Friday, May 10, 2024
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than two decades -- including stints with Defense News and Armed Forces Journal -- he has covered the Pentagon, defense industry, the military budget, weapon system acquisition and defense policy formulation as well as reporting on technology, business, and global arms trade. Jason has traveled to more than 40 countries, studied medieval history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and lives in Brooklyn.
The Defense Department is exploring the possibility of packing Navy ships with Army missiles after a hardware demonstration last year in Hawaii proved the feasibility of integrating the most advanced Patriot interceptor, the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, with the Aegis weapon system.
The heads of U.S. Northern and Strategic commands took "maximum precautions" to prevent the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon from collecting intelligence on domestic military sites during its flight over states with sensitive installations -- including key strategic nuclear locations.
The Defense Department is clearing a path this month to establish additional domestic large solid rocket motor production, opening a competition to qualify a supplier to support Navy and Army plans for surging offensive hypersonic missile production in the coming years.
Defense Department plans to develop and field long-range offensive hypersonic missiles could cost one-third more than ballistic missiles of the same range with maneuverable warheads, a Congressional Budget Office analysis finds in a new report that provides the most detailed, government-published, unclassified discussions of U.S. hypersonic weapon programs.
The Navy program executive office for unmanned and surface combatants plans a three-day series of briefings for industry to outline the current state of projects and new opportunities for companies in a portfolio that is expected to grow in coming years.
Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne -- along with two government partners -- executed a second flight test of the Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept, demonstrating technology with potential application for a next-generation, ultra-fast cruise missile and a key objective for the advanced component development effort.
The Army is looking to add a second interceptor to its still-in-development, next-generation cruise missile defense system, seeking a guided-missile to counter supersonic air-breathing threats as well as large-caliber rockets and setting the stage for a likely new round of competition for the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 program.
The Missile Defense Agency executed a covert launch of the nation's most advanced Aegis guided missile interceptor over the Pacific Ocean, keeping under wraps until now an experiment -- which one senior Pentagon official also called a developmental test -- of a highly classified potential new capability for the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA.
The Missile Defense Agency last year conducted a test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, not previously reported, that was designed to assess capabilities to defend against threats to the United States from a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile.
Lockheed Martin has activated a 50-kilowatt high-energy laser designed for ground forces air defense, a key developmental milestone in the company's prototype design of a directed energy weapon for the Army's Stryker vehicle and an important step toward giving the government a viable alternative for a planned competition against incumbent Raytheon.
The Defense Department is readying a first-ever hypersonic weapon test over the Atlantic Ocean, preparing to launch a rocket from Florida that will loft a glide vehicle thousands of miles into the open water in a high-stakes assessment that aims to validate design of a new, two-stage booster paired with the ultra-fast maneuvering payload.
The Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense program is on track to declare initial operational capability in April -- a delay of one year from the objective plan but still within the approved schedule -- a milestone that will allow soldiers, who for years have been testing the IAMD Battle Command Systems (IBCS), to pivot to real-world missions.
The Missile Defense Agency has tapped General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems to study diode-pumped alkali laser (DPAL) technology -- including potential applications for shooting down long-range threats as part of the Missile Defense System.
The Army is now required by law to open the Extended Range Cannon Artillery program to competition after the service buys an initial batch of 20 prototypes, setting the stage for a contest before the planned production decision late next year.
The United States and Japan -- two global technology innovation powerhouses -- are teaming up to collaborate on high-power microwaves, autonomous systems and counter-hypersonic weapons, inking new agreements to expand military research and development while advancing plans for potential collaboration on a new Aegis guided-missile interceptor.
The Defense Department plans to bolster the U.S. military presence in the Pacific region by converting a unit based in Japan to a Marine Littoral Regiment, a new formation designed to fight its way onto islands and maritime choke points, deploy its own long-range strike capabilities and create anti-access challenges for Chinese forces.
The Defense Department has added a small buffer to its limited inventory of intercontinental ballistic missile-killing interceptors, growing the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program by two guided missiles after harvesting enough spare parts to assemble a pair of the most modern variants of the homeland defense interceptor.
The Missile Defense Agency is accelerating development of a counter-hypersonic weapon after Congress injected nearly $300 million for the Glide Phase Interceptor project in fiscal year 2023, raising development spending on the Hypersonic Defense program to more than half-a-billion dollars this year following a classified independent cost assessment completed for the GPI last fall.
The Defense Department is eyeing a potential seven-year megadeal with Raytheon to buy the most advanced Aegis guided missiles -- the Block IB and Block IIA variants of the Standard Missile-3 -- as part of a sole-source contract to support orders between fiscal years 2023 and 2029.
A classified Defense Department investigation has identified what is believed to be the root cause of a 2021 missile defense failure, giving the Missile Defense Agency confidence to plan a do-over flight test this year that will pit a pair of Standard Missile-6 interceptors against a medium-range ballistic missile target.