Monday, September 28, 2020
Key Issues Boeing's NGI bid CH-53K production Project Convergence
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.
Army officials are holding in abeyance a recommendation to certify to lawmakers that the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program is on a solid footing -- an endorsement withheld last year in the wake of production start-up challenges on the $15.4 billion program -- while keeping a close eye on results of upcoming tests of the new BAE Systems-built combat system.
The Missile Defense Agency is pressing ahead with a project to develop a speed-of-light weapon to knock down maneuvering hypersonic vehicles, awarding Raytheon $9.7 million to advance work originally proposed two years ago on a Hypersonic Defense Weapon System concept and setting the project on a path to a potential Microwave Technology Testbed.
Boeing today disclosed that it is teamed with General Atomics and Aerojet Rocketdyne for the Next Generation Interceptor, offering what a company official said is "freshness" to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system modernization competition by pulling in two established defense industry suppliers that haven't previously had high-profile, missile defense accounts.
The Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense system being eyed to bolster protection of Guam could potentially be armed for strike missions to offset China's current ballistic and cruise missile advantage against U.S. forces, according to the top U.S. military official in the region.
The Army plans to reproduce for combatant commanders around the world the package of improvements now being fashioned to enhance integration of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 systems in response to urgent requests in 2017 from top brass in South Korea for improved ballistic missile defenses.
The Air Force has tapped Lockheed Martin to exercise a project using a new contract vehicle potentially worth $15 billion for continued development and procurement of C-130J aircraft -- a five-year deal with options to buy as many as 120 aircraft that, if fully exercised, could dwarf the most recent multiyear procurement deals for the U.S. military's intra-theater lift workhorse fleet.
The Trump administration is balking at four missile defense provisions advanced by the Senate Armed Services Committee's mark of the fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill, asking lawmakers to reconsider a funding cut and increase to the Next Generation Interceptor and Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii programs, respectively.
China's military modernization -- particularly development of its strategic forces -- is driving the U.S. military to begin preparing for the advent of Beijing as a nuclear competitor on par with Russia, a development that will require a different deterrence strategy from the playbook the Defense Department has long maintained to counter Moscow, according to a senior U.S. military official.
Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies are pitching a Next-Generation Interceptor design backed by what they say are engineering teams with unparallel experience knocking down targets in space and knowledge of today's Ground-based Midcourse Defense system -- promising a unified, "seamless" corporate team to deliver a new booster and kill vehicle as if from a single company.
U.S. Northern Command wants to retool the U.S. weapon system inventory for homeland defense against Russian and Chinese threats -- particularly new, long-range, conventional strike weapons designed to hobble critical domestic infrastructure -- with unprecedented air and maritime sensing capabilities linked to all-domain command and control tools that would guide a new array of anti-missile systems.
Lockheed Martin is touting its ability to offer the Defense Department a one-stop shopping opportunity for the Next Generation Interceptor -- a single defense contractor to develop a booster tailored to carry a new class of kill vehicles for the nation’s marquee homeland ballistic missile defense system.
The Pentagon's No. 2 official has overhauled missile defense policies and governance in a move that will subject the Missile Defense Agency to increased oversight by other arms of the Defense Department, establishing new rules for the $202 billion portfolio of missile defense weapon system projects and setting the stage for the first major revision of the agency's charter in over a decade. (UPDATED)
The Next Generation Jammer-Mid Band program, the Navy and Marine Corps $8.7 billion maritime airborne electronic attack modernization effort, achieved an important developmental milestone this month when a prototype was flown for the first time on an EA-18G Growler, a key step for a project that suffered serious design setbacks three years ago.
The Missile Defense Agency is refining its plan to potentially disaggregate the Ground-based Midcourse Defense sustainment contract, setting the stage for a major realignment of industry participation.
The Missile Defense Agency is delaying until the end of this year a marquee test, slated for fiscal year 2020, pitting a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA against an intercontinental ballistic missile target to validate a new homeland defense architecture that would add a new "underlayer" to work in tandem with the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system.
The Army's most advanced Patriot interceptor appears to have misfired during a key test of the service's new air and missile defense system, requiring a back-up guided missile, an older Patriot variant, to chase and destroy a tactical ballistic missile target last week.
The Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System -- a project that has consumed $2.7 billion and more than a decade just to commence limited user testing -- won strong public backing from Army leaders this week, a turnaround from two years ago when the program was allegedly at risk of being dramatically curtailed or even terminated over schedule delays and cost.
The Army today said it intercepted cruise and ballistic missile targets during an assessment of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Management System, raising service leaders' expectations that problems which plagued a similar test in 2016 are resolved.
If the U.S. military can ever master technology capable of a boost-phase intercept -- the ability to shoot down enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles immediately after launch -- it will likely be employed in a retaliatory strike because thwarting an initial salvo would come very close to an offensive operation, according to a senior Defense Department official.
The Missile Defense Agency last week took receipt of industry proposals for a Next Generation Interceptor and has begun source selection, a process expected to yield two winners and potentially a faster development and deployment schedule for the new guided missiles slated to protect the nation against North Korean -- and potentially Iranian -- intercontinental ballistic missile threats in the 2030s.