Wind Leases Awarded off Mid-Atlantic Coast

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

The federal government has awarded two new offshore wind energy leases, one off the coast of Delaware, the other near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in southern Virginia. Maryland Matters reports, the two projects total nearly 278,000 acres, and delivered more than $92 million in bids at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auction. They are the first offshore wind leases to be awarded in the mid-Atlantic in a decade, and come at a time when several wind turbine projects, including one off the coast of Ocean City, are inching forward.

The independent White House advisory group on GPS is taking the US government to task for failing to adequately address increased risks of interference with the Pentagon-owned satellites, and for lack of progress in finding alternative positioning, navigation, and timing systems — suggesting that control of GPS functions should lie outside the Defense Department, says Breaking Defense.

An Iranian-backed cyber group is carrying out an “aggressive, multi-pronged” effort to target the US and Israel and interfere with the American presidential election, Google analysts said in a Wednesday blog post. The Hill reports the group, APT42, is associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and has consistently targeted high-ranking US and Israeli officials, including current and former government ones.

Sexual assaults in the US military are likely two to four times higher than government estimates, according to a new study out of Brown University. NBC News reports the study, completed by the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute, compared DoD data on sexual assaults with independent data since 2001. The estimates found 75,569 sexual abuse cases in 2021 and 73,695 cases in 2023, the authors wrote in the report. DoD figures estimate approximately 35,900 cases in 2021 and around 29,000 military personnel assaulted in 2023, the study said.

Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics announced a strategic partnership to produce solid rocket motors, aiming to address critical supply chain shortages in the defense industry. Space News reports the agreement, announced Aug. 13, will see General Dynamics manufacture rocket motors designed by Lockheed Martin for the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, a GPS-guided artillery rocket system used by the US military and allies for long-range fire support.

Lockheed Martin has agreed to acquire Terran Orbital, six months after the global defense giant withdrew a prior bid to take the spacecraft manufacturer private. Lockheed will pay about $51 million in cash (25 cents per share in cash) while the transaction value becomes $450 million after factoring in Terran Orbital’s debt that Lockheed will retire. The latter’s stock closed at 40 cents per share on Wednesday, reports Washington Technology.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin are in talks to sell their rocket-launching joint venture United Launch Alliance to Sierra Space, reports Yahoo!Finance. A deal could value ULA at around $2 billion to $3 billion, sources said. A deal to sell ULA, a major provider of launch services to the US government and a top rival to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, would mark a significant shift in the US space launch industry as ULA separates from two of the largest defense contractors to a smaller, privately held firm.

The second senior enlisted Army official was fired last week in the Washington, DC, area, reports Military.com. CSM Harold “Ed” Jarrell, the top enlisted leader for the Army’s 1st Information Operations Command, was relieved Tuesday, though it was unclear what led to his dismissal. That follows the Aug. 8, firing of CSM Veronica Knapp, the senior enlisted leader in charge of the Army branch that oversees operations across the greater DC region.

Nearly half of the US troops deployed to deliver aid to Gaza via a temporary pier are either home or will be home shortly, reports Military.com. The Pentagon announced that 235 soldiers returned to Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia earlier this month, about 100 more are expected to return in the coming days., and 209 sailors returned home to California last week.

The Coast Guard will use Juneau, AL, as the homeport for its commercially procured icebreaker, reports USNI. Named Aiviq, the icebreaker was built as a support vessel for Arctic oil exploration. The service plans to convert it into a medium polar icebreaker.

The US is on thin ice with its fleet of ships capable of navigating the Arctic, says Breaking Defense. To strengthen the icebreaker fleet, the US joined with Canada and Finland to build and buy icebreakers, a type of ship uniquely designed to clear out the kinds of polar ice that would otherwise sink or severely damage unprepared vessels. The agreement fits into the kind of region-specific, bi- and tri-lateral agreements the Biden administration has pursued in recent years. But where ICE Pact stands out is its nature as the rare strategic pact in which the United States’ capabilities lag behind that of its partners.

Remote sensing startup Hydrosat successfully launched its first temperature-taking sensor, last week. Breaking Defense reports the sensor is designed to measure water scarcity — a capability that already has piqued interest from the US Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. The thermal infrared camera was carried on Loft Orbital’s YAM-7 spacecraft, launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg SFB, CA, as part of the Transporter-11 rideshare mission.

The Navy has finished the first installation of a new control room on its aircraft carriers designed for the crew to operate and monitor the service’s next-generation unmanned tanker MQ-25A Stingray. The new section is dubbed the “Unmanned Air Warfare Center,” and the service finished the installation onboard the George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), reports Breaking Defense,

Members of Congress are pressing the Pentagon’s top two leaders to ensure the military is not swept up in politics during the presidential election and that active-duty troops are not used illegally as a domestic police force. Military.com reports concerns for the first presidential vote since the riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are underscored by Project 2025, the ultraconservative blueprint for the next Republican White House which includes the military actively policing the southern border, firing large swaths of the federal government workforce, and disassembling longstanding agencies, including the Justice Department.

China’s Commerce Ministry will restrict exports of a mineral used in a wide range of products from batteries to weapons, reports AP News. Export controls will be placed on antimony starting Sept. 15 to safeguard China’s security and interests and fulfill its international non-proliferation obligations, the ministry said. It wasn’t immediately clear to what extent exports would be blocked, though the “non-proliferation” wording suggested it could include weapons-related uses.

Croatia will reintroduce a two-month compulsory military service starting Jan. 1 next year, the country’s Defense Minister Ivan Anusic announced last week. The move comes amid heightened tensions in Europe following the Russian aggression against Ukraine as well as an apparent arms race and military buildup in the Balkans which went through a bloody war in the 1990s. reports AP News.

Contracts:

KBR Wyle Services LLC, Fulton, Maryland, is awarded a $7,648,673 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for research and development support for space science instruments and experimental payloads. The contract includes options, which if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of $39,992,275. Work will be performed at the US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC (NRL-DC) and is expected to be completed by August 2025. Fiscal 2024 working capital funds (Defense) in the amount of $1,303,000 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured with two offers received via Contract Opportunities on SAM.gov. US NRL, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity (N0017324C2018).

Management Services Group Inc., Virginia Beach, Virginia, is awarded a $7,616,715 firm-fixed-price modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-20-C-5608) to exercise options and procure additional spares for Network, Processing, And Storage Technical Insertion 16, Modification One. Work will be performed in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by March 2025. Fiscal 2023 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount $2,412,220 (32%); fiscal 2024 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount $1,341,756 (18%); fiscal 2022 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount $754,714 (10%); fiscal 2023 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount $750,248 (10%); fiscal 2021 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount $622,422 (8%); fiscal 2022 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount $604,400 (8%); fiscal 2024 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount $585,461 (7%); and fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount $545,494 (7%), will be obligated at time of award, of which $1,300,208 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity.

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., McLean, Virginia, was awarded a $34,241,154 modification (P00060) to contract W911S0-18-C-0004 to support for warfighter exercises and training. Work will be performed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with an estimated completion date of April 14, 2025. Fiscal 2025 operation and maintenance, Army funds were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Field Directorate Office, Fort Eustis, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

ActionNet Inc., Vienna, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B002); Agile Decision Science LLC, Huntsville, Alabama (FA8726-24-D-B003); Agile Government LLC, Harrah, Oklahoma (FA8726-24-D-B004); AT&T Corp., Columbia, Maryland (FA8726-24-D-B005); Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B006); CACI Inc. – Federal, Chantilly, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B007); CDO Technologies Inc., Dayton, Ohio (FA8726-24-D-B008); DecisiveInstincts LLC, Vienna, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B009); EPS Corp., Tinton Falls, New Jersey (FA8726-24-D-B010); General Dynamics Information Technology Inc., Falls Church, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B011); GZO Inc., San Antonio, Texas (FA8726-24-D-B012); KriaaNet Inc., Leesburg, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B013); Leidos Inc., Reston, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B014); Lumen Technologies Government Solutions Inc., Herndon, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B015); M.C. Dean Inc., Tysons, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B016); Open San Consulting LLC, Atlanta, Georgia (FA8726-24-D-B017); Q-Tech LLC, Beavercreek Township, Ohio (FA8726-24-D-B018); SMS Data Products Group Inc., McLean, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B019); Sumaria Systems LLC, Peabody, Massachusetts (FA8726-24-D-B020); Telos Corp., Ashburn, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B021); TM3 Solutions, Alexandria, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B022); Trace Systems Inc., Vienna, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B023); and Tundra Federal LLC, Herndon, Virginia (FA8726-24-D-B024), were awarded a $12,500,000,000 ceiling, multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for base infrastructure modernization. This contract provides a pool of qualified sources to modernize, operate, and maintain the network infrastructure on all Department of the Air Force locations, to include Guard and Reserve bases. Work will be performed globally and is expected to be completed by Aug. 15, 2034. This contract was a competitive acquisition, and 47 offers were received. Fiscal 2024 operation and maintenance funds in the amount of $11,500 are being obligated at time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Cyber and Networks Contracting Organization, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity.

TekPro Support Services LLC, San Antonio, Texas, is awarded a $100,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price contract (HQ0034-24-D-0026) to acquire acquisition support services for the Washington Headquarter Services Acquisition Directorate. Fiscal 2024-2025 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $100,000,000 are being obligated at the time of the award. There is no cumulative total for any prior actions on this contract. The requirement is for contract administration support services for pre-award, award, and post-award activities for Federal Acquisition Regulations-based contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, and other transaction authorities. The work will be at Alexandria, Virginia. The estimated completion date is Aug. 24, 2029. Washington Headquarters Services, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

SES Civil and Environmental LLC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was awarded a $10,398,501 firm-fixed-price contract for to install new drain systems and toe berm. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work will be performed in Boydton, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 1, 2026. Fiscal 2024 civil construction funds in the amount of $10,398,501 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington, North Carolina, is the contracting activity (W912PM-24-C-0007).