CSEL Handset Bren-Tronics Inc. in Commack, NY recently received a sole source 5-year, $23.1 million fixed price with economic price adjustment, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity, contract from the US Army, for AN/PRQ-7 Combat Survivor Evader Locator radio...
* The US DoD acquisition office hosted the 1st Product Support Manager (PSM) Conference last week. Among the material presented there, we recommend this overview [PDF] of Open Systems Architectures (OSA) and data rights. "Data rights are rights granted to the...
Johnny 5(click to view full) It's 2020. A US soldier sits down with a village sheikh, with an unusual robot in tow. The sheikh greets him courteously, respectfully, in flowing Arabic. At the appropriate time, the robot offers the same speech in English. The soldier...
EA-6B flypast(click to view full) United Technologies subsidiary Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT recently received a $16.6 million firm-fixed-price order to repair 13 line items used on the EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare fighter's J-52/JT-8A turbojet engines....
* Trash into Gold: DARPA has a Phoenix Program to recycle satellites for parts. * One of the ship blocks for Britain's new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier had a fire. It's out, and doesn't appear to have done any significant damage, or hurt anyone. * The RAND...
AS-40 & SSN-714, Guam(click to enlarge) It's great to have a fleet of submarines, but even nuclear submarines need some level of at-sea support to improve their effectiveness. Submarine tenders can bring a boat food, fuel, weapons, and other supplies, while carrying a...
* The USAF is restructuring its Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) from 12 centers to 5 is one of the major steps within broader changes in its civilian workforce which should amount to adding "5,900 positions in acquisition, the nuclear enterprise, and intelligence,...
* The USAF proposed the debarment of 3 contractors: Advanced C4 Solutions, Inc. (headquartered in FL), Superior Communications Solutions Inc. (GA), and Iron Bow Technologies (VA) because of a "history of failure to perform [or] unsatisfactory performance." Washington...
* The Guardian in the UK has gathered and crunched more numbers on operations in Libya (see also past linkage to Libyan ops debriefing). * The Pentagon is about to brief Lockheed Martin on how much F-35s should cost. Memos have also been flying back and forth between...