ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Northrop Grumman Corp.’s µSAS (pronounced “micro-sas”) will be integrated onto L3Harris Technologies’ Iver4 Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) for a 12-month test period for the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) Next-Generation Small-Class UUV program, according to a Northrop Grumman release. 

The µSAS is a Low-SWaP (size, weight and power), high-performance interferometric synthetic aperture sonar that enables longer sorties and higher area coverage rates for UUV missions. 

Integrated onto a 9-inch diameter, 99-inch long, 200-pound UUV, the installation will occur at L3Harris’ Fall River, Massachusetts, facility and the system will be tested in San Diego by the U.S. Navy. The integration of synthetic aperture sonar on a small diameter UUV is a significant step in small-class vehicle capability. 

“The Northrop Grumman µSAS advanced imaging sonar is a mine-hunting force multiplier designed specifically for UUVs,” said Alan Lytle, vice president of undersea systems at Northrop Grumman. “This integration will help to deliver a significant increase in the platform’s ability to detect objects on the seafloor and in the water column.” 

“The Iver4, integrated with µSAS, is a major advancement in small-class UUV capability for the warfighter,” said Daryl Slocum, president and general manager of unmanned maritime systems for L3Harris. 

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — Lockheed Martin representatives joined U.S. Coast Guard leaders and crew members for a ceremony on Jan. 31 at the Coast Guard Aviation Logistics Center in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to mark the completion of operational testing of the first Coast Guard HC-130J extended-range transport outfitted with the Block 8.1 upgrade, the company said. 

This upgrade was installed on a previously delivered HC-130J at Lockheed’s facility in Greenville, South Carolina. The aircraft recently completed initial operational testing and will be placed into service. Lockheed is contracted to deliver a minimum of six Block 8.1 upgrade kits to the Coast Guard. 

The upgrade adds new and advanced capabilities: 

• A new flight-management system that complies with CNS/ATM mandates and includes vertical navigation with coupled auto throttle 
• Civil GPS 
• Ground power modes 
• Updated Identification Friend or Foe 
• CNS/ATM Data Link 
• Enhanced intercommunication system 
• Enhanced approach and landing systems 
• Expanded diagnostics 
• Improved PA system 
• Additional covert lighting 
• IAMSAR compliant search pattern programming 

“The U.S. Coast Guard has relied on its Hercules fleet for more than 60 years to support complicated missions that ensure our nation’s safety and security,” said Peter London, director of tactical airlift programs for Lockheed’s air mobility and maritime missions business line. 

“The advanced features and purpose-built design enhancements found in the Block 8.1 upgrade ensure that Coast Guard crews will rely on the HC-130J for mission support for many more decades to come.” 

In addition to the Block 8.1 upgrade, the Coast Guard is also integrating Minotaur mission system architecture into its fixed-wing aircraft. Missionization includes post-production modification of new C-130J aircraft to incorporate the specialized equipment necessary to carry out Coast Guard missions. 

The Coast Guard’s HC-130J Super Hercules long-range surveillance aircraft provides heavy air transport and long-range maritime patrol capability. Each aircraft can serve as an on-scene command-and-control platform or as a surveillance platform with the means to detect, classify and identify objects and share that information with operational forces. 

The Coast Guard is acquiring a fleet of 22 new, fully missionized HC-130J aircraft to replace its older HC-130Hs.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Boeing has given the F/A-18 a new lease on life after delivering the first Super Hornet under Service Life Modification (SLM) to the U.S. Navy, the company said Feb. 6. The second SLM jet will deliver by the end of the month, and Boeing will deliver the third F/A-18 in April. 

The initial Super Hornets delivered will extend their service lives from 6,000 to 7,500 flight hours. Future modification plans in the early 2020s will enable the jets to fly 10,000 hours and incorporate the new Block III capabilities. 

“SLM is going to provide a critical resource for the Navy to recapitalize on long-serving aircraft to return them to the fleet in a near new condition,” said Capt. Stephen May, PMA-265 co-lead for E/F/G Air Vehicles. “It will reduce burden on our maintainers, our supply system and our depot-level assets within the enterprise.” 

A total of 15 Super Hornets are in SLM on production lines in St. Louis and San Antonio. It takes 18 months to complete modifications on an F/A-18, although that time will be driven down to one year as the modifications progress. Boeing will deliver five more Super Hornets this year. 

The Block III conversion will include enhanced network capability, conformal fuel tanks, an advanced cockpit system, signature improvements and an enhanced communications system. The updates are expected to keep the F/A-18 in active service for decades. 

WASHINGTON — Roger Wicker, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Feb. 6 introduced the Securing the Homeland by Increasing our Power on the Seas (SHIPS) Implementation Act, according to his office. 

The legislation follows the Mississippi Republican’s 2017 SHIPS Act, which was signed by President Trump, making it U.S. policy to reach a 355-ship Navy. The new act would authorize the use of multiple cost-saving measures and direct the Navy to procure 39 new ships over the next four fiscal years. 

“Our nation’s Navy is still the envy of the world, but our adversaries are quickly catching up,” Wicker said. “It is time for Congress to get serious about investing in our fleet and give our Sailors and Marines the tools they need to stay ahead of those who wish us harm.” 

“In the near term, [the act] would empower our Navy to reach its 355-ship goal by authorizing the procurement of specific vessels and cutting costs. Over time, my proposal would help to decrease risk for the Navy and provide greater certainty for the industrial base.” 

The Navy’s 355-ship goal is the direct result of a Navy-wide “force structure assessment” from 2016 that solicited inputs from all regional commands about their current and projected needs. These projections included a recognition that the U.S. would need to significantly increase the size and capability of the Navy to counter growing threats from China and Russia. 

In response to this assessment, Wicker introduced the 2017 SHIPS act. Even with a reinvigorated shipbuilding effort over the last three years, the Navy’s shipbuilding budget still falls between $4 billion and $5 billion short of the level required to reach a 355-ship Navy.  

Wicker’s SHIPS Implementation Act would expand his 2017 legislation by providing a strategic framework and additional support to help the Navy reach its fleet goal. 

Among other provisions, the act would: 

•    Direct the Navy to start construction on at least 12 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, 10 Virginia-class submarines, two Columbia-class submarines, three San Antonio-class amphibious ships, one LHA-class amphibious ship, six John Lewis-class fleet oilers and five guided missile frigates across fiscal 2021-2025. 

•    Authorize the award of shipbuilding contracts for three San Antonio-class amphibious ships, one America-class amphibious ship, two Columbia-class submarines and six John Lewis-class fleet oilers in fiscal 2021. 

•    Recognize the strategic value of the Columbia-class submarine program by authorizing the use of the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund to support the program with funds over and above the Navy’s shipbuilding budget. 

•    Introduce stability to the Navy’s acquisition process by requiring steady shipbuilding rates to be maintained for each vessel class. 

•    Authorize the use of several cost-saving measures, including multiyear or block buy contract authorities when appropriate. 

•    Minimize risk for the Navy by requiring shipbuilding prototyping to occur at the subsystem-level in advance of ship design, to the maximum extent practicable.

MELBOURNE, Fla. — L3Harris Technologies finished first in a contest to design an electronic warfare (EW) solution for the U.S. Marine Corps’ future large unmanned aerial system, a network of early warning and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones to protect maritime forces, the company announced. 

As part of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Unmanned Aerial System Experimental (MUX) design challenge, L3Harris proposed an EW payload solution for the drone that includes the company’s combat-proven technologies in software-defined, multifunction EW featuring advanced antenna arrays.     

Once fielded, the MUX drone will be able to launch from a ship, perform reconnaissance and relay communication to deployed ground forces. The EW payload will provide the drone and its operators with situational awareness and protection from sophisticated electronic threats.    

“L3Harris proposed the winning EW payload design based on proven technologies from across the newly merged companies, which can be integrated today in order to help the Marines realize their vision of initial operation capability for the new drone as early as 2025,” said Ed Zoiss, president of space and airborne systems at L3Harris. 

MARINETTE, Wis. — Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine delivered the future USS St. Louis, littoral combat ship No. 19, to the U.S. Navy, according to a Feb. 6 Lockheed Martin release. 

“With LCS 19’s delivery, the U.S. Navy has 10 Freedom-variant littoral combat ships in the fleet,” said Joe DePietro, Lockheed’s vice president and general manager of small combatants and ship systems. 

“LCS 7 recently deployed, and it is gratifying to know that our team has delivered a ship that is relevant for today’s fight and that is needed around the world. Our team is encouraged by the positive feedback we’ve received about LCS 7 on deployment, and we continuously look to incorporate fleet input into capabilities on LCS hulls.” 

The Freedom-variant LCS delivers advanced capability in anti-submarine, surface and mine countermeasure missions. LCS was designed to evolve with the changing security environment. With an increase in near-peer competition from large nation states, Lockheed is partnering with the Navy to evolve LCS to meet these threats. Upgrades are already underway as computing infrastructures are receiving cyber upgrades and naval strike missiles are being installed to support upcoming deployments. 

The St. Louis is is the 10th Freedom-variant LCS designed, built and delivered by the Lockheed Martin-led industry team and will be commissioned in Pensacola, Florida, this summer.

ARLINGTON,
Va. — The health and readiness of the U.S. defense industrial base, plagued by
intellectual property theft and a shrunken workforce, rates a barely passing
grade on a report card issued on Feb. 5 by the sector’s largest industry group.

The report,
compiled by the National Defense Industry Association (NDIA) and data analytic firm
Govini, raises concerns about an industry challenged by cyber threats and industrial
espionage. Securing sensitive material against spies and data breaches earned a
failing grade, 63 out of 100, the lowest among eight areas analyzed by Govini
and NDIA.

In the
foreword to the report, “Vital Signs 2020: The Health and Readiness of the
Defense Industrial Base,” Govini CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty noted the new era of
‘great power competition’ is different from the Cold War. China is a rival
economic power, rapidly closing the technological gap, she wrote, adding, “China’s
efforts to exploit technological advancements made by others for its own
benefit threaten the security of the defense industrial base.”

“Just look
what they do with regard to cyber threats. The intellectual property that they
steal. Trillions of dollars a year are taken from our country with intellectual
property theft or data breaches,” Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, a retired U.S. Air
Force general and NDIA’s president and CEO, told reporters in a teleconference for
the report’s rollout.  

Production inputs,
another area examined in the report, barely earned a C grade, with a 68, due in
part to a defense industry workforce that has contracted from its peak of 3.2
million in the 1980s to about 1.1 million today. The persistent security
clearance backlog was another contributing factor, especially with stagnating
approvals for top secret clearances, the data-driven report found.

The threat
to industrial security posed by state and nonstate actors is “very concerning”
in the near term, said Wesley Hallman, NDIA’s senior vice president of strategy
and policy. However, to achieve a capable workforce 20 to 40 years in the
future, investments have to be made now by government and society as a whole to
field a workers with “not only the skills, the talent and the educational
background to perform, but they’ve got to be able to pass a security clearance,”
Hallman warned.

NDIA and
Govini analyzed, over a three-year running average — 2017 through 2019 — 44
statistical indicators, such as surge capacity and threats to digital systems.
Each of the 44 indicators was graded from zero (bad) to 100 (excellent) and
slotted into eight sections, called dimensions, that were then graded individually.
The composite grades of the eight dimensions resulted in the defense industrial
base’s overall C grade of 77 for 2019. Factoring in 2017 and 2018 data, the
overall score is down 2% since 2017.

The other dimensions analyzed were: supply chain issues, which scored a 68; innovation, 74; productive capacity and surge readiness, 77; political and regulatory issues, 79; demand, 94; and competition, where conditions among the thousands of defense contractors scored a 96, the highest scoring dimension. That was largely because profitability is up 7% since 2017, enabling companies to expand business operations.

The 70-page report makes no specific recommendation, but NDIA leaders said their aim was to make the report an annual event that would generate a dialogue about national security among industry, the Defense Department, lawmakers, policymakers and the public. “The American people are a big part of this,” Carlisle said.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s shift of its assets in space to
the U.S. Space Force is still to be determined, a Navy spokesman said.

The U.S. Space Force was established on Dec. 20 as the Defense
Department’s fifth armed service and eventually will absorb the space
activities of the other services. The Navy and U.S. Marine Corps are users of
many space-based sensors and communications systems, but the Navy only owns and
controls the Narrowband communications satellites (Multiple User Objective System
and legacy satellites).

“Transfer of Navy Space Operations Mission to the Space Force is
still TBD and will depend on congressional
authorization,” said Joseph F. Gradisher, a spokesman for the Office of the
Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare.

“The Navy is supporting the
standup of the Office of the Chief of Space Operations with manpower designated
in the [fiscal year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act]. [The fiscal 2020] NDAA does not provide authority to
involuntarily transfer Army or Navy forces into the Space Force. The Navy has
acknowledged the [defense secretary’s] long-term vision to consolidate space
forces and is planning for a future conditions-based transfer of Space
operations mission.”

Gradisher said the secretary “laid out the vision to transfer Air Force
space missions and forces to the Space Force in FY 2021, and, if authorized, to
transfer appropriate Army, Navy and other [Defense Department] space-related
missions and forces to the Space Force beginning in [fiscal] 2022.”

“Ongoing analysis of the specific units, missions and billets from
across the Army, Navy and other DoD elements that should be formally
transferred into the Space Force, if authorized, continues,” he added.

The spokesman also said that “the Space Force will work diligently
to codify processes by which it will ensure the Army, Navy, Air Force and
Marine Corps space-related support requirements are fully satisfied and the
emerging needs of multidomain operations are met.”

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The U.S. Coast Guard, U.K. Royal Navy and U.S. law enforcement partners seized 3,086 pounds of cocaine and detained nine suspected drug smugglers following two separate interdictions in the Caribbean on Jan. 24 and Jan. 30, according to the Coast Guard 7th District. 

The seized drug shipments are estimated to have a wholesale value of more than $46.2 million. 

The interdiction was a result of an international, multiagency law-enforcement effort in support of Operation Unified Resolve, Operation Caribbean Guard, Campaign Martillo (a joint, interagency, 20-nation collaborative counter narcotic effort) and the Caribbean Corridor Strike Force (CCSF) and will be prosecuted by the U.S. Federal District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. 

“These efforts, underpinned by our unwavering resolve to stop drug smuggling vessels at sea, greatly contribute to safeguarding our citizens in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and protecting our shared interests of a safer and more secure Caribbean,” said Rear Adm. Eric C. Jones, commander of the 7th District. 

“These interdictions highlight the importance of working with our international partners as we combat drug trafficking,” said W. Stephen Muldrow, U.S. attorney for the District of Puerto Rico. “These large drug seizures make our community safer by keeping the narcotics out of our neighborhoods. We commend all of our partner agencies for their steadfast efforts.” 

“These operations reiterate the significance of intelligence and resource sharing among agencies,” said A.J. Collazo, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Caribbean Division special agent in charge. “We will continue to aggressively target and disrupt drug-trafficking organizations operating in the Caribbean.” 

In the first interdiction, the Royal Navy’s RFA Mounts Bay, while on patrol with a U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment (LEDET) and a Coast Guard helicopter interdiction tactical squadron (HITRON) armed helicopter onboard, detected two suspicious go-fast vessels, about 74 nautical miles south of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. 

The RFA Mounts Bay launched the Coast Guard MH-65 helicopter and the ship’s pursuit vessel with the Coast Guard LEDET to interdict both suspect vessels.  

The Coast Guard LEDET boarding team, with the assistance of RFA Mounts Bay crew members, boarded both suspect vessels, apprehending the seven men and seizing 42 bales of suspected contraband. 

In the second interdiction, a maritime patrol aircraft detected a northbound target of interest, southeast of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic. The Coast Guard Cutter Bear along with a helicopter responded to interdict the go-fast vessel. The Bear’s over-the-horizon cutter boat and embarked helicopter arrived on scene and stopped the go-fast. The Bear’s boarding team detained the two men aboard the go-fast after discovering 13 bales of suspected contraband. 

The Bear delivered the seized contraband and detainees from both cases to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE)-HSI, and DEA special agents in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Feb. 4. 

Between October 2019 and December 2019, the Coast Guard and Caribbean Border Interagency Group authorities have seized 12,060 kilograms of cocaine and 407 pounds of marijuana during law-enforcement operations surrounding Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The wholesale value for these seizures is more than $314 million. 

Cutter Bear is a 270-foot medium-endurance cutter homeported in Portsmouth, Virginia. The RFA Mounts Bay is a Bay-class auxiliary landing ship dock belonging to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, which provides logistical support to the Royal Navy.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. 2nd Fleet exercised its ability to operate expeditionary maritime operations centers in its run-up from initial to full operational capability, achieved in December, the fleet commander said. 

Vice Adm. Andrew “Woody” Lewis, commander of the 2nd Fleet, who spoke here Feb. 4 at Maritime Security Dialogue sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the U.S. Naval Institute, said his staff deployed on board the USS Mount Whitney — traditionally the flagship of the U.S. 6th Fleet — to the Baltic Sea last year to command maritime forces in the BATLTOPS 19 exercise.  

Lewis gave a second example where a mobile operations center with 30 personnel was deployed to Keflavik, Iceland, last month, to control operations of P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. The deployment tested the scalability of the fleet staff to run maritime operations centers from two locations. 

He also dispatched a surface action group (SAG) to the Atlantic — the first to deploy to that ocean in more than a decade — elements of which operated in the Arctic region. 

The 2nd Fleet was established in 2018 to operate in the North Atlantic in response to the growing Russian presence in the ocean in recent years. In the previous two decades, the East Coast ships mostly deployed to Europe and the Middle East. 

“The Atlantic is a battlespace that can’t be ignored,” Lewis said, noting the increased Russian submarine presence and even a Russian icebreaker armed with Kalibr cruise missiles. 

Lewis said he did not expect that his fleet would operate its own command ship soon but that he saw his staff eventually “having a kit to deploy with which we don’t currently have,” but that he needed the personnel to maintain it. 

Lewis said that soon the fleet will deploy a mobile operations center at an expeditionary location in the U.S. homeland under the auspices of U.S. Northern Command and that the fleet staff would deploy afloat on a ship that was not a command ship. 

Because of the Russian submarine threat, Lewis emphasized that the fleet is “re-learning” much of anti-submarine warfare (ASW).    

“It’s an all-domain integrated fight — in the air, on the surface, in the subsurface down to the seabed, and it’s in space,” he said. “It’s a really hard challenge, a real varsity operation. And that’s something we’re getting back into, very much so.”  

Lewis also praised the ASW capabilities of the Navy’s P-8 aircraft.