Lockheed Martin wins $213m contract to update F-35 datacenter
- Reference: 1659456905
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/02/lockheed_martin_wins_contract_to/
- Source link:
The contract awarded by the US Navy Naval Air Systems Command is for the provision of engineering, maintenance, logistics, and material support for the Phase 2 upgrade of the Australia, Canada, UK Reprogramming Laboratory (ACURL) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
The ACURL was [1]opened in 2020 and is used primarily in the ongoing development of mission data files for the F-35 stealth fighter for the UK and Australia, while Canada has yet to receive its aircraft. These mission data files are used by the plane’s onboard computer systems to help process the large volumes of data gathered by the aircraft’s array of sensors and to identify targets and threats.
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ACURL is staffed by about 110 technical personnel from the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, Lockheed Martin, and US Government. The US has its own Reprogramming Laboratory located nearby.
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According to the US Department of Defense, the contract also includes funding for Lockheed Martin to develop a new mission data production and test line to support sovereign reprogramming capabilities for UK and Australian F-35 aircraft. Initial obligated funds for the project amounting to just over $53 million will come from the Joint Strike Fighter program’s non-DOD participant account.
Work on upgrading the ACURL will be performed mostly at Eglin, Florida, with about a third being carried out at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility in Texas. The upgrade is expected to be completed by July 2027.
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Meanwhile, the troubled F-35 program saw a number of the jets grounded this week, when the maker of the ejection seats used in the aircraft, Martin-Baker, reported a potential flaw with the actuation cartridge in an F-35 in the US. However, Bloomberg reports that the jets have resumed flights after inspections were carried out to other aircraft.
[6]Homes in London under threat as datacenters pull in all the power
[7]Why the end of Optane is bad news for all IT
[8]There is a path to replace TCP in the datacenter
[9]Huawei under investigation for having tech installed near US missile silos
The UK Ministry of Defence has also confirmed plans to replace a British F-35B that fell into the Mediterranean following a failed take-off from the deck of aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth last year, according to the [10]UK Defence Journal .
Lockheed Martin reported Q2 2022 net sales of $15.4 billion last month, compared to $17 billion in the second quarter of 2021. Net earnings in the quarter were $309 million, compared to $1.8 billion in the same quarter of 2021. This included non-operational charges totaling $1.7 billion, the company said. ®
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[1] https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/multi-million-dollar-lightning-data-centre-ready-for-action/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yumel@d0nRpOJYWTVgQRwAAAAFE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/london_electricity_supply_barrier_to_housing/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/optane_intel_cancellation/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/27/replace_tcp_datacenter/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/21/huawei_missile_silo_spying/
[10] https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-replacing-crashed-f-35/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
eff-35s
I am the only engineer I knew who never worked in defence, but their stories are funny.
Like when the Tornado nose cone was filled by concrete because the electronics designed to fit in their were imperial measurements, rather than metric. The concrete was fr alance Effing Ferranti strikes again. I'd rename myself too after that devastating error.
How much more money is going to be poured into this money pit?
One machine cannot be all things for everything. Then there is the problem of too much interrelated electronics in these planes. Does it still take 20 minutes to boot up so they can take off? War planes of old could roll out to the take off point as their engines were revving up to speed. Seconds.
And as for the A10, those things were pretty much indestructible. One even flew home and landed safely with only one wing. Try that with a F-35.
Re: How much more money is going to be poured into this money pit?
'One even flew home and landed safely with only one wing. Try that with a F-35.'
Even with both wings I wouldn't put money on it.
Hog Love
While I do get the love for the warthog, I think we're letting nostalgia get in the way of the real issues here. The company that built the A-10 doesn't even exist anymore. It's a testament to the design, and it was, and IS a good design, that they are still flying all these years later.
Its also a testament to greed, ineptitude and corruption that has seized control of the US aerospace industry. It was literally cheaper and easier for the US government to take over R&D, modernization, and maintenance from a dead company for a good aircraft than to get their preferred contractors to build them one.
That said, we need a modernized A-10 like aircraft more then the A-10 proper. Any plane in that airspace will be facing SAMs, MANPADs, and UAV swarms. So we should take what is good about the design and carry it forward, so a two-seater command aircraft can lead and direct the probably unmanned gun-slugs. But instead of a paper wasp like the F-35 with no mission endurance, build both the attack and command aircraft to be survivable and have a long loiter time to do their job of close air support properly. Probably back them up with some super-tucanos to mop up the squishy bits afterward. Because that would make sense. Because we could have gotten through the entire design, testing, and production phases by 2027 during the wars that aircraft like the Mustang, the C-130 , and the B-52 were developed in or between. Our record for R&D after Vietnam went downhill quickly. Now we can't even buy a cargo plane that is as capable as the one it's replacing. So we had paratroopers either training in ancient (and occasionally literally salvaged aircraft) because the replacements left too much turbulence in their wake for subsequent aircraft to release jumpers safely. All of these things get people killed.
This stuffs not getting messed up because it's too hard, to high tech, or to expensive. It's just our government is too corrupt and the people who have been doing it haven't been fired yet.
On a different note
... What happened to all those fantastic A-10's these were supposed to replace. I Know a country that would love them right now.