Saturday, December 15, 2018
Key Issues Threat emitters CBO's cost cuts USAF directed energy
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.
Military facilities responsible for protecting Ballistic Missile Defense System technical information did not pass muster, according to a Defense Department inspector general audit that identified more than half-a-dozen security shortfalls on classified networks critical to the $180 billion program to develop and field a defense against Iranian and North Korean long-range rockets.
The Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a potential $450 million deal to modernize the Defense Department's inventory of mobile air-defense threat simulators to prepare pilots -- including operators of the fledgling F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet -- to recognize and counter advanced enemy missile and artillery threats.
Five companies -- three U.S. contractors and two foreign firms -- responded to the Army's industry day invitation and the chance to compete in the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor program's "Sense-Off" event, a contest to rival the LTAMDS program of record -- allowing new players the opportunity to nab production of the expected multibillion-dollar Patriot radar replacement.
MOORESTOWN, NJ -- The Missile Defense Agency could select a winner in the $1 billion program to design and deliver a new ground-based, ballistic missile defense radar to better defend Hawaii from North Korean threats, one of the three competitors for the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii program said here.
The Pentagon's newest Aegis ballistic missile interceptor -- the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA -- intercepted a target in a key operational test over the Pacific today, a pivotal event that caps a 12-year development, sets the stage for a technical declaration of improved defenses against Iranian threats and also makes way for a long-delayed production decision.
U.S. Central Command, in response to a Pentagon directive earlier this year, has proposed a plan to "recalibrate" the U.S. military presence in the Middle East in accordance with the Trump administration's National Defense Strategy, a plan that will reduce force posture in the region in order to direct resources to high-priority areas around the world.
The Defense Department is contemplating a new program to allow private companies to provide aerial refueling services to military aircraft, an effort that would relieve the strain on up to 30,000 hours of unmet annual tanker needs and give defense contractors a linchpin operational role in the U.S. military's unique ability to project power around the world.
The Navy last week plunked down an additional $28.5 million to expand development of a new hypersonic booster for a submarine-launched, Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike prototype weapon -- exercising an option with prime contractor Lockheed Martin that allocates the largest portion of spending to date to a subcontractor.
Airbus, eyeing a growing need for aerial refueling service by the U.S. military, is teaming up with Lockheed Martin to offer the Pentagon the A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport as a fee-for-service aircraft and potential purchase -- a third attempt by the European company over the last decade to win a piece of the Air Force tanker business in a move that could squeeze Boeing.
The Air Force is contemplating development of a new intelligence enterprise for target location and identification impervious to both kinetic and non-kinetic threats, which experts believe could eventually render today's sensor and command-and-control architecture -- technology that ushered in the age of precision-munition warfare a generation ago -- obsolete.
Northrop Grumman today announced it is teaming with Harris Corp. and Comtech PST for the Next Generation Jammer-Low Band Demonstration of Existing Technologies competition, a new rapid-acquisition effort to field the second increment of the 21st-century airborne jammer by 2024.
The Army has awarded Oshkosh Defense a $1.7 billion contract to produce more than 6,000 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles and more than 22,000 associated vehicle kits -- the largest single order to date for the program that partially consolidates purchases for vehicles Congress funded over three years.
The Air Force should "substantially refocus" investments in its $2.6 billion science and technology portfolio to maintain -- and in some cases regain -- technological advantage against potential adversaries, as well as develop new technologies needed to prevail in conflicts in the 2030s, according to a new advisory panel study.
The Navy is turning to its trusted supplier for submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles -- Lockheed Martin's Sunnyvale, CA, business unit -- to design, develop, build and integrate large rocket motors and missile bodies to support test flights of the service's hypersonic boost-glide vehicle program.
The Navy plans to use rapid prototyping and fielding acquisition authorities to develop and deliver a Next Generation Jammer-Low Band system, setting a 2024 target for the first operational pod on an EA-18G Growler -- a goal that requires setting a program baseline in July.
The Office of Naval Research plans to award contracts by the end of December for the next-generation replacement of the Marine Corps' Light Armed Vehicle fleet and is considering industry proposals submitted this week that aim to inform requirements for an estimated $3 billion Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle program.
The Defense Department has been forced to absorb nearly $540 billion in reductions to date from statutory spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act, including a $200 billion cut to its weapons modernization account.
Reliance on the Army's Patriot system to defend a forward U.S. base against a one-minute, missile-salvo attack from China or Russia would cost nearly one quarter of a billion dollars, a sum that requires the Pentagon to consider new operational concepts and a new generation of “cost-effective” defenses to harden U.S. positions against such attacks.
The defense secretary should make good on long-standing plans for the Missile Defense Agency to transfer acquisition responsibility for mature missile defense programs to the relevant military services that operate the system, an independent defense commission recommends.
Northrop Grumman, the U.S. radar-building powerhouse dropped last month by the Army from its Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor program, will jump back in the multibillion dollar competition to build a Patriot radar replacement by participating in a radar “sense-off” event next year, setting up at least a three-way contest next spring.