Tuesday, October 23, 2018
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 Navy is considering industry proposals to rapidly develop and prototype a sea-based hypersonic boost glide weapon that could be ready for deployment in four years, a scenario the service is exploring in accordance with guidance to develop a plan to reach early operational capability by late 2022.
Army leaders, refining the requirement for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program, have prioritized four capabilities for a Bradley replacement: growth potential, the main gun, an advanced forward looking infrared sensor and active protection systems.
The Air Force's contract with Boeing to develop and field a new MH-139 utility helicopter fleet allocates $408 million for development and $1.9 billion for procurement, a price tag that is roughly half the estimated total program cost the service forecasted in budget documents for the UH-1N Huey replacement program earlier this year.
The Missile Defense Agency has cleared Lockheed Martin to proceed with full-rate production of sensor panels that will be stacked to create the Long Range Discrimination Radar, a $1.2 billion program to improve the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System.
Army Secretary Mark Esper this week pledged to be a "team player" in the Defense Department's effort to stand up a Space Force, comments that come in the wake of a press report the White House is considering sacking Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson for insufficiently supporting President Trump's controversial plan to establish a sixth military branch.
The Army has a new plan for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor program that would accelerate initial fielding by four years to 2023, a revised schedule that addresses congressional concerns about the program and quickens competition between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon which were both tapped for the next phase of the Patriot radar modernization project.
The Army is retooling its research and development accounts with an eye toward bolstering next-generation air and missile defense capabilities, plowing more than 50 percent of available science and technology funds into projects that aim to produce a directed-energy interceptor, according to a senior service official.
The Army’s fiscal year 2020 budget will propose canceling, reducing or consolidating at least $25 billion in expenses across the Pentagon’s new five-year spending plan to realign the service’s weapon system modernization portfolio with the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy and emphasize investments in “next-generation” capabilities.
Army officials are working to fine-tune both the requirements and solicitation for a Next Generation Combat Vehicle after hearing from potential prime contractors on areas of possible technical, cost and schedule risks.
The Air Force has designated the GOLauncher1, an air-dropped, liquid-fueled rocket designed to be a testbed for hypersonic flight research and technology development, as the X-60A -- the newest addition to the United States' roster of X-platforms which include aircraft and rockets dating back to 1946.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has tapped two companies to work on new rocket technology that aims to develop a ground-launched missile to carry payloads that could include a maneuverable, hypersonic weapon for the Army, giving the service options to strike well beyond the range of its artillery systems.
The Army is soliciting industry for information on a potential replacement for its Stryker Brigade Combat Teams' towed cannons, a prelude to a potential "High Mobility SBCT Howitzer" program the service is considering launching in the early 2020s.
A Standard Missile-3 Block IIA guided missile failed during a Jan. 31 intercept attempt because the third-stage rocket motor did not ignite during a key test of the Pentagon's newest ballistic missile interceptor, according to a Missile Defense Agency investigation. (UPDATED)
The Missile Defense Agency has awarded contracts for nearly two-dozen different proposals on technologies that aim to defeat hypersonic, maneuvering weapons, funding an array of Hypersonic Defense Weapon System Concepts that appear to include repurposing existing interceptors, utilizing high-powered lasers and adopting new "non-kinetic" capabilities.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson estimates a pact she signed with her Army and Navy counterparts pledging cooperation on hypersonic technology development will accelerate her service's plans to field an air-launched, ultra-fast, maneuvering weapon by five years -- an agreement that requires the Air Force to feed the results of its new prototyping projects across the Defense Department.
The Navy has tapped Raytheon to mature technology and reduce technical risk on the next-generation Miniature Air Launched Decoy -- leveraging a decade of investment by the Air Force on the expendable system used to trick enemy air defense systems -- to give the Navy's fleet of F/A-18s a networked stand-in electronic warfare capability to suppress enemy sensors.
The Missile Defense Agency is readying a sole-source contract with Raytheon to produce the Navy's newest ballistic missile interceptor -- the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA -- in a new deal that would set terms for fiscal year 2019 procurement, fold in expected purchases from Japan and include options that could extend orders annually potentially through 2027.
The Navy's top official said the department-wide effort to develop and field hypersonic boost glide weapons is "seamless," a claim made during a recent visit to Alabama with Army officials responsible for the nation's first successful Advanced Hypersonic Weapon test in 2011.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The Air Force analysis that concludes 386 operational squadrons -- nearly 25 percent more than it currently has -- are required to execute the 2018 National Defense Strategy at low to moderate risk is driven in part by an assumption that the service needs to be prepared to simultaneously perform a handful of major tasks and missions, according to a senior service official.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The Air Force believes it has the "easiest path" among the U.S. military to fielding a long-range, maneuvering hypersonic weapon and plans to arm the B-52 bomber with such a conventionally armed weapon as soon as 2020, according to service officials.