CoAspire Attends @PTC Inc's Federal Aerospace and Defense Team Briefing in Vienna, Virginia

PTC's head of Federal Aerospace and Defense Major General Brent Baker, USAF (ret.) addresses the industry and government customers at the informal PTC event on July 11th in Vienna, Virginia

PTC's head of Federal Aerospace and Defense Major General Brent Baker, USAF (ret.) addresses the industry and government customers at the informal PTC event on July 11th in Vienna, Virginia

PTC Inc, a US-based, NASDAQ-traded global software company held an informative overview of how PTC software is helping both government and industries in the federal aerospace and defense markets. Briefers included technical experts from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and PTC executives. 

#JAGM-F Receives $9.8M for the Navy and $9.8M for the Marine Corps in FY19 Senate Approps Mark

JAGM Missile Manufactured by @LockheedMartin

JAGM Missile Manufactured by @LockheedMartin

On June 29th the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations publicly released its markup of the FY19 Defense Bill. The Committee added $9.8M for the US Navy for the new JAGM-F Missile, and $9.8M for the US Marine Corps in DoN RDT&E funding. This $19.6M in additional funding, if approved through the appropriations process, will allow the DoN to conduct studies and analysis and develop the new JAGM-F missile. The Air Force had already requested in their FY19 President Budget Request $31.596M for a new start for JAGM-F for their fighter aircraft.  The House also authorized similar additions for the Department of the Navy ($5M for the Navy and $5M for the Marine Corps) and authored report language, showing bi-partisan support in both chambers of Congress for this dual mode missile for fighter aircraft and the need for DoN funding. Here are links to the Senate's Mark for JAGM-F:

RDN Line 169, JAGM

+$9.8M “Program increase: Marine Corps joint air–to–ground missile for fixed wing aircraft”

https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/srpt290/CRPT-115srpt290.pdf#page=170

RDN Line 219, F/A-18 Squadrons

+$9.8M “Program increase: Navy joint air–to–ground missile for fixed wing aircraft”

https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/srpt290/CRPT-115srpt290.pdf#page=171

CoAspire has submitted its #SeaPort-Next Generation Contract Proposal

Photo US Navy

Photo US Navy

CoAspire has submitted its SeaPort-Next Generation Proposal and is excited to hopefully win a prime contract. CoAspire's teammates on this proposal (subcontractors) are Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, PTC Inc, Ventus Executive Solutions, LLC and Socius Solutions, Inc.

CoAspire is a prime on the NAVSEA SeaPort-E schedule, but NAVSEA is ending the SeaPort-E schedule and creating the SeaPort-NxG schedule. There will be similarities between the schedules but some major changes will also occur. Where SeaPort-E is broken down into seven zones based on regions across the United States, SeaPort-NxG will no longer separate contract holders into zones; all MAC holders will have the opportunity to submit proposals for any zone.

Another major change in SeaPort-NxG will be in regards to the functional areas. SeaPort-E contains 22 distinct functional areas; SeaPort-NxG is expected to have two broad functional areas – Engineering Support Services and Program Management Support Services. There will then be 29 subcategories between the two large functional areas.

Lastly, where SeaPort-E only required a contractor to have prior Department of Defense experience, SeaPort-NxG is expected to require more narrowly tailored experience specific to the Department of the Navy, which must be verifiable through the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System or government endorsement.  CoAspire has the verifiable support to the Navy as a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin.

#JAGM (Joint-Air-to-Ground Missile) passes Milestone C and Enters Low Rate Initial Production

Lockheed Martin's @JAGM (Joint-Air-to-Ground Missile)

Lockheed Martin's @JAGM (Joint-Air-to-Ground Missile)

On June 8, 2018, the Army's JAMS program office in Huntsville, Alabama approved the JAGM missile program's entry into Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP). The Lockheed Martin team successfully proved the capability of the missile during its Engineering Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase and successfully fired dozens of missiles against demanding, dynamic targets on land and at sea, resulting in the Milestone C approval and entry into LRIP. The team is now working toward service approvals for Initial Operational Capability (IOC) on the two threshold platforms, the Army's AH-64E Apache attack helicopter in 2019 and the Marine Corps for their AH-1Z Cobra attack helicopter in 2020.

Beyond the Apache and Cobra, any air (or land and sea) platform that currently fires Hellfire missiles is a candidate program for the multi-mode JAGM, including fighter aircraft for the JAGM-F missile currently under development. The Air Force requested $31.596M in their FY19 budget request for a new start for JAGM-F on F-16 and other fighter platforms. The House Armed Services Committee in their report on the FY19 NDAA spoke favorably of future integration of the #JAGM-F on Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18, F-35, and AV-8B fighters, and authorized $10M in additional funding to the DoN for that activity.

Additional details on the Milestone C and LRIP approval can be found in this Jane's 360 article by Robin Hughes: 

http://www.janes.com/article/81125/jagm-enters-lrip