Defense Business Alert

The Missile Defense Agency's reliance on undefinitized contracts -- which the military uses to authorize companies to begin work on weapons projects before agreeing to final terms -- has increased dramatically over the last five years, according to a congressional audit.

The head of the Air Force Sustainment Center told lawmakers Thursday the intellectual property that supports weapon system development has become more valuable than the actual hardware -- a shift that has sparked some concern among lawmakers and the Defense Department as they struggle to negotiate with industry for access to those data rights.

The Pentagon is seeking to bolster its DIBNow system, a business intelligence and analytics capability focused on the industrial base, according to the head of the Defense Department's manufacturing and industrial base policy shop.

The Federal Trade Commission said this week it is imposing conditions on Northrop Grumman to ensure continued competition in the missile systems market following Northrop's acquisition of Orbital ATK.

Robins Air Force Base, GA, will build a blue-suit heavy maintenance enterprise for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, the second major intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to try a new sustainment approach there in as many years.

L3 Technologies and BAE Systems have stopped work on the Air Force's EC-130H Compass Call "cross-deck" program until the service can again obligate funds in two weeks, an Air Force spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

A new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program hopes to develop tools to ensure autonomous systems act properly as they evolve with machine learning, and will work with Boeing and Northrop Grumman testbeds to vet those assured autonomy techniques.

The Government Accountability Office this week denied parts of Sikorsky's challenge to how the Air Force handles data rights in the UH-1N Huey replacement program, and dismissed other points because they were raised too early or late in the competition.

A bipartisan group of senators is urging White House trade negotiators to refrain from actions that could grant China increased access to critical U.S. military technologies or undermine enforcement actions against Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corp., according to a May 22 letter.