IDEX: QinetiQ Reaches Research Deal With Saudis

ABU DHABI - British defense technology company QinetiQ has inked a memorandum of understanding to undertake joint development work with a leading Saudi Arabia research center.

QinetiQ said in a statement released Feb. 20 at IDEX 2011 that it had agreed a deal with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) to collaborate on a range of research and technology development programs.

The sectors being eyed for collaboration include autonomy, robotics, sensors, communications and remote sensing, QinetiQ said.
Based in Riyadh, KACST is the Saudi national science agency and manages Saudi Arabia's national laboratories.

Pentagon Contract Auditors Overwhelmed

The agency that makes sure the U.S. Defense Department and other agencies are not overcharged by contractors is overwhelmed.
The volume of contractor work that has been paid for by federal departments but that still awaits auditing by the Defense Contract Audit Agency has nearly quadrupled - from $110 billion in 2006 to $405 billion in 2010. But in the same period, the Defense Contract Audit Agency's staffing grew by only 20 percent.

The $405 billion represents approximately 20,000 contracts, most of which were awarded by the Defense Department in support of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Kenneth Saccoccia, DCAA's assistant director of policy and plans. Of that, about a third - 6,500 contracts valued at an estimated $220 billion - have been awaiting auditing for more than a year.
"And intentionally, we have deferred it because of the resources," Saccoccia said in an interview. "We've dedicated those resources to higher-priority work, like forward-pricing work," which reviews contracts before they are finalized to help contracting officers negotiate a price.
The result of the backlog is that an estimated billions of dollars worth of savings are not being identified and returned to the Defense Department, experts say.
Also, such delays make it more difficult for auditors to prove overcharging that occurred years ago, because people involved with those transactions have moved on to other jobs or they remember less about the circumstances surrounding particular transactions.
Michael Thibault, who has been investigating DCAA's work as co-chair of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, said the agency needs a bigger audit staff, but that solution will take time.
Thibault blames the agency's inadequate staffing levels on poor planning by the Defense Department. Over the last several years, DoD contracting increased to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet DCAA staffing levels remained about the same, he said.
"They should have been increasing the oversight needed for contracts … and they just didn't," Thibault said. "They missed it."
DCAA has added about 500 auditors to its work force over the last couple of years. Director Patrick Fitzgerald said in an interview last year that he plans to add 1,000 more by 2015. But Saccoccia said the current budget standstill makes staffing plans difficult to predict.
In the meantime, Thibault, who worked at DCAA for more than 30 years, including a 10-year stint as its deputy director, said he supports other solutions Fitzgerald has outlined, including changing the risk thresholds that require forward-pricing audits and simplifying the business systems that auditors use.
Still, as auditors work through the buildup from 2006 through 2008, 2009 and 2010 audits are piling up, Thibault said.
Since some problems that auditors find occur more than once, that means issues that could have been identified in 2006 and prevented in the following years may have happened repeatedly, he said.
Thibault and others, like Nick Schwellenbach with the Project on Government Oversight, are especially concerned about the amount of money being left on the table as these contracts go unaudited.
Historically, DCAA identifies between 1 percent and 2 percent in savings from incurred cost audits, Thibault said.
That means $4 billion could be recovered right now if DCAA were to complete backlogged audits. And the longer it takes to audit a contract, the greater the chances that records get lost and employees change jobs, Thibault said.
Saccoccia said timeliness is always a concern at DCAA. But he said they hope contracting rules allow DCAA to obtain sufficient evidence from the contractor to perform quality audits and give contracting officers necessary information for negotiations to close contracts.
DCAA also has turned down some audit requests from non-Defense agencies that pay for its services, forcing those departments to seek audit help from private firms, and causing some to revive suggestions for another audit agency within the federal government to serve non-DoD agencies.
Saccoccia said audits of incurred contract costs can be put on the back burner because they can be picked up more easily at a later time than forward-pricing audits, which can hold up a contract award.
"The audit effort on those high-risk proposals is crucial to ensure the fair and reasonable price is established by the contracting officer," he said.
At a Senate contract oversight committee hearing this month, Schwellenbach spoke in favor of creating another audit agency.
He said the contract auditing done by DCAA is highly specialized and often cannot be replicated by inspectors general or outside auditors. And with more contracts coming out of non-Defense agencies, DCAA's problems could get worse, he said.
Schwellenbach pointed to recent criticisms of DCAA's past auditing practices as the cause of the backlog, saying auditors now take much longer to perform their duties for fear of mistakes.
"Some of that makes sense given the problems, but some think the pendulum has swung too far the other way," he said. "Essentially, taxpayers are going to be the big losers."
Despite the slowdown, Saccoccia said the percentage of costs DCAA questioned more than doubled in 2010 when compared with the average between 2001 and 2008, resulting in a savings of almost $3 billion.
"Really, we focus on the high-risk areas," he said. "Right now, I would say wartime contracting is our highest risk. So this year, we're dedicating resources in that area for looking at those incurred costs."
DCAA plans to get auditors to spend one-third more time on incurred cost audits then they did in 2010, Saccoccia said.
"That's our initial plan," he said. "That always can change, based on higher-risk forward-pricing effort that comes in."

IDEX: ATK To Modify Planes for Jordanian Military

ABU DHABI - The Jordanian military is turning two CASA-235 aircraft into heavily armed gunships and has contracted ATK to modify the transport aircraft, the U.S. firm announced Feb. 20 at IDEX 2011.

A graphic of the gunship that ATK will produce for the Royal Jordanian Air Force. (ATK)

ATK is partnering with Jordanian state-owned King Abdullah II Design and Development Bureau to modifying the EADS-built aircraft in time for a late spring 2013 delivery to the Royal Jordanian Air Force.

ATK will install and integrate electro-optical targeting systems, a laser designator, aircraft self-protection equipment, and an armaments capability that includes Hellfire laser-guided missiles, 2.75-inch rockets, and a M230 link-fed 30mm chain gun similar to the one ATK supplies for the Apache attack helicopter.
Work will be performed in Jordan and at three ATK sites in the U.S.
ATK's special mission aircraft business in 2008 modified a Cessna Grand Caravan to an armed configuration for the Iraqi military. The aircraft has a similar weapons fit to the Jordanian aircraft. Its capabilities include air-to-air and air-to-ground data links.
In a separate announcement involving Jordan, the Austrian rotary unmanned air systems supplier Schiebel said it had delivered two Camcopter S-100 machines to KADDB. The vehicles will be used by the Royal Jordanian Air Force for surveillance and reconnaissance duties.

ABU DHABI - A David-and-Goliath pairing of L-3 Communications and armored vehicle minnow Total Mobility Vehicles (TMV) made their debut together Feb. 20 on the opening day of IDEX 2011, marrying a new 6x6 platform with an integrated network of sensors and displays.

U.S. systems giant L-3 is teaming with the British vehicle maker to showcase an array of capabilities based on what it calls its Ruggedized Command and Control Network.

L-3 demonstrated a virtual version of a generic vehicle, deploying its RCCN system to potential customers in the U.S. last year.
This time it has gone one better, and it brought the real deal in the shape of the imposing TMV vehicle fitted out with its systems and products to IDEX 2011, which runs through Feb. 24.
The "best way to demonstrate the company's vehicle networking capabilities is on a rolling test bed and the newly designed TMV vehicle is the perfect fit," said Pete Alexander, business development director for L-3's San Diego-based Ruggedized Command & Control Solutions business.
The tie-up with TMV doesn't mean L-3 is getting into the platform business. But Alexander said it does show L-3's ability to integrate systems from across the marketplace, including many in-house technologies, in a rugged open architecture network.
"We are vehicle agnostic and equipment agnostic; we are not vertically aligned; and we can play in the field as a neutral, trusted supplier," he said.
Alexander said some of the vehicle primes have been bringing equipment capability back in-house in recent times - and in doing so they "have pigeon holed themselves" to provide only what solutions they can offer from their own product ranges.
L-3 marketing literature at the show claims the RCCN is the "first operationally proven, truly agnostic vehicle network solution."
Alexander said L-3 can supply solutions free of U.S. technology export restrictions, if required.
TMV brought a special forces-configured vehicle to IDEX, with L-3's RCCN providing the electronic backbone for a baseline suite of capabilities that includes displays, data receiver terminals, vision enhancers, event recorders and electronic jammers.
Other 6x6 versions of the TMV, like an armored personnel carrier, could include remote weapons stations, mast mounted sensor suites, weapon sights and electro optical/infrared systems.
For TMV, the association with L-3 "demonstrates to potential customers the ease of integrating top-line systems into our vehicle and helps people recognize our ambitions in the marketplace," said John Stretton, the British company's managing director.
TMV, an outgrowth of the Leyland Technical Centre, has matured the high protection, high mobility 6x6 vehicle to the point where it could deliver a fully integrated machine to a customer in the first quarter of 2012, Stretton said.
It's not just the military on which TMV is focusing, Stretton said. Applications like border patrol and emergency response vehicles are also in the company's sights. And 4x4 and 8x8 versions of the vehicle also are on the drawing board.

Israel Remains Alarmed At Iranian Ship Moves

JERUSALEM - Israel views with "gravity" what Iran says is the "routine" dispatch of two warships to the Mediterranean, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Feb. 20, as the vessels were expected to pass through the Suez Canal.
During his weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israel viewed the movement as an Iranian power play.

"Today we are witnessing the instability of the region in which we live and in which Iran is trying to profit by extending its influence by dispatching two warships to cross the Suez Canal," Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office.
"Israel views with gravity this Iranian initiative and other developments that reinforce what we have said in past years about the Israel's security needs."
Last week, Israel Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called the move a "provocation."
Egypt has given two Iranian ships permission to use the waterway en route to Syria.
The move - the first time Iranian warships will have transit ted the canal since the Islamic revolution of 1979 - is "routine" and "short term," an Iranian diplomat said.
"This will be a routine visit, within international law, in line with the cooperation between Iran and Syria, who have strategic ties," the diplomat said.
"The ships will spend a few days in Syrian ports for training purposes," having already visited several countries including Oman and Saudi Arabia."
A senior Suez Canal official said that the warships had yet to reach the waterway, after Iranian television earlier reported that they were already in the Mediterranean.
"No Iranian ships have passed. Not today, not yesterday, not the day before," according to operations room chief Ahmed al-Manakhly.
Manakhly did not say when the Iranian ships were scheduled to arrive, but canal officials have privately said they were expected early Feb. 21.
Kharg has a crew of 250 and can carry up to three helicopters. Alvand is armed with torpedos and anti-ship missiles.
Egypt's MENA news agency reported that the request for the ships to pass through the Suez Canal said they were not carrying weapons, or nuclear or chemical materials.

IDEX 2011 Underway in Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI - The largest defense equipment exhibition in the Middle East opened in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi on Feb. 20, as military spending continues to grow in the region amid rising tensions.

Sheik Mohammed shakes hands with executives from Lockheed Martin and Boeing at IDEX 2009. The 2011 edition of the show opened Feb. 20 in Abu Dhabi. (Staff file photo)

The International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) 2011 opened with a parade of helicopters, fighter jets and armoured vehicles, in the presence of UAE Prime Minister and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum.

The 10th edition of the biennial show is taking place as the region is hit by a wave of protests that toppled veteran leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and threatens other regimes.
The conference, which will continue until Feb. 24, hosts more than 1,000 exhibitors. Nearly 50,000 visitors are expected from around the world.
More than 30 pavilions most of them belonging to the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Britain, France and Germany, were spread over 124,000 square meters (0.05 square miles).
A naval defense industries exhibition, Navdex, is being organized for the first time this year.
Manufacturers worldwide are racing to seal contracts with Gulf states, who are fearful of Iran and possessing spending power buoyed by high oil prices.
The six Gulf Cooperation Council countries - Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait - along with Jordan are set to spend $68 billion on defense in 2011, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan. Their spending is expected to reach nearly $80 billion in 2015.

Europe's Earthcare space laser mission gets go ahead

Europe's Earthcare satellite is unlikely to get into space before 2016

Europe is to press ahead with its Earthcare space laser mission, despite a 30% rise in its probable final cost.

The satellite will study the role clouds and atmospheric particles play in a changing climate.
But the difficulty in finding a workable design for the spacecraft's lidar instrument means its total budget will now top 590m euros (£500m).
Member states of the European Space Agency are convinced though that Earthcare will deliver invaluable data.
Delegates to the 18-nation alliance this week accepted the findings of a review that assessed the technical risks of proceeding.
They also heard a clear message from the scientific community that Earthcare would do pioneering research.
"The Programme Board confirmed the conclusions of the independent assessment," said Dr Volker Liebig, Esa's director of Earth observation.
"This re-affirmed the high scientific value of the Earthcare mission - that there are unique synergies between all the instruments and it makes no sense to remove any of them. The board is confident that all has been done to reach the mission objectives in the 'costs at completion' which are at the moment foreseen," he told BBC News.
Earthcare is one of Esa's proposed Earth Explorers - a series of spacecraft that will do innovative science in obtaining data on issues of pressing environmental concern.
Three missions have so far gone into orbit, returning remarkable new information on gravity, polar ice cover, soil moisture and ocean salinity.
Earthcare will study how clouds and aerosols (fine particles) form, evolve and affect our climate, the weather and air quality.

Climate modellers need more information on clouds

Scientists say knowledge gaps in such areas severely hamper their ability to forecast future change.
Different sorts of cloud have different effects. For example, low cloud can help cool the planet while high cloud can act as a blanket.
Developing the primary instrument on Earthcare to get at this information has proved extremely problematic, however.
Prime contractor, Astrium-France, has had a torrid time arriving at a design that will reliably work in the vacuum of space.
A fundamental re-configuration of the lidar has added significantly (140m euros) to the projected total mission cost.
It has also delayed the mission's probable launch date to 2016 - two years later than recent estimates.
Concerned about developments, member state delegations had requested a review of the project's status.
The lidar will fire pulses of ultraviolet light down into the atmosphere.

EUROPE'S EARTH EXPLORERS

• Goce was launched in 2009 to map the subtle variations in Earth's gravity field
• Smos (above) has been studying ocean salinity and soil moisture for over a year
• Cryosat-2 was launched in 2010 to measure the shape and thickness of polar ice
• Swarm is a trio of satellites that will map the Earth's magnetism from next year
• Aeolus is another innovative laser mission that will measure winds across the globe
• Earthcare was selected in 2004 to examine the role of clouds and aerosols in climate change
• Two other missions will emerge from competitive selection processes

From the way this light is scattered back to the spacecraft, scientists can build up a picture of where in the atmosphere different cloud types and aerosols reside.

Combined with the data from three other instruments onboard, it should then be possible to work out the implications for the energy budget of the Earth.
"The board was asked to look into a potential de-scoping of the mission, but it was the clear view of all the scientists that the breakthrough Earthcare will deliver comes from the combination of all the instruments," Dr Liebig said.
Europe has yet to fly a space lidar mission and so developing this expertise is seen as an important technology goal for Esa.
Earth observation is currently the agency's biggest programme, representing a fifth of its total budget or 844m euros in 2011.
The extra cost of Earthcare will need to be absorbed, but Dr Liebig said the tendency of all high-technology missions to slip over time meant the additional expenditure could be managed in an affordable way.
Like all Esa missions, Earthcare will be a pan-European effort. However, the mission has particular significance for the UK.
The main structure of the spacecraft will be built in Britain (Astrium-UK at Stevenage), as will two of its instruments, at SSTL (Guildford) and SEA Group Ltd (Frome).
The fourth instrument on Earthcare is being supplied by Japan.