Thursday, December 4, 2025
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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.
Raytheon has broken ground on a $53 million expansion of its Andover, MA radar production campus, a move company executives say will allow it to ramp up output of the Army's new Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor after a year of throttled production.
The Pentagon's new Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) is moving fast to chart a new course for counter-drone defenses after its first major exercise, Operation Clear Horizon, revealed critical gaps in how the military detects and defeats small, unmanned aircraft.
The Army is on track to begin flight testing the Increment 2 variant of the Precision Strike Missile early next year, with a goal of obligating initial procurement funds by mid 2026, according to a senior service official.
Boeing said it secured about $2.7 billion in multiyear contracts from Lockheed Martin last month to produce seekers for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor, underscoring surging demand for missile defense systems as global tensions mount.
The long-stalled Lower Tier Future Interceptor could soon re-emerge as a funded effort, marking a potential reboot of a program that has struggled to gain traction for nearly five years, according to a senior Army official.
AM General will arrive at next week's Association of the U.S. Army conference with a fresh pitch to the Pentagon: a reimagined version of its Hawkeye mobile artillery system that it says is lighter, faster and deadlier than before.
Northrop Grumman executives are sketching a vision of the Army's Integrated Battle Command System stripped from its tented command posts and packed onto light vehicles, vans or even civilian buildings -- a response to the Army's recent solicitation for an "adaptive" version of its flagship air and missile defense network.
The Army notched a key milestone in its air and missile defense modernization push last week when soldiers successfully intercepted two maneuvering cruise missiles using the Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, in a contested environment, according to the service.
The Pentagon has a new plan to improve its family of Upgraded Early Warning Radars, asking industry for help advancing software that sharpens the ability to classify objects in flight.
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.