Thursday, June 27, 2019
Key Issues Gray Wolf TransDigm Extended Range Weapon
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 preparing to send lawmakers findings of an independent technical study on the feasibility of using an unmanned aerial vehicle to launch an interceptor against a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile during the first minutes after launch.
The Pentagon's chief technology officer has tapped David Honey, a senior Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency official, to temporarily head the Strategic Capabilities Office.
The Redesigned Kill Vehicle program was on a trajectory toward 60% cost growth -- a death knell for most weapon projects -- when the Pentagon's chief technology official directed the Missile Defense Agency to halt work on the effort, according to government auditors.
The Navy unmanned aircraft shot down by Iran was a 2011 legacy Global Hawk transferred from the Air Force, not one of the Navy's new MQ-4C Triton aircraft derived from the Global Hawk design but optimized for maritime missions.
Gen. Paul Selva, the second-highest-ranking U.S. military officer, weighed in on a controversial proposal to fold the Strategic Capabilities Office into the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, arguing combatant commands are concerned the change would add a layer of bureaucracy and impede a pipeline now effectively fostering new ideas and rapid delivery of innovative combat capabilities.
Northrop Grumman and Raytheon today announced a teaming agreement to collaborate on technologies critical to U.S. military efforts to produce a hypersonic cruise missile, a pact to adapt scramjet combustors produced by Northrop in Raytheon's air-breathing, ultra-fast missiles.
Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's top weapons development official, ousted Strategic Capabilities Office Director Chris Shank on Friday, escalating a bureaucratic fight over the fate of the SCO. Griffin wants to fold the organization into the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- a change opposed by key combatant commands and now congressional committees.
Raytheon -- after securing permission to begin production in late 2017 of the Standard Missile-3 Block IB after years of engineering challenges, repeated technical setbacks and schedule delays -- stumbled right out of the gate last year, delivering only a third of the new guided missile interceptors the U.S. government planned to buy in fiscal year 2018.
The March flight test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system -- a developmental assessment that marked the first salvo launch of Ground-based Interceptors hailed as a landmark achievement by program boosters -- was 13 years behind schedule and was built on a record of GMD tests that have achieved less than 50 percent operational realism, according to congressional investigators.
Senate lawmakers are proposing legislation that could chart an expansion of the Ground-based Interceptor fleet in Alaska to as many as 100 guided missiles, a push to enhance the Ground-based Midcourse Defense segment of the Ballistic Missile Defense System that comes as the Missile Defense Agency is facing significant delays in expanding the current 44-interceptor fleet to 64.
Draft legislation before a key Senate panel would assign the Missile Defense Agency responsibility for developing the Space Sensor Layer, bucking a Defense Department gambit to fold the project into the new Space Development Agency as part of an effort to develop a new multimission satellite constellation.
A powerful House lawmaker is proposing legislation that would block the Missile Defense Agency from flight testing the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA against an intercontinental ballistic missile target until the Pentagon's top weapons tester certifies the new Aegis interceptor works against the shorter-range threats it was originally designed to defeat.
The Army and the Missile Defense Agency -- after two years of haggling over responsibility for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense program -- are nearing agreement to adopt the status quo as a long-term division of labor where MDA looks after research, development and procurement and the service is responsible for operations and sustainment.
The Defense Department is rebaselining the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system acquisition effort, consolidating it into what is now called THAAD III from a pair of parallel development efforts to continue improving the Army-operated system -- a change that reflects recent upgrades to counter North Korean ballistic missile threats.
The Missile Defense Agency has set a May 2020 target for declaring operational the third and last increment of the European Phased Adaptive Approach and simultaneously dialed back planned intercept testing.
A House panel wants the Army to prepare options for a "low-cost" generic interceptor that can operate as part of the Patriot surface-to-air missile system, a move that comes as the price tag for the newest variant of the Patriot interceptor approaches $1 million and lawmakers are seeking options to bolster inventories and foreign buyers are asking for less expensive options.
A House panel is directing the Defense Department to conduct an enterprise-wide analysis of competing technology projects that all aim to one day deliver a weapon capable of intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile during the boost phase of flight -- and identify which project offers the best option.
House lawmakers want to explore options for folding the Missile Defense Agency into other Defense Department organizations and removing an exemption in place for 17 years that allows development and procurement of ballistic missile defense programs outside traditional weapon system acquisition rules.
House lawmakers are proposing a measure to halt funding for development of a submarine-launched hypersonic strike weapon, a move that would upend Navy plans to develop a Conventional Prompt Strike weapon, citing concerns about the potential for miscalculation by adversaries that might mistake the planned new capability for a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile.
House lawmakers are proposing legislation that would force the Pentagon to identify the “preferred location” of a third missile defense site which the Missile Defense Agency would actually prefer not to build. The statutory provision could potentially nudge the Defense Department toward a future multibillion-dollar military construction project favored by members of Congress whose districts stand to benefit.