Monday, April 6, 2020
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 novel coronavirus global pandemic that is currently spreading around the world will lead to an eventual reordering of U.S. national priorities that squeezes defense spending and accelerates efforts to draw down U.S. overseas deployments, according to a defense and foreign policy expert.
The Pentagon is asking Congress for relief from a statutory requirement that the nation's missile defeat policy and strategy be modified by appointing one or more acquisition executives to oversee homeland cruise missile defense and left-of-launch capabilities.
Raytheon says a new $2.1 billion Standard Missile-3 Block IB production contract drove the cost for each ballistic missile guided interceptor to its lowest level yet.
Raytheon and the Missile Defense Agency are exploring options to extend the range of the Standard Missile-3 Block IB -- pushing the ballistic missile interceptor to dramatically expand a defended area by allowing the weapon to communicate with off-board radars -- a move that would require enhancing one of the Aegis ballistic missile defense system's newest features: Engage-on-Remote.
The Missile Defense Agency has awarded its first-ever multiyear procurement deal, a $2.1 billion package more than five years in the making that calls for Raytheon to manufacture 230 Standard Missile-3 Block IB interceptors for the Navy and Japan.
The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin a $932 million contract for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors in a deal to finance procurement with Saudi Arabia, which is responsible for the bulk of the purchase.
The planned launch of the Next Generation Interceptor competition was tripped up last week when plans for a review by the Missile Defense Executive Board -- whose approval is needed to release a request for proposals -- were postponed as Pentagon leaders grappled with responding to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, sources said.
The Pentagon has formally adopted the Space-based Kill Assessment as part of the Missile Defense System, delivering an initial variant to U.S. Northern Command in a recently disclosed move that marks a pivot for the small-scale pilot project to utilize commercially hosted satellites to mature the sensor network into an operational capability by 2022.
The Defense Department said today it conducted a successful long-range flight of a hypersonic glide body, an event it called a "major milestone" in advancing Army and Navy prototype weapons, flying an experimental payload more than 2,000 miles over the Pacific Ocean.
The Defense Department appears set this week to conduct a flight experiment of a long-range hypersonic glide vehicle that -- if successful -- will advance Army and Navy plans to mature prototype designs for land- and sea-launched offensive strike weapons as soon as 2023 and 2025, respectively.
Raytheon says it has completed initial testing of a portion of its new Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, the Army's Patriot replacement radar.
The Missile Defense Agency is refining plans for a potential break-up of the omnibus Ground-based Midcourse Defense system development and sustainment contract, envisioning as many as five competitive projects to support the homeland ballistic missile defense system into the 2030s.
The Defense Department's proposal to shift funding for the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor from the Missile Defense Agency to the Space Development Agency encountered continued headwinds in Congress this week, raising questions about the viability of this fiscal year 2021 request.
The Defense Department is eyeing Raytheon's Standard Missile-6 as a counter-hypersonic interceptor, a weapon already effective against "advanced maneuvering threats" and now slated for a flight test against a hypersonic boost-glide target in fiscal year 2023.
Proponents of the Next-Generation Interceptor prevailed this week on the Joint Requirements Oversight Council to allow the new project to proceed, clearing the way for a top Pentagon board next week to conduct a final review and formally launch a competition for the new multibillion-dollar weapons project, sources said.
Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department are hammering out terms for expanding the space surveillance capability of the Long Range Discrimination Radar, a planned major software upgrade that would improve the ability of the ballistic missile defense sensor to detect and track objects in orbit in the mid-2020s.
The Navy is proposing a $700 million, six-year project to define a second life extension of the Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile to keep the 27-year old strategic weapon system in service for the life of the new Columbia-class submarine fleet through 2083, potentially stretching the life of the Trident across a century.
The Israeli-made Iron Dome is not compatible with existing U.S. air defense systems, forcing the Army to launch a new acquisition strategy this week for the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept (IFPC Inc. 2) program that features an open invitation to all industry to participate in a "shoot-off" next year in a bid to deliver a cruise missile defense capability in 2023.
The Navy's marquee surface combatant force -- the aircraft carrier strike group -- is equipped today with technologies capable of defeating adversary maneuvering hypersonic weapons, a top admiral told Congress, suggesting the sea service has stitched together a shield to defend against a new class of ultra-fast weapons widely viewed as invincible.
A key senator this morning called Defense Secretary Mark Esper's decision to withhold from Congress the Navy's newest shipbuilding plan "unacceptable" and promised to publicly hold the Pentagon's top official accountable at a Senate hearing later today.