The Defense Department awarded Pratt & Whitney $508 million toward the F135 engine’s sixth lot of low-rate initial production. The F135 powers the F-35 strike fighter. This transaction, announced on Oct. 23, brings the total value of the LRIP 6 contract to $1.1 billion, according to the company’s release. P&W will build 38 F135s during LRIP 6: 18 for the Air Force; six for the Marine Corps; seven for the Navy; four for Italy; and three for Australia, states the Pentagon’s list of major contracts for Oct. 23. The LRIP 6 contract maintains the same terms that were part of LRIP 5: the company will absorb 100 percent of any cost overruns, and the Pentagon and company, by a 25/75 split, will share the returns derived from the company coming in under the target cost. LRIP 6 work is scheduled for completion in June 2016. P&W said it has delivered 115 F135 production engines thus far. (See also Agreement on F-35 Engine Contract.)
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…