Sunday, May 5, 2024
Key Issues Budget 'parity' Summer CUAS demo EW in Ukraine
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.
Raytheon Technologies is rebranding its LTAMDS radar GhostEye, shedding the U.S. government’s acronym for Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor for a moniker that suggests an invisible power with the capability to see -- petitioning the Commerce Department to trademark the name for the next-generation Patriot radar, a sensor with significant foreign sales potential.
The Pentagon would be required in fiscal year 2022 to draft a plan to help Taiwan improve its defenses against mainland China as well as adopt measures -- in accordance with a proposed new explicit policy -- ensuring U.S. forces can deny Beijing a fait accompli that would unilaterally alter the status quo with the self-governing island.
Lockheed Martin last week awarded Boeing a $1.1 billion contract to supply seekers for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors.
Lawmakers want an independent critique of the Defense Department’s system for creating annual budgets and future years spending plans, seeking an assessment of the efficacy and efficiency of processes introduced during the Kennedy administration to meet the needs of today's rapid technology acquisition in formulating and executing U.S. military expenditures.
Lawmakers want an accounting of Defense Department plans for cross-domain, cross-service strike concepts -- particularly the use of ground-based systems launched from sea-based platforms -- such as the “game-changing” demonstration the Pentagon disclosed earlier this month of a Standard Missile-6 fired from a large unmanned surface vessel.
Senate lawmakers want rigorous oversight measures imposed on the Next Generation Interceptor program -- the $17 billion acquisition launched after the Missile Defense Agency sank $1.2 billion and many years of development into the terminated Redesigned Kill Vehicle -- proposing new legislation mandating routine updates to Congress, including frequent independent cost and technical reviews.
The Marine Corps next month plans to launch user evaluation of its top ground-vehicle modernization priority -- a new robotically controlled, ship-killing ground vehicle -- by providing 11th Marines in Camp Pendleton, CA, Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) assets, beginning a process that is slated to transition to a formal operational assessment next spring.
Senate lawmakers want a new assessment of the military’s ability to counter high-volume salvos of advanced missiles against joint force critical fixed sites and high-value assets, considered “one of the greatest threats” to U.S. forces posed by Russia and China that is forecast to grow as competitors expand their inventories of weapons that stress existing U.S. air and missile defense systems.
A Senate panel wants the Air Force to draft a new bomber study with options for a “low-cost,” non-stealthy B-52 replacement and an overall long-range strike inventory nearly 30% larger than currently planned that would more than double purchases of next-generation B-21s -- raising the acquisition objective from 100 to 225.
A Senate panel wants the Missile Defense Agency to draft plans to expand production of a Next Generation Interceptor to replace the entire Ground-based Interceptor fleet, potentially raising the stakes by about $4.8 billion in the competition between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to design and manufacture a new homeland defense against North Korean nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Biden administration’s gambit to provide an additional $1 billion in fiscal year 2022 funds for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system would, if enacted, mark the third time in six years missile defense funding for Israel has exceeded the $500 million annual cap Israel and the United States agreed to in 2016. (UPDATED)
The House next week will consider a proposal to launch a sweeping assessment on the efficacy of long-range missile defense programs in the context of overall security of the United States, specifically a proposal to charter the National Academy of Sciences to explore potential adverse consequences associated with the $202 billion program to develop and procure the Ballistic Missile Defense System.
New legislation would establish an independent assessment of the $202 billion Ballistic Missile Defense System, chartering the JASON private scientific advisory panel to identify limitations of the collection of radars, interceptors and battle management, command and control tools that are designed to protect the nation against a long-range, North Korean nuclear strike.
House lawmakers want a comprehensive assessment from the Pentagon of China's military, economic and diplomatic activities in Latin America and the Caribbean after the head of U.S. Southern Command earlier this year publicly warned of Beijing's stepped-up efforts to gain influence across the region.
The Missile Defense Agency executed a non-intercept flight test of a new Ground-based Midcourse Defense capability that aims to improve homeland defense against North Korean threats by optimizing engagement times of long-range interceptors by giving operators a new option to tailor the trajectory of guided-missile interceptors.
House lawmakers are looking to catapult development of a "critical" technology needed to intercept maneuvering hypersonic threats at very long ranges by authorizing a nearly four-fold increase in fiscal year 2022 funding for Glide Breaker, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency venture that the Missile Defense Agency is eyeing as part of a program to field a defense against a new class of ultra-fast maneuvering weapons.
House lawmakers are looking to jump-start funding in fiscal year 2022 to begin modernizing the North Warning System with over-the-horizon radar technology to give North American Aerospace Defense Command's main ground sensor new ability to detect threats to U.S. and Canadian airspace.
The $24 billion topline increase proposed as part of the House Armed Services Committee's mark of the fiscal year 2022 defense policy bill boosts missile defense spending by $780 million, adding significant funds for a new Guam defense system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system interceptors and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system.
Support is mounting in Congress to again reinstate funding for a Hawaii-based ballistic missile defense radar, with the House Armed Services Committee authorizing $75 million for the project and setting September 2028 as the target for initial operations -- keeping the effort alive in defiance of Pentagon proposals for the last two years to shelve it.
House lawmakers have agreed to new legislative provisions that would require an accounting of the ability to detect hypersonic threats to the United States, direct the Navy to plan for future upgrades to its long-range hypersonic strike project and require the Air Force to prepare a cost estimate to re-alert nuclear-armed bombers.