Pentagon May Cancel Aerial Common Sensor

By GOPAL RATNAM

U.S. Army and Pentagon officials are considering canceling the Aerial Common Sensor program just 13 months after awarding Lockheed Martin an $870 million contract to develop the battlefield spy plane.

The Army's Communications Electronics Command (CEC), which runs the $7 billion Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) program, was slated to make recommendations to senior Pentagon officials Sept. 10-11, said Edward Bair, the Army's program manager for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors at CEC, Fort Monmouth, N.J.

A final decision will be made by Ken Krieg, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for acquisition, Bair said.

Industry sources say the Army may recommend accepting Lockheed's:

1- recommendations for switching airframes;
2- holding a new competition for the development contract, or
3- killing the program outright.

Two sources familiar with the Army's deliberations said the service's Systems Acquisition Review Council (ASARC) - chaired by Gen. Richard Cody, Army vice chief - met Sept. 8 and discussed program termination, among other things. The council is the Army's version of the Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board, a panel of senior officials that oversees major weapon programs.

Cody's office did not return a phone call by press time.

Army spokeswoman Nancy Ray said Cody held a meeting Sept. 8 on ACS, but a final decision is not expected until the week of Sept. 12.

The program's current review was set off in June after Lockheed officials told the Army that the plane they selected for the ACS, the ERJ-145 regional jetliner built by Brazil's Embraer, would be too small for the planned sensor package. Lockheed suggested replacing it with the larger Embraer 190 airplane.

Bair said the Army already had figured that the weight of the electronic components, cables and cooling gear would exceed Lockheed's initial estimate by 28 percent. But nine months after the contract was awarded in August 2004, Lockheed and Army officials found the increase was well over 40 percent.

The ACS began as a joint program between the Army and the Navy, but the latter service decided last year to wait and watch instead of signing on.

The Navy, which preferred a larger plane than the Army's initial choice, saw a possibility of adding ACS-like capability to their Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) progam, launched in 2004 with a $3.9 billion contract to Boeing.

In view of the Navy's reluctance, some Pentagon officials are said to favor terminating ACS and adding the Army's requirements to the Air Force's E-10A Multisensor Command and Control Aircraft, a program to replace surveillance planes such as Northrop's E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System and Boeing's E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System.

A team including Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Raytheon is currently working on the E-10A program.

Loren Thompson, analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank, said Pentagon officials concerned about the lack of adequate funds for the Air Force's E-10A were considering combining the Army's mission with that of the Air Force, and allowing the Navy to put its ACS mission on the Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft.

That option would allow Boeing, which has the Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft contract, and Northrop Grumman, which leads the E-10A effort, to gain at the expense of Lockheed Martin.

A team led by Northrop Grumman lost the ACS competition to Lockheed but continues to be interested in the program if it is open to competition, company executives said.