Defense Business Alert

The Defense Department this week laid out the framework for implementing recent legislation meant to help pay contractors unable to work during the coronavirus outbreak.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) said today he is working to include measures that would help the U.S. defense industrial base in an upcoming COVID-19 stimulus bill being crafted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

The Army's acquisition executive and modernization chief are evaluating daily the potential impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on the service's major programs and the contractors supporting them. They say while certain events have been paused or rescheduled, they are not yet expecting any significant schedule changes.

Two defense industry groups, citing the coronavirus outbreak, are pressing lawmakers to provide a six-month extension to the deadline for when federal contractors are banned from using Chinese telecommunications products like Huwaei and ZTE.

The Space and Missile Systems Center on Friday revealed it has directed Raytheon, the prime contractor for the GPS Operational Control Segment, to replace the system's computer hardware -- a move that will add another 10 months to the program's schedule and cost the government an additional $378 million.

The coronavirus relief legislation passed by the Senate this week would loosen restrictions on how the Defense Department can award larger other transaction agreements for prototypes related to COVID-19.

The Justice Department said Thursday that United Technologies and Raytheon must divest Raytheon's military airborne radios business, UTC's military global positioning systems and UTC's large space-based optical systems businesses to move forward with the companies' planned merger.

The Pentagon's senior acquisition team has only just begun their first fully coordinated efforts to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, and pledged today to move aggressively to prop up economically vulnerable defense contractors and field "demand signals" for medical supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Navy's acquisition executive is ordering contracting officers to take steps to increase cash flow to contractors and their supply chains in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a memo obtained by Inside Defense.