Saturday, May 18, 2024
Key Issues GAO on F-35 SLCM-N program office PrSM funding
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 plans to decommission a pair of Space Tracking and Surveillance System satellites originally launched in 2009 -- assets that have already delivered three times their originally forecast service life, according to the agency's director.
The Missile Defense Agency is utilizing a two-track approach to develop and field a layered counter-hypersonic capability -- adapting mature booster and kill-vehicle technology for the first iterations of a glide-phase and terminal defeat system while working on a longer-term solution based on a clean-sheet design of a weapon optimized for ultra-high-speed operations inside the atmosphere.
The Missile Defense Agency is planning a second flight test of a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA against an intercontinental ballistic missile surrogate, this time featuring a more complex target with upgrades to the Aegis weapon system and interceptor to reflect lessons learned from the first intercept attempt last November that achieved its goal even as congressional auditors recently raised questions about its efficacy as a homeland defense weapon.
Lockheed Martin last month delivered some portion of Sweden's order for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Enhancement Segment interceptors, the company said today, claiming the Nordic nation is now the 10th foreign customer armed with the most advanced variant of the U.S.-made air- and missile-defense guided missile.
The Air Force last fall reported a Nunn-McCurdy breach in its project to replace the MK21 fuze on the Minuteman III -- which has long-exceeded its originally envisioned 10-year service life -- cost growth caused by a defective part that is requiring the redesign of several components in the Air Force Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Fuze Modernization program.
The U.S. military has quietly developed and deployed a new operational capability in the Indo-Pacific region to detect and track hypersonic weapons, repurposing existing sensors and command and control systems to display tracks of ultra-fast maneuvering vehicles -- such as those being fielded in increasing numbers by China -- in a development that sheds new light on Pentagon efforts to improve missile warning and missile defense missions.
The Missile Defense Agency last year scrapped the third and largest planned flight test to date of the Ballistic Missile Defense System, according to congressional auditors, an assessment that would have called for five targets flying simultaneously to be countered by the Aegis, Patriot and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems.
The Missile Defense Agency is dangling award fees to speed delivery of a Next Generation Interceptor, giving Lockheed Martin and a Northrop Grumman-Raytheon team opportunities to pocket additional cash if they can beat a 2028 contractual commitment to emplace new guided missiles in Alaska in a race to improve the Ground-based Midcourse homeland defense system against forecasted improvements in North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Missile Defense Agency punted all planned 2020 operational cybersecurity assessments, tests required to determine vulnerabilities, according to congressional investigators who note these failures are accompanied by agency rationales but nevertheless marks a third consecutive year of shortcomings that point to "a broader MDA cybersecurity development issue.
The Pentagon estimates the price tag for the Next Generation Interceptor program is $17.7 billion, including $13.1 billion to develop, $2.3 billion to field, and $2.2 billion to operate and sustain 21 guided missiles, according to new details provided by the Defense Department.
The Army is delaying the last two acquisition milestones for the $8.2 billion Joint Air-to-Ground Missile program, pushing target dates for integrating the next-generation, airborne-launched weapon -- originally slated to be accomplished last year -- into 2022, changes driven by technical difficulties encountered while attempting to integrate the new missile onto Marine Corps helicopters.
The Missile Defense Agency is breaking up the Ground-based Midcourse Defense development and sustainment contract into five smaller projects, with plans to compete two and sole source three under a new project branded GMD Futures, capping an overhaul process that began in October 2019 that explored numerous alternative contract structures.
The head of U.S. Strategic Command today revealed that his organization will take the reins of the new triad of non-nuclear, long-range offensive hypersonic weapons programs slated for fielding this decade.
Boeing announced today it is not protesting the Missile Defense Agency's Next Generation Interceptor source selection.
The top uniformed official responsible for defending the nation against North Korean ballistic missile attack threw cold water this week on the Missile Defense Agency's push for adding an "underlayer" to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, arguing the proposal to add the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA is too expensive and too narrowly focused given the range of potential air threats that need to be addressed.
The Missile Defense Agency today launched a project to field a Glide Phase Interceptor -- a major U.S. military effort to develop a counter-hypersonic capability within the decade -- asking industry for proposals for a weapon compatible with the Navy's Aegis combat system with an eye to awarding contracts as soon as this summer.
The Air Force has formally recalibrated schedule targets for the two remaining acquisition milestones for the troubled $43.9 billion KC-46A acquisition -- setting March 2022 for Required Assets Available, an objective that would mark initial operational capability delay of more than four years, and September 2024 for a full-rate production review.
The Navy, which last fall proposed a $3.6 billion, five-year plan to launch a fleet of Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles packed with long-range missiles, is now conducting an analysis to determine if an LUSV is the most appropriate platform to add offensive punch to the surface fleet -- an assessment mandated by Congress and which the service aims to complete by October.
The Missile Defense Agency has debriefed Boeing on its loss in the Next Generation Interceptor, giving the incumbent in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program through next week to consider whether to protest awards to Lockheed Martin -- which ranked first in the three-way contest -- and a Northrop Grumman/Raytheon team, according to a source familiar with recent developments.
The Marine Corps last November notched a successful demonstration of the planned Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, firing a Naval Strike Missile from a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle in an event that validated the basic design concept and supports continued development of the Remote Operated Ground Unit Expeditionary -- or ROGUE -- vehicle, according to service officials.