Thursday, October 30, 2025
Abby Shepherd is a Navy reporter. Before joining Inside Defense in November 2023, she was an intern with Politico's E&E News and a city government reporter with the Eudora Times in Kansas. She graduated from the University of Kansas in May 2023, with degrees in journalism and political science.
The Navy is making progress on the MQ-25 Stingray's development with the recent approval of a revised acquisition program baseline and $50 million in recently reprogrammed money, following redesign efforts and a slash in procurement funding from appropriators.
Shipbuilder HII announced today that it will acquire metal fabrication facilities and equipment from South Carolina-based company W International.
With half of the Navy's amphibious fleet in "poor condition," the ships are not on track to meet their expected service lives, according to the government’s top watchdog.
American undersea dominance could be undermined by an increase in sharing of technology between Russia and China, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Saturday.
As the Navy aims to reach a critical milestone for its nuclear-armed sea-launched missile program by fiscal year 2026, the service is reaching out to industry members to help develop and integrate the weapon system as an All Up Round onto Virginia-class submarines, according to a recent notice.
The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom announced the signing of an agreement that will allow the countries to share hypersonic vehicle testing facilities, as well as technical information related to the development, testing and evaluation of hypersonic technology.
Following lessons learned with GPS disruption in the Ukraine battlespace, the Navy will seek to test capabilities to guard against these interferences on combatant ships and unmanned surface vessels in an exercise planned for March off the shores of Virginia.
As the Defense Department prepares for the incoming Trump administration and the policy changes it may bring, one senior Pentagon official is holding out hope that there will be broad support for suppressing the impact climate change is expected to have on DOD operations and infrastructure worldwide.
The Navy plans to establish a new program to boost strategic studies and thinking within the service -- modeled after a similar initiative that was created during the Cold War but ended in 2016.
Amid program delays and cost increases in the most recent financial quarter, shipbuilder HII is pivoting to a different hiring method by focusing on recruitment of experienced employees rather than a green workforce.
The Navy is seeking information on autonomous capabilities for various purposes, including the ability for autonomous underwater and surface vehicles to react to sensor observations without the need for an operator, according to a request for information posted last week.
Boeing has added a loss of $217 million for the MQ-25 Stingray program, according to company earnings released today.
The Navy's Take Charge and Move Out mission aircraft has a new selected name -- E-130J -- after being previously referred to as E-XX, the service announced Monday.
The Navy is seeking to expand its clean energy generation through development of nuclear power sites on underutilized military land, including seven locations of interest across Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.
Australia plans to transfer $2 billion to the United States before the end of 2025 to bolster the U.S. submarine industrial base as part of the AUKUS partnership and fund long-lead items for the Virginia-class submarine program, a senior Navy official said today.
In recent tests, Raytheon’s Barracuda Mine Neutralization System detected, tracked and held position on a target on its own -- the first time this type of test has been executed with the Barracuda vehicle, according to a Raytheon news release.
The Navy has awarded a $525 million contract to defense contractor Raytheon to produce Block II Evolved Seasparrow Missiles for the U.S. and other allied nations, according to a press release Monday.
The Navy needs to revise cost estimates for its Columbia-class submarine construction and develop a consistent method of identifying whether supplier development funding (SDF) is helping the program correct its schedule, the Government Accountability Office reported Monday.
Shipbuilder HII says there is no indication of malicious intent behind suspected faulty welds on Navy submarines and aircraft carriers at Newport News Shipbuilding, after the Justice Department received notification that they may have been intentionally placed on non-critical components.
Now that Congress has passed a three-month continuing resolution to fund the government through Dec. 20, the threat posed by the earlier six-month CR proposal is temporarily averted, yet defense officials still have a sense of urgency for Congress to pass a fiscal year 2025 budget.