The Navy selected a Textron-led team to build the Ship-to-Shore Connector and awarded the team a contract worth $212 million for detail design and construction of the craft, the Defense Department announced late last week.404 words

In the midst of an ongoing review of the number of sailors needed to crew the Littoral Combat Ship, a top LCS official told Inside the Navy last week that he was confident the crew size was where it needed to be. 543 words

The Marine Corps is seeking a small unmanned aerial system that can deliver much less cargo than a K-MAX helicopter but is able to go anywhere on the battlefield without the need for a ground station, a Marine Corps Warfighting Lab official told Inside the Navy last week. 729 words

The Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar will undergo a redesign to strengthen the support holding the antenna before the end of the calendar year, according to a Marine Corps official. 777 words

The Navy's interim afloat forward-staging base, the modified amphibious transport dock Ponce (LPD-15), arrived in Bahrain on July 6, several decades after U.S. Central Command first asked for an AFSB. Military Sealift Command refurbished the ship, which departed its homeport in Norfolk, VA, on June 1 and will support mine countermeasures ships and MH-53s in the Persian Gulf. The ship will feature a crew of 55 sailors and about 150 civilian mariners from Military Sealift Command.76 words

The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate is looking to industry to widen the scope of its applied research, advanced technology development, and advanced component development and prototypes, according to industry day presentation slides.499 words

The Littoral Combat Ship's surface warfare mission package recently completed its developmental testing and "utterly destroyed" all of its targets in a month-long demonstration of its system integration, a program official told Inside the Navy last week. 638 words

The Navy is taking a "measured approach toward the development and implementation of lasers" as weapons aboard ships, but Congress may consider whether a program of record is needed to more clearly dictate how to proceed, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report.902 words

Training crews and pilots for the Navy's F-35C carrier variant will begin in earnest "tentatively" at around the end of the year when the fourth lot of low-rate initial production aircraft begin arriving at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, a Lockheed official said in a recent interview. 308 words

Lockheed Martin's Infrared Search and Track system for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet recently completed its integrated baseline review and is preparing for two upcoming critical design reviews, working its way toward entering the fleet and becoming what a company official characterized as a "force multiplier" for the Navy.806 words

The Navy is looking for industry input on the best way to structure the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services full deployment production unit contract, according to a Federal Business Opportunities notice.353 words

Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Patuxent River, MD, is seeking to become an unmanned aerial system "center of excellence" by contracting with a non-profit organization to help it open up government facilities to industry who want to show the Navy what technology they have to offer, an organization official told Inside the Navy last week. 498 words

Senate authorizers believe that the National Security Agency should not have developed its own cloud computing database and want to prohibit other Defense Department components from using it -- unless the Pentagon's chief information officer certifies there are no viable commercial open-source databases with the same security features.818 words

The Defense Department has issued new guidance designed to improve industry's compliance with DOD rules for tracking the cost and schedule of major weapons programs.365 words

The Defense Logistics Agency has accelerated its audit-readiness deadline to fiscal year 2015 -- two years earlier than a congressionally mandated timetable.611 words