Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Jason Sherman is a reporter for Inside Defense. For more than three 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.
Land-based integration testing of U.S.-supplied equipment for Japan's first Aegis System Equipped Vessel (ASEV) kicked off this month in the United States, a milestone the Ministry of Defense said is aimed at ensuring the shipborne ballistic missile defense system will be fully functional once installed.
The Pentagon has awarded Lockheed Martin $44.2 million to continue adapting the Aegis missile defense system for Guam, funding work on software development, integration testing and other upgrades aimed at countering advanced ballistic and hypersonic threats.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- L3Harris Technologies' leaders say the company is ready to deliver a space-based interceptor, arguing that propulsion, sensing and connectivity technologies developed across its portfolio can be rapidly integrated into an offering for the Pentagon's new competition, a centerpiece of the Golden Dome for America project.
The Space Force has formally launched a competition to prototype space-based interceptors, issuing a Sept. 18 request for proposals even as analysts and former senior defense officials warn that physics and budget realities cast long shadows over the Trump administration's centerpiece Golden Dome missile defense initiative.
The Missile Defense Agency is seeking industry proposals for a new high-altitude infrared sensor system that can scan wide swaths of the sky for large numbers of incoming missiles and generate high-resolution tracking data.
A new cost study estimates that space-based missile interceptor constellations could run from tens of billions to several trillion dollars, underscoring technical warnings from former Pentagon technology chief Mike Griffin, who has argued that physics and budgets will ultimately determine whether boost, glide or midcourse designs are feasible.
President Trump's ambitious plan to shield the U.S. from modern missile threats -- a layered homeland defense system against ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles dubbed Golden Dome -- may be technically possible to build but the price tag will depend on choices that could run into the trillions.
The Pentagon this summer asked Congress to slash funding for a secretive Air Force program once touted as a bulwark against looming shortages of critical microchips.
The Pentagon is effectively ignoring warnings from Guam's leaders about the strain a next-generation missile defense system will place on the island's infrastructure, housing and healthcare and is pressing ahead with plans to begin construction of the massive project next year.
A sweeping reorganization of the United States' national security institutions is needed to confront threats defined not by missiles and tanks but by economic decline, artificial intelligence and cyberattacks on civilians, a Democratic senator with deep national security credentials argued in a major address.
The Army is preparing to stage a Mobile Flat Panel Radar Sense-Off Competition in the summer of 2026, a move aimed at reducing costs and boosting performance of sensors used to defend against drones.
The Pentagon is pushing back a contract award for the next phase of its proliferated low-Earth orbit communications network, raising questions about the possibility of a major new plan for the multibillion-dollar Transport Layer effort following a nearly $500 million cut by the Trump administration.
The Air Force is moving to reallocate $22 million from its C-130H Avionics Modernization Program Increment 2 after testing setbacks pushed the effort more than a year behind schedule.
The Missile Defense Agency is seeking industry proposals for a new class of low-cost interceptors to blunt the threat of massed missile attacks in a new project that aims to develop modular weapons that cost less than $750,000 apiece and can be produced on a compressed schedule to counter ballistic, cruise and hypersonic threats.
The Defense Department has awarded a $1.7 billion modification to Raytheon for production of the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, allowing the Army -- and Poland -- to execute new orders for the next-generation, ground-forces radar.
The next generation of U.S. missile defense won't be run by generals in command bunkers studying wall-sized screens.
The Pentagon has begun charting the course for a sweeping overhaul of one of its oldest and most sensitive radars, issuing a solicitation that seeks industry input on modernizing the Cobra Dane system on Shemya Island, AK.
The Defense Department is seeking industry input on a sweeping effort to digitize the six ground-based radar sites that serve as the backbone of U.S. long-range missile detection.
The Pentagon has launched an effort to quickly field a new radar in the southeastern United States to protect the nation from advanced air and missile threats, aiming for an initial capability by 2028.
The Navy is freezing immediate production plans for its next-generation anti-radar missile following a recent test failure, opening the door for the Pentagon to redirect more than $200 million in previously approved funding to other military priorities.