Thursday, February 21, 2019
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.
Raytheon says it has been picked by the Army to participate in the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor competition, the first public word on the planned "sense-off" event at White Sands Missile Range, NM, this spring from either the government or industry in months.
The Air Force has delayed a key milestone for its $2.7 billion, E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System Block 40/45 upgrade program stemming from shortfalls identified during testing and delays in delivering new hardware by prime contractor Boeing.
The Pentagon is asking industry for ideas on a new satellite constellation optimized to identify fleeting, high-priority targets for attack by conventionally armed hypersonic glide vehicles, a solicitation that marks a development in the U.S. military's effort to field a new class of ultra-fast weapons and advances the Trump administration's goal to develop a "left of launch" missile defense capability.
The Missile Defense Agency's effort to accelerate development of a new Ground-based Midcourse Defense kill vehicle -- a more than $2.6 billion project to deliver a reliable ballistic missile defense warhead to protect the United States from North Korean and potential Iranian threats -- suffered a setback when the Redesigned Kill Vehicle did not pass muster with a key design review last year.
Army Secretary Mark Esper has directed an influential advisory panel to study how the service finds new soldiers, puts them to work and nurtures their careers to ensure a personnel management system is aligned with plans to modernize the force for future fights.
The Defense Department estimates the newest Global Positioning System satellite program -- the GPS III Follow-On being built by Lockheed Martin -- will cost $10.7 billion, a figure the Air Force has recently conveyed to Congress as part of a report establishing a baseline for the planned 22-satellite acquisition effort.
The Air Force has established a $9.9 billion price tag for its new Advanced Pilot Training program, the Boeing-led project -- also dubbed T-X -- to recapitalize the aging fleet of T-38C aircraft used to train fighter and bomber pilots.
The Pentagon's acquisition executive agreed to allow the Missile Defense Agency and Raytheon to transition the Standard Missile-3 Block IB into production more than a year ago only after mandating continued flight tests in order to ally concerns about the reliability of the interceptor in the wake of several developmental flight-test failures.
The Missile Defense Agency is readying a potential $15 billion contract with Lockheed Martin to buy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems for Saudi Arabia, a deal in the works for years that would in a single package outfit the desert kingdom with seven batteries -- equivalent to the Army's current THAAD ballistic missile defense capabilities for the entire globe.
The Army is delaying plans to begin full-rate production of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, originally slated for December 2018, until as late as early summer to assess options for vehicle-design changes suggested by soldiers and Marines during testing and evaluation in a move that could push the $28 billion program toward a schedule breach.
The U.S. military's nuclear strategic deterrence fleet executed a "reliable" operational flight test last night over the Pacific Ocean when an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA, and flew its intended course, a second consecutive developmental test-launch success since a failure last summer.
The Army today officially announced plans to produce "a limited number" of Iron Dome air-defense systems, a move first reported by Inside Defense last month.
The Air and Missile Defense Radar successfully tracked a ballistic missile target during a test last week in Hawaii, capping nearly two years of air and ballistic missile developmental tests during a milestone event for the $5.8 billion SPY-6 sensor, as the program is also called, built by Raytheon.
The Pentagon's top weapons tester has deemed a key upgrade of the Joint Space Operations Center (JspOC) Mission System (JMS) is not operationally effective or suitable for its space situational awareness mission, a setback for the Air Force program which aims, among other things, to provide real-time alerts of hostile actions against U.S. satellites.
The Defense Department is considering a new guided-missile interceptor program to defeat hypersonic boost glide threats as part of a range of potential new-start programs that also include a possible high-powered laser or adapting existing ballistic missile interceptors to deal with the new-class of ultra-fast threats that China and Russia are expected to field in the 2020s.
The Army's Common Infrared Countermeasures program -- a Northrop Grumman-led effort to outfit U.S. military helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft with a next-generation defense against infrared-guided missiles -- passed muster with the Pentagon's top tester in the inaugural assessment of the $3 billion program.
The Pentagon today notified Congress that the State Department has approved a potential $2.1 billion sale to Japan of two Aegis Weapon Systems, a key development in Tokyo's plans to expand its land-based ballistic missile defense shield to defend the entire Pacific nation against North Korean threats by building a pair of Aegis Ashore systems.
Army Secretary Mark Esper has commissioned an influential advisory panel to recommend how the service's new modernization command -- established as part of a major reorganization in July 2018 in response to decades of failed acquisition projects -- should operate "to create a fast-moving, innovative and future-thinking organization."
Army Secretary Mark Esper has directed an independent review of the service's next-generation anti-armor strategy, an assessment by a panel that recommends, among other things, investment strategies and design parameters for next-generation combat vehicles and supporting systems.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost to maintain and modernize nuclear forces over the next decade will be $494 billion, including $291 billion for Defense Department programs to sustain strategic and tactical strike systems as well as nuclear command, control, communications and early warning systems.