ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter lost in the Philippine Sea on Jan. 25 is the first loss of a Navy aircraft in calendar 2020 and possibly fiscal 2020 as well. 

The MH-60S, assigned to the command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) with a detachment from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 12, crashed into the Philippine Sea on while operating from the Blue Ridge. 

The five personnel on board were rescued by a UH-60 of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and another MH-60S from the Blue Ridge. The rescued personnel were evaluated as in stable condition, the U.S. 7th Fleet said.  

The loss is the first confirmed loss since July 31, according to an unofficial list, when an F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighter collided with a canyon wall during a low-level flight over Nevada. 

An RQ-4A Global Hawk was damaged on Nov. 26 by a foreign object during a takeoff from an airfield in the Middle East, according the U.S. 5th Fleet. It is not yet known if the mishap resulted or will result in a write-off of the aircraft.

McLean, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC Pacific), in partnership with the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), has awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a $178 million contract to provide technical engineering services toward the modernization of advanced GPS systems, the company said in a release.  

The NIWC Pacific Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Division is the Navy’s principal research and development center for navigation sensors and systems. SMC is the center of technical excellence for developing, acquiring, fielding and sustaining resilient and affordable military space systems. 

By executing this contract, Booz Allen will continue to serve as a key mission partner for NIWC Pacific and SMC on the important endeavor of modernizing PNT systems for U.S. and allied warfighters. 

Booz Allen will provide a range of essential services, including system definition, requirements synchronization, capability improvement, cybersecurity engineering, platform integration and testing and acquisition program management. Specifically, Booz Allen’s work will aid in the development and modernization of GPS systems through major programs such as Military GPS User Equipment, GPS III and Next Generation Operational Control System. 

“Booz Allen’s robust track record of work in both systems engineering and cybersecurity continues to inspire trust from our clients,” Vice President Brian Zimmermann said. “Our deep bench of leaders and technical experts reassures our clients that no project is too big or too complex. It’s our privilege to help the Navy and Air Force modernize GPS systems that are so vital to the security of our nation.” 

TYSONS CORNER, Va. — With strategic adversaries like Russia
and China catching up technologically, the United States will need to rely on “intellectual
ability” to maintain a competitive military advantage, according to acting Navy
Secretary Thomas Modly.

The technological gap is only going to grow in the rising ‘great
power competition,’ Modly told a gathering of defense industry executives here.
“You all see this because your companies are getting ripped off by the Chinese
and others. They’re pulling that technology and they’re quickly putting it into
systems that will compete with us,” he said.

The best way to maintain “our enduring competitive advantage in an environment like that is going to be our intellectual ability — to think, to be agile thinkers,” Modly told the audience at a National Defense Industry Association-sponsored discussion hosted by government consultants LMI.

A growing need for Sailors, Marines and civilian workers who
could think strategically and adapt quickly was revealed by the Navy’s
Education for Seapower study, leading to the Navy decision to ramp up and
prioritize education as a strategic enabler.

Joining Modly on the panel, John Kroger, the department’s
first chief learning officer, enumerated changes to enhance and encourage
educational opportunities and more fully integrate the Navy and Marine Corps.
Kroger, a Yale-educated academic and Harvard-trained lawyer who enlisted in the
U.S. Marine Corps at age 17, said it would be “a transformational thing for our
force if we can get education right.”

The first job, he said, would be creating a Naval Community
College to provide technology education beyond traditional military and naval skills.
Kroger said the school will be based in Quantico, Virginia, close to the Marine
Corps base housing the Marine Corps University, Marine Corps War College and
numerous schools, including Command and Staff, Officer Candidate and Basic
schools.

Interviews to select the new school’s president and provost
are underway, Kroger said, adding that he hoped to have the first students
enrolled by June 2021. The curriculum would include both residential and online
classes. Kroger said he and his staff consulted with the U.S. Army and Air
Force, which have outpaced the Navy in developing new education programs.

Currently, the Community College of the Air Force is the
only degree-granting institution of higher learning in the world dedicated
exclusively to enlisted personnel. It offers enlisted airmen the opportunity to
earn a two-year associate in applied science degree.

Kroger said it would be prohibitively expensive to educate 40,000 to 50,000 students a year at a brick-and-mortar school. But the revolution in education — that includes distance learning and minimal in-person residency like executive education programs conducted at many university business schools — makes such a sweeping goal possible.

The Navy Department announced plans in December 2019 to add more than $300 million to its spending on education over the next five years, starting with $109 million shifted to learning initiatives in fiscal year 2020. The Education for Seapower initiative also calls for creating a new unifying Naval University System to strengthen existing Navy and Marine Corps educational institutions and align strategic needs and increase agility.

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Coast Guard and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego launched the Blue Technology Center of Expertise on the Scripps Oceanography campus with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and expo on Jan. 24, the Coast Guard 11th District said in a release. 

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.); Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.); Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.); UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla; Port of San Diego Commissioner Marshall Merrifield; and Coast Guard Deputy Commandant for Mission Support Vice Adm. Michael F. McAllister spoke at the event to celebrate the partnership between Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Coast Guard.  

“The Blue Technology Center of Expertise will better connect the Coast Guard with the tremendous government, academic and industry innovation ecosystem in the San Diego area,” McAllister said. “It will create a unique pipeline for the rapid identification and implementation of new maritime technologies into critical Coast Guard operations around the globe.” 

Blue technology is any technology, system or platform designed for use above, on or below the surface of the ocean that can support or facilitate Coast Guard maritime domain awareness, search and rescue, emergency response, maritime law enforcement, marine inspections and investigations. The Coast Guard was authorized to establish the Blue Technology COE by the 2018 Save Our Seas Act. 

A COE is a group of people from different disciplines who work together to increase performance and efficiency in certain areas. The Blue Technology COE will enable sharing of information between the Coast Guard and the private sector, other federal agencies, academia and nonprofit organizations. 

Scripps Institution of Oceanography is a leading center for marine research and education, with an emphasis on innovation dating back to World War II. The institution is home to significant programs such as the Coastal Data Information Program, an extensive network for monitoring waves and beaches along the U.S. coastlines, and HF-Radar Network, a near real-time ocean surface current measurement network of shore-based radar systems.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations, with this initial deployment marking the achievement of early operational capability (EOC), the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a release. 

Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP) 19, the Navy’s first Triton UAS squadron, deployed two MQ-4Cs to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, by Jan. 26 “as part of an [EOC] to further develop the concept of operations and fleet learning associated with operating a high-altitude, long-endurance system in the maritime domain,” the Pacific Fleet release said. 

VUP-19 is headquartered at Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville, Florida, but its Tritons are based at NAS Point Mugu, California. While deployed to Guam the Tritons will be under operational control of commander, Task Force 72, which also controls the operations of the Navy’s P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and EP-3E Orion electronic reconnaissance aircraft in the western Pacific.  

The Triton eventually will achieve initial operational capability when a total of four MQ-4Cs are deployed to a single site to establish a 24/7 orbit over the western Pacific area of operations. 

“The introduction of MQ-4C Triton to the 7th Fleet area of operations expands the reach of the U.S. Navy’s maritime patrol and reconnaissance force in the Western Pacific,” Capt. Matt Rutherford, commander of CTF-72, said in the release. “Coupling the capabilities of the MQ-4C with the proven performance of P-8, P-3 and EP-3 will enable improved maritime domain awareness in support of regional and national security objectives.” 

“The Navy’s Persistent Maritime UAS program office at Patuxent River, managed by Capt. Dan Mackin, and industry partner Northrop Grumman, worked closely with VUP-19 in preparation for EOC,” the release said. 

“Prior to flying the aircraft to Guam, the team completed extensive operational test and unit level training. This significant milestone marks the culmination of years of hard work by the joint team to prepare Triton for overseas operations. The fielding of the Navy’s premier unmanned aircraft system and its additive, persistent, multi-sensor data collection and real-time dissemination capability will revolutionize the way maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is performed.” 

Rear Adm. Peter Garvin, commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, said in the release: “The inaugural deployment of Triton UAS brings enhanced capabilities and a broad increase in maritime domain awareness to our forward fleet commanders. VUP-19, the Navy’s first dedicated UAS squadron supported by an outstanding NAVAIR and industry team, is superbly trained and ready to provide the persistent ISR coverage the Navy needs.”

TYSONS CORNER, Va. — The Department of the Navy has a
security problem, and it’s embedded in the institutional culture, according to
the Navy’s top informational technology executive.

“We are losing the Department of Navy’s information every
day. And we’re losing it directly through our supply chain. Our adversaries are
literally screening our plans and using them against us every day. And it’s got
to stop,” Chief Information Officer Aaron Weiss told a meeting here of industry
and department leadership on Jan. 24.

“We have a culture of compliance when it comes to security,”
said Weiss, who became CIO in September. That culture leads people to say, ‘If
I do the checklist and I do all the right things and I wait a year, then
someone will give me a stamp that says I have authority to operate and I am
secure,’” Weiss said.

“Well, you might have been secure at that moment you filled
out the checklist, but time marched on,” he said. “The adversaries’ capability has
moved on. You’re no longer secure.”

Security has to become a “constant of state of readiness,”
Weiss maintained. Both the department and industry have to move “from security
by compliance to security as a state of being, and it has to be a part of
everything we do both inside the Department of the Navy and in our supply chain,”
said Weiss, who joined acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly and the Navy’s first chief
learning officer, John Kroger, for a breakfast meeting to discuss technology
and education with executives hosted by the National Defense Industry
Association.

Coming to the Navy after more than 30 years in the private
sector and a stint as senior advisor to the Defense Department’s CIO, Weiss said
he was shocked by the difference in the day-to-day technology available to the
Navy compared to the private sector.

“What we provide to Sailors, Marines and civilians is about
15 years behind where private industry is,” said Weiss, noting he faces a huge
task to bring the Navy Department’s infrastructure capability up to parity with
industry.

“We’re not doing that today. We’re providing data. Data without context is not usable information. We’re providing steams of data that we expect our Sailors and Marines to integrate, create context and make usable so that they can decide and act. But we’re not arming them with the information that they need.”

Weiss conceded that changing a culture would be a heavy lift, but coming back to security, he added “there’s very little value in a modernized infrastructure driving innovation if we’re letting the good stuff walk out the back door.”

As the last commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh said
Jan. 17, “the old must be replaced by the new.” And with that salutation, the
crew of the Los Angeles fast-attack submarine, past commanding officers, Navy
League members and supporters bid farewell to the boat during its inactivation
ceremony at the U.S. Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington.

The USS Pittsburgh Relief Crew under the auspices of the
Pittsburgh Council has provided significant support to the submarine over its
35 years of active service. Though the boat, named for the city in
Pennsylvania, has been deactivated, a scholarship sponsored by the council for
current or past crew members and dependents of the sub will live indefinitely
at the Pittsburgh Foundation, a Pittsburgh metropolitan area philanthropy
organization.

The ceremony was the crew’s final event before their ship
is decommissioned and stored at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton,
Washington.

“The backbone of any crew, of any service member, is the
family that supports them at home,” said Jason Deichler, the 14th and final
commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh, who himself is a Pittsburgh native.

“To the families of current and crewmembers here today,
thank you. The power of your faces, smiles, family grams, small tokens and love
enable the strength required for the impossible tasks we ask the crew to
perform. It is what sets us apart in many ways from the armed services of other
nations. We know the faces of our family, and we work to truly honor them.”

Carol H. Sawyer, a professor of organizational leadership
at University of La Verne, California, also spoke of what it’s meant for her to
have been the submarine’s sponsor and a part of the Pittsburgh family since the
ship’s commissioning in December 1984.

“It means that every day for 35 years, I have embodied
the gratitude of the American people. In my very person, in who I am, I have
literally lived our gratitude for the commitment, the service, the
professionalism, the sacrifice and the patriotism that I have witnessed,”
Sawyer said.

Rear Adm. Douglas Perry, commander of Submarine Group 9,
and a prior crew member aboard Pittsburgh, served as the ceremony’s guest
speaker.

Pittsburgh completed its
last deployment on Feb. 25, 2019. Then the boat and her crew made their first
arctic transit for a final homeport change from Groton, Connecticut, to
Bremerton, arriving on May 28 to begin the inactivation and decommissioning
process. Pittsburgh is the fourth U.S. Navy vessel to be named for the city of
Pittsburgh.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The next U.S. Marine aircraft squadron scheduled for transition to the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter made its last flight in an F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter Jan. 23. 

The flight by Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (All-Weather) 225 (VMFA(AW)-225), based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, completed the phase-out of its last F/A-18D Hornets, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing said on its website. 

The squadron is slated to begin transition to the F-35B, the short-takeoff/vertical landing version of the Lightning II. According to the fiscal 2019 Marine Corps Aviation Plan, VMFA(AW)-225 is scheduled to begin its transition to the F-35B in fiscal 2021. 

Presumably the squadron designation will drop the (AW) suffix for transition. The squadron will follow VMFAs 121, 211 and 122 as the Corps’ fourth operational F-35B squadron. VMFA-225 will move to MCAS Yuma, Arizona, to join 211 and 122. 

The Corps plans to stand up a second F-35B replacement training squadron, VMFAT-502, at Miramar this year to support the increasing F-35B training load. The temporary stand-down of VMFA-225 will enable the Corps “to recapitalize structure and manpower to help VMFAT-502’s stand up and then transition to F-35B at MCAS Yuma,” according to the aviation plan. 

The last Hornet flight of VMFA(AW)-225 occurred two days after VMFA-314 flew the Corps’ first carrier-capable F-35C versions to Miramar from Naval Air Station Lemoore, California, where VMFA-314 has been going through transition from the F/A-18C Hornet to the F-35C. VMFA-314 is scheduled to be ready for a deployment on an aircraft carrier in early fiscal 2022.  

ARLINGTON, Va. – Naval ordnance experts will be testing heavy weapons precision ammunition, that could hit enemy drones “like a shotgun blast,” offering a counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) shield for littoral combat ships (LCS).

Rogue civilian drones and enemy attack and surveillance UAS are a growing concern across the military, especially after swarms of drones attacked Saudi Arabian oil facilities last September. Two months earlier, a Marine Corps anti-drone system downed an Iranian UAS that got within 1,000 yards of a Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

“There’s a lot of interest in the Navy now for a counter
drone system,” said Kevin Knowles of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. “How do
you shoot down these quadcopters? Trying to hit them with a round is not that
easy,” he added.

Northrop Grumman, which makes mission modules for the LCS,
is exploring something called precision air burst munition for the twin 30 mm
guns in one of the Surface Warfare Mission Modules. A laser range finder on the
gun determines the range.

“There’s a modification that would need to be made to the
gun to fire the round,” Knowles explained Jan. 16 at the Surface Navy
Association convention. “It actually programs the round to fly out a certain
distance. And then it blows up almost like a shotgun blast,” he said, noting
the point-and- shoot proximity round can actually detect the target and gets
about a certain distance away before exploding.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) is slated to run tests on the proximity rounds in the Spring, he said.

“And so, assuming that test goes well, then we’ll start putting those rounds in the magazines” of the 33 mm guns on both the Freedom and Independence variants of the LCS. Because the 30 mm gun has a dual ammunition feed, the high explosive rounds the guns now fire could be loaded in one feed while the precision air burst proximity rounds could be fed into the other. “That will give the LCS a counter UAS capability,” Knowles said.

McLEAN, Virginia — The U.S. Navy has awarded BAE Systems a prime position on a five-year, $34.9 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide life cycle sustainment and technical support for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s (NAWCAD) Special Communications Mission Solutions Division, the company said in a Jan. 23 release. The contract was awarded through the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Contracting Office.  

“For more than 40 years, BAE Systems has been the contractor of choice for life cycle sustainment and technical support for NAWCAD’s Special Communications Mission Solutions Division,” said Mark Keeler, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems’ Integrated Defense Solutions business. “As a leading systems integrator, we understand the need for quick-reaction field support to ensure our military customers are mission ready and maintain a tactical edge.”  

Through this award, BAE Systems will support and sustain variety of C5ISR (command, control, computers, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems embedded within vehicles, watercraft and specialized communications platforms in the NAWCAD inventory. The company’s C5ISR efforts will include maintaining and upgrading command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, integrated and networked to improve the situational awareness of military operators and decision makers. Work on this program will be performed in forward deployed mission locations include Central Command and Africa Command Areas of Responsibility.