combat de-velopment, and works closely with the acquisition community, he explained, noting that previously, these were all separate entities. The command is located in Austin, Texas, not on a military installation, so Army personnel can interact with in-dustry and academia to better inform requirements and keep abreast of new technology, McCarthy said.

Congress and others will be watching to see how successful Army Futures Command will be in the coming years, he said.

Acting Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy speaks with Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Center on Military and Political Power, about the Army’s efforts regarding the National Defense Strategy in Washington, Aug. 20, 2019. Photo by Army Spc. Dana Clarke

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There will be successes and there will be failures, he added, and researchers and developers will learn from the latter.

Success will be measured in how quickly the command can get needed capabilities in the hands of warfighters, McCarthy said. “Field testing will be rigorous, followed by low-rate initial production testing in units at larger scale,” he promised.

SMC Works with Government, Industry Partners in Successful Launch of GPS III SV 2 SatelliteSPACE AND MISSILE SYSTEMS CENTER PUBLIC AFFAIRS (AUG. 23, 2019)

LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFNS)—The Air Force and its mission partners successfully launched the second Global Positioning System (GPS III) satellite at 9:06 a.m. EDT, Aug. 22, from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

The Lockheed Martin-built satellite, named “Magellan” after the Portuguese navigator who led the first expedition to cir-

cumnavigate the globe, was carried to orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV launch vehicle in its final flight.

The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), home to a vanguard of satellite acquisition professionals and the nation’s launch procurer of choice, was responsible for Magellan’s rigorous mission assurance certifications and test-ing leading to full launch and mission-readiness. SMC also conducted a rigorous source selection to ensure the ULA Delta IV rocket met all mission requirements, which included ex-amining every single piece of hardware that built the rocket. This enabled the satellite to reach orbit and meet civilian and warfighter communication needs.

“A successful launch like today’s is always a proud moment for the team and its many members,” said Lt. Gen. John F. Thompson, SMC commander and Air Force program executive officer for space. “I can’t reiterate how important this second GPS III launch is as we progress toward a modernized fleet and maintain U.S. superiority in space. The launch of Magellan

A Delta IV carrying the GPS III SV2 satellite lifts off from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., Aug. 22, 2019. The satellite will become part of a 31-satellite constellation on orbit, providing enhanced timing and navigation to civilians and the warfighter. United Launch Alliance courtesy photo

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epitomizes the constant collaborative efforts, which exemplify the continual improvements our teams at SMC are making in getting these satellites built and launched at epic speed. With a third GPS launch planned for the end of the year, we continue to provide the ‘gold standard’ in positioning, navigation, and timing services for our military and for the world.”

GPS III’s Magellan separated from its upper stage approxi-mately 1 hour, 56 minutes after launch. Engineers and opera-tors at Lockheed Martin’s Waterton facility will now begin on-orbit checkout and tests, which are estimated to complete in one month. Operational use is expected to begin within a year.

“This launch was seven months in the making,” said Col. Ed-ward Byrne, Medium Earth Orbit spacecraft production divi-sion chief. “As soon as we launched Vespucci last December, the team got to work on the SV02 campaign to get Magellan into orbit. This isn’t the end of our job with Magellan. We now have to carry out on-orbit checkouts, in parallel with prepara-tions to launch SV03, not to mention the continual produc-tion effort of SV04. That is why the production corps space vehicles division is known as the ‘A-Team.’”

Magellan will join the current GPS constellation comprised of 31 operational spacecraft and will be the 21st M-Code-capa-ble satellite added to the fleet. GPS satellites operate in me-dium Earth orbit at an altitude of approximately 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) in six planes. Each satellite circles the Earth twice per day, providing the “gold standard” of position, navigation, and timing services for billions of users worldwide. GPS III, the newest generation of GPS satellites, brings new capabilities to users, including three times greater accuracy and up to eight times improved anti-jamming capabilities.

“Having launched a GPS III satellite in December 2018 aboard a Falcon 9 and now today on a Delta IV, the team demon-strated again their commitment and capability to achieve 100% mission success,” said Col. Robert Bongiovi, Launch Enterprise director.

SMC’s Production Corps, located at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California, leads the GPS III Magellan team. SMC’s Launch Enterprise led the launch, which took place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Corporation is the prime satellite vehicle contrac-tor. Air Force Space Command’s 50th Space Wing and 2nd Space Operations Squadron operate the GPS constellation from Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado.

SMC is the Air Force’s Center of Acquisition Excellence for acquiring and developing military space systems. Its portfo-lio includes GPS, military satellite communications, defense

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen M. Lord briefs the press on acquisition reform and in-novation at the Pentagon, Aug. 26, 2019. Photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class James K. Lee

meteorological satellites, space launch and range systems, satellite control network, space-based infrared systems, and space situational awareness capabilities.

With another launch of GPS III planned later this year, SMC will continue to support U.S. superiority in space at epic speed.

DoD Sees Progress in Acquisition, Sustainment DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE NEWS (AUG. 26, 2019)Jim Garamone

The Defense Department is reducing timelines and lowering costs to provide the best military capabilities, a senior DoD official told reporters at the Pentagon.

“All of our efforts directly support our national defense strat-egy and our warfighters,” Undersecretary of Defense for Ac-quisition and Sustainment Ellen M. Lord said at a news confer-ence today.

Lord specifically thanked Congress for passing a two-year budget agreement, noting that it provides budgetary certainty that the department needs to implement the National Defense Strategy. “The department cannot go back to the unpredict-

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ability of a continuing resolution,” she added. “Our men and women in uniform deserve better.”

The undersecretary’s mission is to ensure the delivery and sustainment of secure and resilient capabilities to warfighters and international partners quickly and cost effectively. There are six goals under this mission, she said, and the first is all about people.

Lord said she wants to recruit, develop, and retain a diverse acquisition and sustainment workforce. “We want to modern-ize the acquisition workforce talent management tools and processes as well as deliver content consistent with adult learning,” she said.

Acquisition and sustainment professionals need to be innova-tors, Lord said, and the office encourages experimentation and learning from experience. This will “enable contracting at the speed of relevance,” Lord said.

The office strives to build a safe, secure, and resilient defense industrial base that addresses the impacts of prohibited for-eign investments, she said.

In addition, Lord said, the office is responsi-ble to ensure safe and resilient DoD installa-tions, so she looks to enhance the quality of housing and to ensure energy resilience and cyber-secure military facilities.

The office further looks to increase weapon system mission capa-bility while reducing operating costs, Lord said, citing the F-35 joint strike fighter pro-gram as an example.

Finally, Lord said, she looks to promote sus-tainment with key in-ternational partners. She needs to enable “timely foreign mili-tary sales deliveries

via contracting, dialogue with industry, tech release, and plans for exportability,” she said.

Army Closer to Delivering New Infantry Squad VehicleARMY NEWS SERVICE (AUG. 29, 2019)Thomas Brading

DETROIT—The Army is one step closer to fielding a new In-fantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) after naming three industry leaders to develop prototypes, Aug. 23, 2019.

The $1 million mock-up contract makes strides toward the Army’s goal of producing new ISVs in 2020.

“The modernized vehicles will provide enhanced tactical mo-bility for an infantry brigade combat team to move quickly around the battlefield,” said Steven Herrick, Ground Mobil-ity Vehicle product lead, U.S. Army Program Executive Office Combat Service & Combat Service Support, adding the ve-hicles will have ability for “repositioning operations to provide commanders greater freedom of movement and action.”

In February 2019, the Army approved a procurement objective and plans to purchase 649 ISVs.

Paratroopers with 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne) test CH-47 Chinook capabilities by sling loading their newest vehicle, the Army Ground Mobility Vehicle. In 2020, the Army plans to roll out 600 modernized versions of the lightweight vehicle, called the Infantry Squad Vehicle. Photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Sawyer

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A nine-Soldier infantry squad, along with associated equip-ment, will comfortably maneuver in the vehicles up to 5,000 pounds, Herrick added.

The scheduled delivery date for all three competing teams is Nov. 13, at Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland for initial as-sessment. The competing teams include Oshkosh Defense/Flyer, GM Defense, and SAIC/Polaris.

“Upon their arrival at the Maryland proving ground, all de-signs will compete in several performance, operational, and characteristics tests. Evaluations are scheduled to run through December,” Herrick said.

Following their early trials, the vehicles will be moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to undergo their second round of test-ing. Once there, they will be subject to operationalized as-sessments through a series of tests on how effective the pro-totypes work for Soldiers.

“The Army plans to down-select to one company for produc-tion in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020,” Herrick said. “This selection will be based largely on Soldier input and response to a for-mal request for proposal for production.”

The ISVs have been in-tended to provide ground mobility vehicle capabilities to the Army since the origi-nal model.

At first, the Army started looking toward industry to develop the new ISV in Sep-tember 2018. Lightweight vehicles are essential to increase speed in combat and provide ability to be transported by helicopter into austere locations, Her-rick said.

“Ground mobility vehicles provide flexibility for entry operations, permissive and non-permissive, to counter threat anti-access strate-

gies through the use of multiple entry points—air-drop, air-land, and air-insertion,” he said.

U.S. Space Command Establishment Ceremony Launches New Era of Space Superiority CapabilitiesU.S. SPACE COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS (AUG. 30, 2019) WASHINGTON—In a move to enhance the United States’ space superiority capabilities, President Donald J. Trump, Vice President Mike R. Pence, Secretary of Defense Dr. Mark T. Esper, and Air Force Gen. John W. Raymond formally estab-lished the United States Space Command (USSPACECOM) during a ceremony held Aug. 30 at the White House.

At the direction of the President of the United States, the De-partment of Defense established U.S. Space Command as the 11th unified combatant command, with Raymond as its con-gressionally confirmed commander. Establishing USSPACE-COM is a critical step that underscores the importance of the space domain and its strategic contributions to U.S. national security. The USSPACECOM establishment will accelerate the United States’ space capabilities to address rapidly evolving

President Donald J. Trump speaks about the creation of U.S. Space Command during a White House ceremony with Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper, and Air Force Gen. John W. Raymond, USSPACECOM commander, Aug. 29, 2019. DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando

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threats to U.S. space assets and the importance of deterring potential adversaries from putting critical U.S. space systems at risk.

“The scope, scale, and complexity of today’s threat is real and it is concerning,” Raymond said. “The establishment of a combatant command solely focused on the space domain demonstrates the United States’ commitment to protecting and defending its space assets against that threat.”

The president’s National Security Strategy and the National Strategy for Space highlight space as a strategic domain, and the United States must earn and maintain space superiority. USSPACECOM’s establishment will modernize and enhance our approach to space from a domain of an unchallenged en-vironment to one of a warfighting domain.

The USSPACECOM mission is to deter aggression and con-flict, defend U.S. and allied freedom of action, deliver space combat power for the joint/combined force and develop joint warfighters to advance U.S. and allied interests in, from, and through the space domain. The command will be postured to protect and defend, while increasing joint warfighter lethality by executing two primary missions focused on unifying and leading space capabilities for the combined force and main-taining U.S. and allied advantages in space through protection and defense.

USSPACECOM is a geographic combatant command with a global area of responsibility defined as the area surrounding the earth at altitudes equal to or greater than 100 kilometers above mean (average) sea level. The new command is globally integrated with the other geographic combatant commands and prepared to support its partners to meet today’s threat on a global scale.

“Our space capabilities underpin the security of our great na-tion, enable our economic prosperity, provide for our way of life, and secure our way of war,” Raymond said. “In fact, there is nothing we do as a joint and coalition force that isn’t enabled by space. Our adversaries understand this and are moving fast to develop their own robust space capabilities and to develop weapons designed to deny us the use of space and the advan-tage they provide.”

“By establishing United States Space Command, singularly focused on that warfighting domain, we send a very clear mes-sage to the world that the United States and our allies will not assume away space superiority,” he concluded.

From establishment to full operational capability, Gen. Ray-mond will remain dual-hatted as the commander of Air Force Space Command and U.S. Space Command.

PEO Digital Talks Acquisition Transformation66TH AIR BASE GROUP PUBLIC AFFAIRS (SEPT. 8, 2019)Patty Welsh

HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass.—The program executive officer for Digital spoke about the paradigm shift in Defense Department and Air Force acquisition, including how it’s im-pacting his organization, during a Hanscom Representatives Association meeting Sept. 4 in Lexington, Massachusetts.

“Things are changing rapidly,” said Steve Wert. “If you like chaos, come work in DoD acquisition right now. It is absolutely wild.”

Wert said that the Air Force is “hugely” changing strategy by including outside influencers, such as the Defense Innovation Board, Defense Innovation Unit, and Defense Digital Services, in planning. Senior AF leaders are talking with industry execu-tives for their knowledge. PEOs have unprecedented delega-tions of authority; for example, of the hundreds of programs in Wert’s portfolio, only six currently go to the Air Force Service Acquisition Executive for milestone decision authority.

The shift for PEO Digital stemmed from the implementation of Agile DevOps through Kessel Run, Wert said, and now he is not approving acquisition strategies for software if they do not include Agile DevOps. However, the initial implementa-tion really began a trend to employ new concepts across the portfolio.

PEO Digital participated in the first-ever AF Pitch Day, which was an idea the AF SAE Dr. Will Roper had to get non-tra-ditional organizations to interact with the Air Force and be able to get a good idea on contract quickly. While 51 contracts were awarded among the three participating PEOs, Wert said he thought some of the biggest benefits came from person-nel being re-energized about their work and the exposure to novel ideas.

Following the event, a positive note from Roper to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force had the Chief asking when the AF could hold one for counter-small unmanned aerial systems, which are within Wert’s portfolio. Therefore, PEO Digital held the Air Force’s second Pitch Day in July. The organization also held a Pitch Day for Kessel Run. Through those Pitch Days, PEO Digital is now working with 37 startups.

Wert said DoD 5000, the Defense Acquisition System Instruc-tion, is being re-written and Defense Acquisition University is

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revising training. The new strategy is demanding speed, in-novation, and technology; and one way the Air Force is doing that is by working with technology accelerators and startups, and building new partnerships.

“We can do amazing things when we partner with organiza-tions such as MassChallenge,” said Wert. “We’re able to have events we couldn’t do as government alone.”

Talking about what’s next though, Wert commented that he’s realizing the Air Force is falling behind. He recently participated in judging for a second round of pitches for MassChallenge and said every pitch incorporated machine learning. This enabled him to recognize that the AF is not using available commercial technology, such as neuromorphic processing chips.

“We don’t think like this,” he said. “We’ve been simply re-sponding to requirements. We need to adjust our thinking.”

Wert added that no part of the traditional acquisition process had them thinking about what system could be versus what it currently is.

Steven Wert, program executive officer Digital, addresses current and potential industry part-ners during a Hanscom Representatives Association meeting in Lexington, Mass., Sept. 4. Wert discussed the paradigm shift in Defense Department and Air Force acquisition, including how it’s impacting his organization. U.S. Air Force photo by Jerry Saslav

“We need to be a [science and technology] organiza-tion,” he said. “We’ve been neglecting it but it’s part of the life cycle.”

As his challenge for his organization for 2020 is to “accelerate technology adoption,” Wert said to the mostly industry attend-ees that’s where they fit in. “We’ll need help from folks like you; we’ll also look to leverage the labs and small businesses.”

He noted that Roper said it’s not that Air Force acquisition wants to go fast; it’s that the Air Force wants to go fast.

“We need to be creative and accept some risks in some situations. The environment is amazing. I like chaos; it provides the opportunity to press the edge.”

Futuristic Flight Technology Gives Vertical Lift Researchers a BoostARMY NEWS SERVICE (SEPT. 19, 2019)Cristina Delgado-Howard

FORT RUCKER, Ala.—The U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory (USAARL) introduced an innovative Black Hawk helicopter simulator at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept. 17 at Fort Rucker, Alabama. The Cockpit Academics Procedural Tool—Enhanced Visual Capable System, or CAPT-E-VCS for short—is a reconfigurable research platform that allows for swift, mission-responsive research in support of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift and modernization priority. These priori-ties are part of the Army’s focus on multi-domain operations to counter and defeat near-peer adversaries in all domains.

“USAARL is the Army’s aeromedical laboratory focused on the performance and survival of the rotary wing Warfighters to give them decisive overmatch,” said USAARL Commander Col. Mark K. McPherson about the importance of fielding state-of-the art tools in research. “This high-fidelity simulator is the perfect example of how we merge the science of aviation and medicine to optimize human protection and performance, le-veraging science against our nation’s competitors.”

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The Army views vertical lift dominance over enemy forces as critical to increased lethality, survivability, and reach. To meet the demands of Future Vertical Lift priorities, the Army is both developing and acquiring next-generation aircraft and un-manned systems to fly, fight, and prevail in any environment.

The CAPT-E-VCS was developed in partnership with the U.S. Army Combat Capability Development Command’s System Simulation, Software, and Integration Di-rectorate to evaluate new tech-nologies integral to meeting those requirements. The device pairs a Black Hawk medium-lift model helicopter cockpit and academic simulator from Cal-ifornia-based SGB Enterprises with a 12-inch projection dome from Q4 Services, Inc., which is headquartered in Orlando, Flor-ida. State-of-the-art X-IG image generation software—developed by Alabama-based CATI Train-ing Systems—was further added to the CAPT-E-VCS in order to create a singular, customizable research platform for USAARL.

“Now we can evaluate in a digi-tal glass cockpit platform pilot workload as well as the effects of high-altitude flight environ-ments,” said Dr. Mike Wilson, research psychologist at US-

AARL. “For example, we can couple the laboratory’s reduced oxygen breathing device with a high-fidelity simulation en-vironment and create a more realistic test environment for research. This innovation is a mission-responsive, cost-saving research tool that is critical to moving the Army closer to its Future Vertical Lift goals.”

Capt. Justin Stewart, a USAARL pilot, gives Master Sgt. Kenneth Carey, U.S. Army Aero-medical Research Laboratory’s Chief Medical Laboratory Noncommissioned Officer, a Cockpit Academics Procedural Tool-Enhanced Visual Capable System, or CAPT-E-VCS tutorial. The images displayed on the projection dome are of an urban flight environment in San Francisco, Calif. Photo by Scott Childress