Lockheed Martin Screwup Delays Delivery of Air Force GPS Satellites (bloomberg.com) 68
schwit1 writes: Incompetence by a Lockheed Martin subcontractor will delay the delivery of 32 new Air Force GPS satellites and will likely cost the government millions. Bloomberg reports: "Lockheed has a contract to build the first 10 of the satellites designed to provide a more accurate version of the Global Positioning System used for everything from the military's targeting of terrorists to turn-by-turn directions for civilians' smartphones. The program's latest setback may affect a pending Air Force decision on whether to open the final 22 satellites to competition from Lockheed rivals Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. 'This was an avoidable situation and raised significant concerns with Lockheed Martin subcontractor management/oversight and Harris program management,' Teague said in a Dec. 21 message to congressional staff obtained by Bloomberg News. The parts in question are ceramic capacitors that have bedeviled the satellite project. They take higher-voltage power from the satellite's power system and reduce it to a voltage required for a particular subsystem. Last year, the Air Force and contractors discovered that Harris hadn't conducted tests on the components, including how long they would operate without failing, that should have been completed in 2010. Now, the Air Force says it found that Harris spent June to October of last year doing follow-up testing on the wrong parts instead of samples of the suspect capacitors installed on the first three satellites. Harris 'immediately notified Lockheed and the government' after a post-test inspection, Teague said in his message." So, the subcontractor first failed to do the required tests, then they did the tests on the wrong parts. Sounds like the kind of quality control problems we have seen recently in Russia and Japan. The worst part? The contract is a cost-plus contract, which means the U.S. tax payer has to absorb the additional costs for fixing the screw-up, not Lockheed Martin or its subcontractor.
cost plus contract (Score:2)
And which fucktard in the government signed this stinker? Might this fucktard now be on Lockheed Martin's payroll now?
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. . . Let us be thankful that contractors don't make mistakes like this when building nuclear weapons . . .
Re: cost plus contract (Score:1)
I dunno, the headline isn't bad:
Today, due to component failure, instead of nuclear annihilation, the US and Russia pledge to investigate the simultaneous failure of Bobby's Bargain Basement Bomb Components.
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Think of the lowest tender when you talk about nuclear weapons. Just to make you feel that little bit cosier keep in mind defence contractors first priority is to executive bonuses, than shareholder returns and then maintaining staff and somewhere in no mans land, defence of the country. If they can produce cheap crap that fails with maximum profit margins and get away with it, they will and they will do it on purpose, so they can replace that crap with, more crap.
When defence contractors first priority is
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Re:cost plus contract (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes: Cost plus does not mean unlimited budget (Score:1)
I'm a veteran of several federal and various state contracts. As turkeydance described, cost plus doesn't mean spend whatever the hell you want. Generally even with cost plus you have to get a change order to approve the additional costs, basically an addendum to the original contract. In my experience they're absolutely necessary because the client (the government) frequently changes requirements midstream. About half the time it's because of changing leadership/priorities and even changing laws. The
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1. if the US Government (contracting agency) changes anything after awarding the bid, cost plus activates. 2. if any other Government (China) changes any procurement procedures, cost plus activates. 3. finally, if an Act of God, War, or other devastation delays fulfillment, cost plus activates.
I don't know anything about cost plus contracts, but of the three things you listed, incompetence/negligence doesn't appear to activate cost plus.
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Cost plus contracts are NOT the only ones bid legitimately... its normally the opposite. if you know you are you are going to get paid for your actual hours worked, you bid as low as you can justify and then incur over runs later for "risks"', etc.
Point (1): no cost plus never "kicks in" like this. Even in other contract types if anything is ch
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Actually, it stops with the Contracting Officer on the government side, but the vast majority of them are incompetent, corrupt, or both.
Drain the fucking swamp!
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They tried to drain the swamps in the DC metro area many, many years ago. Problem was the swampy waters were replaced with the most vile creatures on the planet, politicians.
Drain the swamp? How about we re-flood the swamp and drown all of the bastards.
Re: Who wrote this title? (Score:3)
And there won't be any accountability (Score:3)
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Donald Trump will fix it. He will tweet something mean and cow them into submission.
He'll moo at them? I've seen some cows who appear, at first blush, smarter than our current president ,but I don't think you can tweet with hooves.
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He'll moo at them? I've seen some cows who appear, at first blush, smarter than our current president ,but I don't think you can tweet with hooves.
That...can't be true...we have many demons in Washington, and they manage to type with hooves all the time.
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What's the alternative? Project finished on time, and on budget. Government moves to roll out the next one, Lockheed Martin get given it and life carries on.
In the case of these style of government contracts it becomes silly to consider the contract at hand. Instead simply consider everyone involved to simply be a salary member of government staff. All that's really happening is the project is slightly behind delaying the next one. The tax payer is still breaking even as there's never a period where Lockhee
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The alternative is to ban "cost plus" contracts. Screw up and overrun the costs specified in you bid? Tough cookies. Eat it on your P&L leader, and do a better job bidding next time.
Another, at least as good and maybe better, option is antitrust. Break up the globs back into Northrop, Hughes, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Marietta, Glenn Martin Co, Grumman, McDonnell Aircraft, Douglas Aircraft, Convair, North American, Republic, Boeing, Rockwell, and so on... so that there are a dozen manufacturers a
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The alternative is to ban "cost plus" contracts. Screw up and overrun the costs specified in you bid? Tough cookies. Eat it on your P&L leader, and do a better job bidding next time.
Another, at least as good and maybe better, option is antitrust. Break up the globs back into Northrop, Hughes, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Marietta, Glenn Martin Co, Grumman, McDonnell Aircraft, Douglas Aircraft, Convair, North American, Republic, Boeing, Rockwell, and so on... so that there are a dozen manufacturers actually bidding competitively for contracts with incentives to keep costs under control, lest the contract goto a more reliable competitor.
After all, when there are only two choices, why *Should* Lockheed Martin (from their perspective) deliver a fully-functional air or space craft as promised, and on-time and on-budget. What's the government going to do after all, go to Northrop "2 billion dollar stealth bomber" Grumman?
You haven't thought out the consequences. If these are all bid a Firm Fixed Price (the alternative), every bidder is going to pad their costs to compensate for the possibility of things going wrong at some point during the development . Depending on the likelihood of that (cutting-edge technology, etc.) this will be anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of the original estimate. Would you rather pay 20% more overall, or take the chance of a 10% overrun?
Bad journalism (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Bad journalism (Score:5, Informative)
Noise filtering.
Often these DC-DC stepdown converters can leave lots of ringing on the DC Rails (bot input and output). The capacitors (chosen for their ability to both absorb the peak and fill the trough of the ring at the requisite frequency) are responsible for making that DC nice and smooth.
When they fail it can be an open (common, and problematic) in which case the downstream components and assemblies are subjected to EMI and ring noise that may be out of their tolerance and thus degrade performance (or ultimately fail them); or the caps can fail shorted, which more often than not quickly becomes an open rather violently... unless the power supply dies from being shorted first.
there's the easy reader version.
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It could also be an AC supply (unlikely on a satellite) but there are circuits which use purely capacitive elements for voltage regulation or an LC network or something similar.
Again I don't expect that in a satellite. But then I have no idea about what they are building.
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You are correct, I have a line conditioner for my scope and atomic clock (admittedly a low end rubidium model) that is only a big-assed inductor and a capacitor. Works great at cleaning up AC, but I did assume DC-DC in my post since this was space-based GPS stuff and AFAIK the power bus on those is DC only.
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In this case, they must be the input and output capacitors of a switching power supply.
Ceramic capacitors are only used this way in applications which can support the extra cost because large ceramic capacitors are very expensive. There advantages are very low ESR and ESL, high ripple current rating, and long life. Unfortunately their large physical size combined with brittle construction creates extra reliability issues and special mounting considerations are required. I am surprised that an aerospace m
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Nope, wrong, try again.
Oh I take it you work for Lockheed Martin and therefore have insider knowledge of the exact circuit involved and therefore know with some certainty that the powersupply is not of a divided AC type or switch capacitor regulation type or any of those other tuned circuits where capacitors are used to adjust and regulate the voltage of supply.
Thanks for the insider info.
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The subcontractor was named...
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I know reading the summary isn't really a thing but this is ludicrous. Not only was the subcontractor named but they were done so 4 times.
Getting paid more for screwing up... (Score:1)
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"The more you screw up, the more money you get paid..."
If I remember correctly, cost-plus basically says that the government will pay the costs of fixing the overruns (labor, materials, etc) but the company does not get any additional profit/fee. This allows a bid to be closer to reality, rather than each bid having to be padded to make up for eventual mistakes. It also gives the government a way to alter requirements without the company taking them to the cleaners for the contract mods.
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I'll do it for $10 million (and I'll even provide my own soldering iron from Radio Shack).
I hope it doesn't fail. Building a time machine to get a replacement soldering iron from Radio Shack is going to cost you more than $10 million.
Re: I'll do it cheaper. (Score:1)
I can drive over to Radio Shack tomorrow and get a soldering iron, if you insist. It's about a ten minute drive. Mind if I stop at the bank first and maybe to White Castle on the way for lunch?
The small midwestern town I live on the outskirts of does still have a Radio Shack. I can buy assorted parts and tools and stuff. They even stock Arduinos and Shields, though they're way overpriced.
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I can drive over to Radio Shack tomorrow and get a soldering iron, if you insist. It's about a ten minute drive. Mind if I stop at the bank first and maybe to White Castle on the way for lunch?
The small midwestern town I live on the outskirts of does still have a Radio Shack. I can buy assorted parts and tools and stuff. They even stock Arduinos and Shields, though they're way overpriced.
Wow. I'm on the outskirts of Greater Cincinnati and they got rid of the last Mobile Sh... er Radio Shack a couple of years ago. Amazing. I wonder who the actual owner is!
The Donald will fix their wagon (Score:2)
Trump, whether you hate him or just strongly dislike him, will probably be tweeting about this tomorrow and LMCO will be up sh!t creek.
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Trump, whether you hate him or just strongly dislike him, will probably be tweeting about this tomorrow and LMCO will be up sh!t creek.
As if.
Tomorrow he will be tweeting about how those mean old judges won't bend to his will, or about how ugly some female critic is.
The worst part? (Score:2)
Just use the Galileo navigation system instead (Score:2)
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The US will probably need all that tax-payers money elsewhere to build the wall to Mexico, so why not use the European Galileo Satelite Navigation [wikipedia.org] instead - which already provides for much better spatial resolution?
At least they flagged a potential reliability problem with GPS *before* they were launched. ESA is still trying to figure out [phys.org] what the reliability problem with their clocks might be...
Unfortunately, (or fortunately) space is hard...
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... At least they flagged a potential reliability problem with GPS *before* they were launched. ... Unfortunately, (or fortunately) space is hard...
It is fortunate for the failure analysts. When a satellite is nearing launch and there is an issue with some part – that is when the money hose opens wide, and the USAF SMC's failure analysis lab (an FFRDC) is called upon, the money just gushes. They throw every analysis technique at the thing, whether it is appropriate or not. And they punish employees who solve the problem too quickly. I have personally been commanded to, "Go back and keep working on it for a couple of more weeks." That's just
Harris (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently, Harris makes more on their Stingray II units than these sub-assemblies for Lockheed.
I'm sure the lead time on a StingRay is 7~10 working days for delivery, or overnight if you want to pay for the expedited freight.
Obviously they have no scruples.
Duplicate system? (Score:2)
Don't worry: the EU GPS system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] will soon be live, so there will be no need to fund a duplicate US system. You can save yourselves some money ;-)
Obscene Incompetence (Score:2)
Typical government employees pissing away taxpayer dollars. No business in their right minds would absorb the costs of errors committed by a supplier, and Trump should have the head of the bureaucrat who signed off on this contract on a platter. At minimum the industry standard of "if you screw it up you fix it on your dime" should be in every contract... Maybe this will change with an administration that actually ran a business instead of a community organizer... we sure have been getting the shaft for
Not so bad (Score:2)
"Incompetence by a Lockheed Martin subcontractor..."
Under the new so-called administration, ignorance and incompetence is a boon.
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Under the new so-called administration, ignorance and incompetence is a boon.
As long as you refer to it as "alt-wisdom" and "alt-competence".
A 'GPS Holiday' (Score:2)
For purposes of promoting more self reliance, I propose the Government institute a 'GPS Holiday.'
Every few months, at some random point, the GPS system should be switched off for a few hours.
It would help assure that humanity not become vulnerable to a navigation system that could tumble down at any time.
*beathes in* (Score:2)
Here we go again...
<sarcasm>
You can't apply that title to the article. It's not Lockheed's fault. They have never done anything wrong. They use subcontractors for everything but the choosing of subcontractors. Hell, maybe that's even automated now. Change the title!!! </sarcasm>