Historied USS Nevada Found 3 Miles Deep Off Pearl Harbor
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The USS Nevada (BB-36), perhaps the most resilient battleship in the history of the US Navy, has been located nearly 70 nautical miles southwest of Pearl Harbor at a depth of nearly three miles, reports Navy Times. Commissioned in 1916, the ship went on to survive the bombing of Pearl Harbor and fight in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of WWII, and play a role in the emerging atomic age.
Maryland Matters reports Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh led a coalition of 20 attorneys general seeking more protections for poultry and meatpacking workers in Maryland and across the country. There were 362 confirmed COVID-19 cases connected to the poultry industry in Maryland as of Tuesday. The Salisbury Daily Times report a worker at the Perdue plant died in April. A database maintained by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting shows at least 12,500 positive COVID-19 cases and 53 worker deaths tied to meatpacking facilities in at least 180 plants in 31 states as of Tuesday.
The Space Force plans to launch its secretive X-37B space plane Saturday. The US military has delayed a number of other launches because of coronavirus, but Russia and China continue to launch military rockets and test space weapons amid the coronavirus pandemic, reports Defense One. An April-scheduled GPS satellite launch will now go “no earlier than June 30” to “minimize the potential of COVID-19 exposure to the launch crew and early-orbit operators,” the Space and Missile Systems Center said in an April 7 statement. And C4ISRNET reported the postponement of the launch of three US spy satellites from New Zealand. Spaceflight Now reported a National Reconnaissance Office satellite launch scheduled for June has been delayed until late August.
The new Space Force will work alongside California-based SpaceX to get a detailed look into how the company makes its commercial and civil launches successful, reports Military.com. SpaceX won, earlier this month, an $8.9 million contract to provide non-National Security Space Fleet surveillance for space launches for non-National Security Space missions. Space Force launched its first national security satellite in March, the sixth and final satellite in the communications constellation giving tactical and strategic support to troops and allies around the world.
The Government Accounting Office sees a threat to the ramping up of F-35 production as more suppliers fall behind, reports Military News. The GAO report found 2,000 parts were delivered late to the F-35 in August 2017, but the number had grown to 10,000 in July 2019. And that supply chain problems could become worse as Turkish defense manufacturers are pushed out of the program.
The USS Philippine Sea, a guided-missile cruiser, spilled 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the York River last week, reports Navy Times. The ship was at a pier at the Naval Weapons Station in Yorktown. The Navy reported a fuel vacuum truck and fuel-absorbing materials were put in place immediately and most of the fuel was contained.
For the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tricare will cover telehealth visits by telephone and has eliminated the patient co-pays and cost shares for telehealth options, reports Military Times.
The Navy is paying a dry waterpark outside Chicago $1.1 million to quarantine all new enlisted recruits to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak at the service’s sole boot camp, reports USNI. Since April 20, roughly 500 aspiring sailors per week are housed, fed, and trained at the Great Wolf Lodge Water Park in Gurnee, IL, about seven miles from Naval Station Great Lakes. The initial contract expires May 20 and will be reviewed to determine whether the Navy needs to make any adjustments.
The Silicon Valley-based tech startup ForAllSecure won a $45 million Defense Innovation Unit contract to test the cybersecurity of DoD’s weapon systems, reports Fifth Domain. The prototype testing platform Mayhem has been working DoD components for more than three years. ForAllSecure is working with the Air Force 96th Cyberspace Test Group, the Air Force 90th Cyberspace Operations Squadron, the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), and the US Army Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center (C5ISR).
The War Zone presents recently unclassified reports on eight unidentified flying hazards spotted by Navy jets over the mid-Atlantic coast. Seven sightings are from pilots of Super Hornets between 2013 and 2014 in a patch of airspace off the coast of Virginia and North Carolina known as the W-72 warning area. The eighth, in 2019, is from an EA-18G Growler flying in a different portion of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maryland called the W-386 warning area. The reports are from the centralized computer database that is supposed to contain all such hazard and flight incident reports that Navy.
The Air Force took T-formation landings out of its pilot training syllabus March 5, after a November 2019 crash killed an instructor and student pilot, reports Air Force Magazine. The crash was blamed on pilot error and found, since T-formation landings rarely occur, instructor pilots are no longer as proficient in the maneuver.
Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke, the commander of special operations, calls countering violent extremist groups a generational issue and said it will remain the number one priority for US special operators, reports Military Times.
Contracts:
Strategic Airborne Operations JV LLC, Newport News, Virginia, is awarded a $146,834,175 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This contract acquires the High Endurance Electronic Warfare Jet (HEEWJ) capability. Work will be performed in Cherry Point, North Carolina (5%); and various locations within and outside the continental US (95%) to be determined on individual orders. The HEEWJ capability is an offensive air support for training that provides regionally based, geographically distributed aviation with a variety of airborne threat simulation capabilities to train shipboard and aircraft weapon systems operators and aircrew to counter enemy electronic warfare and electronic attack operations in today’s electronic combat environment in support of Department of the Navy, other Department of Defense (DOD) agencies, non-DOD government agencies and Foreign Military Sales customers. Work is expected to be completed in May 2024. No funds will be obligated at the time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposal, and two offers were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00421-20-D-0108).
Q.E.D. Systems Inc., Virginia Beach, Virginia, is awarded a $16,205,606 modification to previously awarded contract N00024-15-C-4400 for specification development and execution/procurement support services in support of Chief of Naval Operations availabilities, continuous maintenance availabilities (CMAVs), inactivation CMAVs, sustainment availabilities, phased modernization availabilities, re-commissioning availabilities, continuous maintenance and emergent maintenance window of opportunity for Navy surface combatant ship classes (CG 47/DDG 51). Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia (53%); San Diego, California (36%); and Everett, Washington (11%). Work is expected to be complete by October 2020. No funding will be obligated at time of award. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
BAE Systems, Information and Electronic Systems Integration Inc., Greenlawn, New York, is awarded a $14,465,881 modification (P00010) to previously awarded, firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00019-17-D-0006. This modification adds the requirement to procure 46 AN/UPX-41(C) digital interrogators and 10 Mode 5 change kits for the Navy, Coast Guard, the government of Japan and various countries under the Foreign Military Sales program. Work will be performed in Greenlawn, New York (80%); Austin, Texas (10%); and Manassas, Virginia (10%), and is expected to be complete by May 2023. No funds are being obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
CACI Enterprise Solutions Inc., Chantilly, Virginia, is awarded a $13,904,377 cost-plus-fixed-fee task order modification in the four option years of the integrated business systems support services contract (N32205-19-F-1044 and P00008). Information technology services in this contract assist Military Sealift Command’s business systems and ashore operations branch to manage, operate and maintain the command’s business systems, as well as interfaces with the Navy Enterprise Defense Business Systems. Work under this modification will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be complete by December 2023. This modification includes the remaining portion (eight months) of Option Year One as well as three 12-month options. If exercised, the cumulative value of this modification will be $13,598,409. The task order was competitively procured with proposals and four offers were received. The Naval Military Sealift Command, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a Lockheed Martin Co., Stratford, Connecticut, is awarded an $8,954,062 modification (P00091) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract N00019-14-C-0050. This modification provides support for the integration and transition of Windows 10 and Server 16 into various VH-92A training devices. Work will be performed in Quantico, Virginia, and is expected to be complete by October 2022. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,667,720 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Northrop Grumman, McLean, Virginia, was awarded a $176,471,668 modification (P00056) to contract W58RGZ-17-C-0014 to support Army special electronic mission aircraft fixed-wing life cycle services. Work will be performed in McLean, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 31, 2020. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $176,471,668 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.
Qualx Corp., Springfield, Virginia, was awarded a $7,003,493 modification (P00010) to contract W91QF0-18-F-0047 for digitization of archival materials for the Army Heritage and Education Center. Work will be performed in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 25, 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $7,003,493 were obligated at the time of the award. Mission and Installation Contracting Command, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity.
