Sunday, June 23, 2024
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.
A bureaucratic maneuver last summer by the Office of the Secretary of Defense aimed at clipping the wings of the Missile Defense Agency has drawn an investigation and a statutory directive to halt any action that would lock in rules subjecting MDA to increased oversight by other arms of the Defense Department.
A new Army study -- launched during the last weeks of the Trump administration and now subject to a review by the Biden administration -- aims to assess the ability of ground forces to operate on a radioactive battlefield as well as explore the prospects for a high-tech, networked force against a high-altitude, nuclear detonation.
The U.S. military has delayed until 2028 plans for a major flight test to demonstrate the ability of three major ballistic missile defense systems to collaborate, a goal that if not further postponed will be 15 years after the Pentagon's top weapon tester called for the Navy and Army systems to establish rudimentary engagement coordination for theater-level threats.
The Defense Department last month launched a new study to assess emerging biotechnologies and national security, a project required by law that was supposed to begin a year ago and which will likely be further delayed due to a department-wide review of all federal advisory committee activity mandated by the defense secretary.
The Missile Defense Agency is recalibrating plans to develop a counter-hypersonic capability by scrapping a prototype development project in favor of moving directly to an interceptor program of record, a major change that aims to accelerate by many years delivery of a new guided missile that could arm the U.S. military with a weapon to intercept long-range hypersonic warheads during the glide phase. (UPDATED)
The Navy has set an initial delivery target for its new No. 2 modernization priority with plans to push a "minimally viable capability" to the Theodore Roosevelt strike group in 2023, the first formal output of Project Overmatch in its mission to enable a fleet that "swarms the sea" and executes lethal and non-lethal attacks across every axis and domain.
The Missile Defense Agency is readying a sole-source contract for a major upgrade of the Long Range Discrimination Radar, advancing plans to tap Lockheed Martin to develop a second configuration of the not-yet-operational ground-based sensor that would add new capabilities as soon as 2024 -- including space situational awareness and space object identification.
Navy leaders are working to translate recently set high-level requirements for a new Large Surface Combatant, recently dubbed DDG-X, into specific performance capabilities as well as draft a cost estimate in an effort to ready for industry a solicitation to design and build the follow-on warship to the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class fleet.
The Missile Defense Agency has selected Northrop Grumman to join L3Harris Technologies for the next phase of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Senor project, a move that bumps Raytheon and Leidos from a contest to develop a next-generation, orbiting, infrared system to track ultrafast and maneuvering threats from launch to impact.
The Conventional Prompt Strike program -- the Navy and Army project to field an intermediate-range offensive hypersonic weapon by 2025 and 2023 respectively -- remains "on track" despite a nearly 40% funding cut imposed a few weeks ago to the Navy's $1 billion request in the fiscal year 2021 defense appropriations bill, according to a senior Navy official.
The Aegis ballistic missile defense system demonstrated the ability to track a long-range hypersonic weapon during a non-intercept test executed in parallel with a March 2020 flight test of the Conventional Prompt Strike program, launching a simulated Standard Missile-6 against the actual hypersonic glide body during its 2,000-mile flight over the Pacific.
The Missile Defense Agency has selected L3Harris Technologies as a finalist from a pool of four contenders in the contest to develop a Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor.
The Pentagon's acquisition executive has cleared Northrop Grumman's Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System -- a program that has suffered delays and technical setbacks since 2009 -- to transition from development to initial production, marking the start of a 10-year, $4.4 billion plan to deliver 454 units.
The Navy is wrapping up a project to define options for a new nuclear-tipped, submarine-launched cruise missile with plans to conclude by the end of the summer an analysis of alternatives that will offer Defense Department leaders -- and the incoming Biden administration -- a turn-key solution to launch development of a program in fiscal year 2022, according to a senior service official.
Government testers are evaluating a Lockheed Martin-built laser that promises a better-than-expected capability that, when paired with the Aegis combat system, provides area defense far more robust than simply self-defense against small boats and unmanned aircraft promised at the outset of the project, according to a company representative.
The Navy is advancing plans for integrating a long-range hypersonic strike weapon into the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer fleet and, as part of the effort, is also eyeing a next-generation vertical launch system -- able to accommodate larger missiles than the currently fielded Mk41 -- for its follow-on to the DDG-51, the Large Surface Combatant.
Inside Defense has retracted a story published Jan. 6 that incorrectly reported a three-month delay in the Regional Glide Phase Weapon program.
The head of U.S. Strategic Command moved to bat down suggestions that the Minuteman III -- the Air Force's aging intercontinental ballistic missile -- can be upgraded to remain in service longer than currently planned in order to free up funds the Pentagon wants to allocate to a replacement: the estimated $85 billion Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program.
The Missile Defense Agency has secured a more than $200 million boost for the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor in fiscal year 2021, partially satisfying its No. 1 unfunded requirement that will be roughly divided between the Aegis guided missile's development and procurement accounts.
Congress wants a report early next year on the ability of the U.S. military to defend the nation against a cruise missile attack -- with particular emphasis on vulnerability of approaches across the north polar region -- as well as an update on plans with Canada to modernize the early warning radar system currently in use across the Arctic.