Saturday, August 13, 2022
Key Issues AETP China-Taiwan scenarios E-7 Wedgetail
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 Missile Defense Agency is nearing a decision on how many hypersonic-busting missile designs to pursue, retaining the option to concurrently develop as many as three competing blueprints for a Glide Phase Interceptor or narrow the current contest among Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman.
The Defense Department is eyeing a distributed air and missile defense system for Guam that would arm 42 mobile platforms with Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6 interceptors to give the U.S. territory roughly the equivalent of two-and-a-half Aegis destroyers to counter Chinese ballistic, cruise and hypersonic threats.
The Missile Defense Agency has launched a project that aims to set the technical groundwork for a potential live-fire demonstration of a domestic cruise missile defense architecture by working first to execute simulated events connecting Army and Navy battle management tools with the guided-missile launcher system used to defend Washington, DC, 24/7.
The U.S. military will attempt to shoot down a hypersonic glide vehicle in a high-stakes test that will inform plans for a next-generation guided-missile interceptor as well as assess the efficacy of currently deployed systems that are supposed to provide a last line of defense for aircraft carrier strike groups against Russian and Chinese ultrafast maneuvering weapons.
Raytheon Technologies is hoping to secure an overseas buyer for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor in tandem with planned orders for the Army's initial production run in a bid to lower the current $130 million radar price tag, realize economies of scale and give a foreign military immediate parity with the service's newest and most sophisticated ground radar.
The Army has earmarked nearly $3 billion in its five-year spending plan for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, an investment that aims to forge a new package of capability improvements to fold into the first production batch of the Patriot radar replacement slated be operational at full-battalion strength with a first unit by 2029.
An expected two-way contest to build a next-generation kill vehicle -- one optimized to counter hypersonic glide vehicles -- is coming to a head, pitting Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne for the chance to progress to the second and final phase of the Glide Breaker program.
Pentagon brass have approved plans to commence new upgrades for the B-21 Raider once the next-generation bomber begins low-rate production as part of marking cost and capability parameters, setting the stage for the Air Force to commit more than $29 billion in planned investment for the long-range strike project over the next five years.
The Pentagon has selected Lockheed Martin's SPY-7 radar as a land-based sensor for the new project to harden Guam against projected Chinese threats, marking the first adoption by the U.S. government of the alternative to the Raytheon-built SPY-6 radar for use with the Aegis weapon system.
The Defense Department is developing an upgraded, long-range hypersonic weapon with a dynamic new capability: the means to attack a moving target.
The Missile Defense Agency this month is set to award the first of nearly two-dozen contracts planned this calendar year worth almost $500 million to begin in earnest the race to develop and field by 2026 a new mobile missile defense system that draws on existing Navy and Army technologies to bolster Guam against advanced Chinese air threats.
The Defense Department has mapped out a $10 billion plan to prototype two competing designs for a Next Generation Interceptor, select a winner in 2025 and field by 2027 the new hit-to-kill weapon system top brass say is needed to defeat North Korea's improving inventory of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Defense Department is looking to defend Washington, DC, as well as other unspecified domestic locations against Russian and Chinese cruise missiles by pairing a new variant of an elevated X-band radar with advanced systems that guide missile interceptors, such as Aegis cruisers or destroyers.
The Pentagon is advancing a five-year, $27 billion package of capabilities tailored to deter China, a stark variance with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command's assertion that $76 billion is needed over the same period -- a nearly $50 billion difference -- to strengthen regional deterrence, particularly west of the International Date Line.
The Army has rebranded its road-mobile, ship-killing weapon system "Strategic Mid-Range Fires" and is seeking $404 million in fiscal year 2023 to complete integration of a sea-based launcher on a truck to arm ground forces by next year with Tomahawk cruise missiles and Standard Missile-6.
Industry-developed laser weapon and power technology -- designed to fit on a ship, a ground combat vehicle, and military cargo aircraft -- demonstrated the feasibility of a tactical, electrical, fiber laser beam-combined system across the entire engagement chain during a February test in New Mexico that shot down a cruise missile target.
The Army last week raised the contract ceiling on the AN/TPQ-53 radar by $1.6 billion, extending by five years work that began in 2018 on the most advanced sensor in the service's inventory to counter incoming mortar, artillery and rockets to facilitate upgrades and foreign sales.
Under continuing pressure from Congress to improve the ballistic missile detection capability for Hawaii, the Defense Department has commenced a new analysis that aims to influence investments beginning in fiscal year 2024 for how the archipelago state will be protected from the advancing threat of North Korean long-range rockets.
The Defense Department has identified a potential solution to protecting domestic airspace against new, long-range, conventional strike weapons designed to hobble critical domestic infrastructure -- and top brass are asking for $50 million above and beyond the Pentagon's fiscal year 2023 budget request for a Cruise Missile Defense-Homeland Kill Chain Demonstration.
The Hypersonic and Ballistic Space Tracking Sensor project is beginning to take physical shape, with both L3Harris and Northrop Grumman beginning assembly of their respective prototype payloads as the two companies await word from the Missile Defense Agency on whether a down-select is in the offing or if both could be carried forward as suppliers.