March 28, 2024

JPALS Team Earns Top Safety Honors

An F-35C Lightning II, assigned to the “Argonauts” of Strike Fighter Squadron 147, recovers on the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) in the Philippine Sea on January 2, 2022. CVN 70 is one of five ships the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System team supported JPALS installation on last year. (US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Micheal Mensah)

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Morning Coffee logoeconomic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

The Joint Precision Approach and Landing System team overcame COVID-19 restriction obstacles internationally to support five JPALS installations and five Precision Approach Landing System certifications around the globe last year, earning the Naval Air Traffic Management Systems Program Office (PMA-213) safety honors, reports The Tester. The JPALS team was the top choice for the 2021 NAWCAD Commander’s Award in the Team Category.

Lockheed Martin is investing in the Falls Church, VA, company that is designing a prototype electric air taxi, reports WTOP News. Electra.aero hopes to begin test flights later this year.

The CIA says it has not found evidence that a foreign country was responsible for mysterious ailments suffered by hundreds of US diplomats and intelligence officials in several countries in recent years, reports NPR. The agency emphasizes that it is still investigating around two dozen cases that cannot be explained.

Russia is conducting military drills in several locations around the globe, reports ABC News, as tensions mount in Ukraine. Russia also continues to mass troops near Ukraine’s borders. SecState Antony Blinken traveled to Kyiv last week in an attempt to defuse tensions with Moscow over Ukraine, with no resolution, Reuters reported at the time.

The US State Department has authorized third-party transfers for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to send “US origin equipment from their inventories for use by Ukraine,” reports The Hill.

A half-dozen senators have introduced a bill aimed at protecting Ukrainian civilians from a potential Russian invasion by making it easier to send defensive weapons to the Eastern European nation, reports The Hill.

Lockheed Martin is continuing to eye business with Greece for combat systems upgrades and potentially a corvette, reports Breaking Defense. This comes after Lockheed lost out to the Naval Group from France for a frigate program contract.

Israel inked $3.4 billion deal with Germany to buy three Dakar-class diesel-electric submarines, reports The Associated Press. The submarines will be built by German manufacturer ThyssenKrupp.

The USS Milwaukee confiscated more than $20 million in suspected cocaine from drug smugglers in the Caribbean, reports Navy Times. The littoral combat ship is deployed with the US 4th Fleet. The Milwaukee dispatched its MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter. The US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment 402 was also involved in the operation.

President Joe Biden has set new deadlines for defense and intelligence agencies to follow cybersecurity requirements included in an executive order last year, reports Federal News Network, while centralizing oversight of the agencies’ cybersecurity at the National Security Agency. Rob Carey, former chief information officer for the Navy and deputy CIO at the Pentagon, said the memorandum was a “necessary next step,” reports C4ISRNET.

 

 

A Maryland Cybersecurity Coordinating Council report finds that more than 60% of surveyed state agencies have not performed cybersecurity risk assessments, reports Maryland Matters.

The South Carolina National Guard wants its multimillion-dollar Readiness Center being built on the campus of the University of South Carolina to be “a portal into the entire cyber enterprise of South Carolina,” reports the Aiken Standard. Guard MAJ GEN Brad Owens says Aiken County will soon be a “cyber hotbed.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross says that hackers have stolen data on more than 515,000 “highly vulnerable people,” recipients of aid and services from at least 60 affiliates of the charitable organization worldwide, reports NPR. There is concern that the hackers will ransom, leak, or sell sensitive information on the families and their locations to bad actors who might seek to cause further harm to victims.

Two Marines have died and 17 others were injured after the truck they were in rolled over near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, reports Marine Corps Times. Lance Cpl. Jonathan E. Gierke, 19, of Lawrenceville, GA, and Pfc. Zachary W. Riffle, 18, of Kingwood, WV, were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. USNI News reports the driver of the truck, Lance Cpl. Luis Poncebarrera, 19, of Springfield, TN, has been charged with two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle.

Mistakes in maintenance, pilot and technology errors, plus a wayward piece of tape compounded to cause the secretive May 2020 plane crash in Florida that totaled a US Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter, reports Military Times.

A group of House of Representatives lawmakers are asking DefSec Lloyd Austin to waive TRICARE copays for contraceptive purchases and services, reports Military Times, calling it a matter of fairness for military members and retirees.

The Maryland Comptroller’s Office announced last week that state residents will have an extra three months to file and pay their 2021 state tax returns, reports Maryland Matters. The new deadline will be Friday, July 15, 2022.

Businesses and residents in Melrose, MA, are donating to the Roll to Washington Committee, reports Patch.com. The group wants to provide Vietnam-era veterans with all-expenses-paid trips to the Washington, DC, this year. The vets will stay at Joint Base Andrews and be treated to meals and tours in the nation’s capital, including a special visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

High school students in Northern Virginia had the opportunity to participate in a Belvoir Armed Forces Communication and Electronics Association Space Alliance, or BASA, two-day hacking event, reports InsideNOVA. Students had been mastering a lot of Micro Bit coding languages such as JavaScript, TouchDevelop, and MicroPython. “These are some of our most important tools for launching visions of discovery and exploration from BASA,” said Lt. Ryan Quarry as he virtually addressed the students.

Contracts:

BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair Inc., Norfolk, Virginia, is awarded an $88,593,782 modification to exercise options on a previously awarded contract (N00024-22-C-4491) for the USS Mitscher (DDG 57) fiscal 2022 docking selected restricted availability. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by April 2023. Fiscal 2022 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $88,593,782 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

General Dynamics Information Technology Inc., Falls Church, Virginia, is awarded a $23,711,754 cost-plus-fixed-fee term contract (N00039-22-C-0001) for Enterprise Authoritative Data Environment (eADE) development and sustainment. eADE is an enterprise information management system that is migrating existing MyNavy HR legacy data warehouses into a central data repository. It provides the authoritative data sharing framework, leveraging business intelligence and data analytics capabilities to support other MyNavy HR transactional business systems. Fiscal 2022 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy); and fiscal 2022 operation and maintenance (Navy) funds are being used to for this award. The contract includes a one-year base period and a two six-month option periods. The option periods, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to an estimated $47,785,023. Work will be performed mainly in Falls Church, Virginia (38%); and New Orleans, Louisiana (21%). Approximately 41% of work will be performed in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Alabama and Arizona. Work is expected to be completed in January 2023. If options are exercised, work could continue until January 2024. This action is a result of a justification and approval that authorizes a sole source award under the authority of 10 US Code 2304(c)(1). The Naval Information Warfare System Command, San Diego, California, awarded the contract on behalf of the Navy Program Executive Office for Manpower, Logistics and Business Solutions.

BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair Inc., Norfolk, Virginia, is awarded an $88,593,782 modification to exercise options on a previously awarded contract (N00024-22-C-4491) for the USS Mitscher (DDG 57) fiscal 2022 docking selected restricted availability. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by April 2023. Fiscal 2022 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $88,593,782 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

General Dynamics Information Technology Inc., Falls Church, Virginia, is awarded a $23,711,754 cost-plus-fixed-fee term contract (N00039-22-C-0001) for Enterprise Authoritative Data Environment (eADE) development and sustainment. eADE is an enterprise information management system that is migrating existing MyNavy HR legacy data warehouses into a central data repository. It provides the authoritative data sharing framework, leveraging business intelligence and data analytics capabilities to support other MyNavy HR transactional business systems. Fiscal 2022 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy); and fiscal 2022 operation and maintenance (Navy) funds are being used to for this award. The contract includes a one-year base period and a two six-month option periods. The option periods, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to an estimated $47,785,023. Work will be performed mainly in Falls Church, Virginia (38%); and New Orleans, Louisiana (21%). Approximately 41% of work will be performed in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Alabama and Arizona. Work is expected to be completed in January 2023. If options are exercised, work could continue until January 2024. This action is a result of a justification and approval that authorizes a sole source award under the authority of 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1). The Naval Information Warfare System Command, San Diego, California, awarded the contract on behalf of the Navy Program Executive Office for Manpower, Logistics and Business Solutions.

General Dynamics NASSCO-Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia, is awarded a $199,706,285 modification to exercise options on a previously awarded contract (N00024-22-C-4490) for the USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) fiscal 2022 docking selected restricted availability. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by June 2023. Fiscal 2022 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $176,384,678 (88%) will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Fiscal 2022 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $23,321,607 (12%) will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

Huntington-Ingalls Inc. – Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Virginia, is awarded a $77,922,540 fixed-price incentive (firm target) modification to previously awarded contract N00024-15-C-2114; and a $12,527,844 cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-plus-incentive-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-09-C-2116 to definitize the incorporation of the CVN 79 warfare system. Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by June 2024. No contract funds are being obligated at this time. The Navy has transitioned CVN 79 from a two-phase to a single-phase delivery approach to meet both fleet requirements and a congressional mandate as codified in Section 124 of the Fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 116-92). Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity.

Science and Technology Corp., Hampton, Virginia, was awarded a $32,097,383 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for machine shop support services. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 20, 2027. US Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W91CRB-22-D-0004).

General Dynamic Information Technology, Falls Church, Virginia, has been awarded a $17,492,466 modification (P00013) to previously awarded contract FA4890-19-F-A022 for 480th Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Wing technical operations support. This modification exercises an option to extend the period of performance by one calendar year. Work will be performed at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; and Beale AFB, California, and is expected to be completed by Jan. 31, 2023. Fiscal 2022 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $17,492,466 are being obligated at the time of award. The total cumulative face value of the contract is $232,270,336. Air Combat Command, Acquisition Management and Integration Center, Hampton, Virginia, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Jan. 18, 2022)

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