Northrop Tries To Save Kinetic Energy Interceptor

June 12, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Congress, Department of Defense, Events, Federal Budget Process, MDA, Northrop Grumman Corp., Restructuring, S&T, Services, development program, missile defense 

Update — On June 10th the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) terminated the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) for the convenience of the government. This meant that all of Northrop’s lobbying to continue the program to at least conducting the first key test in the program was wasted.

Moving quickly like he has on the FCS and VH-71 programs the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had another stop work order issued for a program recommended for cancellation in the 2010 budget. MDA told Northrop Grumman to halt the KEI program. This $4 billion contract had only recently been issued and the first test flight of the propulsion system was planned for later this year.

Congress has shown a great deal of support for this program recently and the decision to end it was not well received. There was some concern expressed that the program had not been given a chance to demonstrate its capability. The total missile defense budget saw almost a twenty percent cut with this and the Ground Based Mid-Course system making up the bulk of that money. The plan is to focus on the Navy’s system as well as shorter ranged Army ones.

Northrop has proposed that even with the termination of the program they will still be able to meet schedule and complete the booster test. This may be an attempt to sway Congressional and Administration support for continuing the program beyond 30 September 2009. If they really can meet this test schedule and the history of missile defense programs is not in their favor due to the complexities of the tests and technology then it might help them carry the program over.

A Northrop Grumman video on the program is below which is kind of amusing as it is done as a fake newscast:

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TSAT Contract Latest To Be Ended

June 9, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Booz Allen Hamilton, Business Line, Companies, Congress, Department of Defense, Events, Federal Budget Process, Lockheed Martin, S&T, Satellites, Services, U.S. Air Force, development program, space 

Secretary of Defense Gates announced that in the FY10 budget plenty of different programs would be ended. Unlike previous administrations who decide to de-fund a contract in next year’s budget but let the current year play out Gates has aggressively ended the contracts. The latest one announced was the U.S. Air Force’s Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT).

When the budget plans were announced in April the plan was to end this system and begin development of two new separate systems for the same mission. The TSAT like most military satellite and space programs had suffered delays and cost problems. They were not insurmountable but as time goes by the Pentagon often looks at different or new requirements that the older planned systems may not meet.

So following in the footsteps of the VH-71, Future Combat Systems (FCS) and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) programs the TSAT contracts were terminated for convenience today. There were two separate contracts — one with Lockheed Martin for mission operations systems and one with Booz Allen Hamilton for systems engineering.

One idea of doing this so fast is to prevent Congress from keeping the program alive through continuing funding despite the Pentagon’s request. Without an active contract it will be hard to do this in the next year. More to come on all of these various moves as the budget makes its progress.

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