August 9, 2019

OneWeb Disputes Virgin Orbit Lawsuit, Says LauncherOne is Too Expensive (Source: Space News)
Megaconstellation startup OneWeb asked a court to dismiss a June lawsuit by Virgin Orbit, claiming that it doesn’t accurately portray a 2015 launch contract. Virgin Orbit, whose LauncherOne small launch vehicle is nearing a maiden flight, sued OneWeb for cancelling in June 2018 all but four of 39 launches it had purchased. Virgin Orbit asserted that OneWeb owed $46.32 million of a $70 million termination fee.

OneWeb, in an Aug. 5 filing to the District Court of the Southern District of New York, said Virgin Orbit overlooked a 2017 contract amendment allowing earlier launch payments to apply to the fee. OneWeb said it already paid Virgin Orbit more than $66 million, of which only $18 million went towards launches that are still expected to happen. (8/8)

Griffin Makes Case for Why SCO Should Live Under DARPA — and Why its Director Had to Go (Source: Defense News)
The Pentagon’s top technology expert defended Wednesday his decision to move the Strategic Capabilities Office under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in his first comments to reporters since the surprise exit of his handpicked director for the SCO. Mike Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said the move is needed to manage the office “efficiently without adding a whole new superstructure” of bureaucracy, despite opposition from some members of Congress.

Created by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter, the SCO’s mission is different from that of DARPA. Whereas the latter is focused on finding and prototyping the game-changing technologies for the future fight, the SCO tries to understand current needs and address them in new ways, often by taking existing systems and modifying them. When Carter became defense secretary, he had the SCO directly report to him, an organizational move designed to avoid bureaucracy and allow new capabilities to move quickly.

However, under the reorganization of the department’s acquisition office, the SCO was bumped down to directly report to Griffin. Griffin described that setup as one that is draining large amounts of time for him and his deputy secretary, Lisa Porter, as the two are required to act as “peer reviewers” for the SCO’s $1.4 billion portfolio. “We had to be the peer reviewers of how well the programs, the individual programs, were being managed, and there were dozens of them. And it was too much. (8/8)