The Other Shoe Could Drop: When Ken Krieg, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, decided to save the costly and technologically immature National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, he told lawmakers that prime contractor Northrop Grumman could be canned if it doesn’t turn the program around, reports Reuters news service. According to Reuters, Krieg sent a “private letter” to Capitol Hill that included the warning when he made official notification to lawmakers that the program was essential despite breaching the Nunn-McCurdy line. There is at least one senior defense analyst, though, who does not consider the Nunn-McCurdy breach to be much more than an accounting glitch.
The Air Force still needs more than 300 combat squadrons, but the biggest priority is not number of squadrons but capability, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said Sept. 22. He also suggested the records set by the Next Generation Air Dominance prototype likely have more to do…