Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Key Issues Fixed-price contracts STARCOM GBSD test fire
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 new variant of the Standard Missile-6 failed to intercept an advanced target during a Saturday flight test simulating a last line of defense for a major warship against a medium-range ballistic missile, a setback for the Aegis ballistic missile defense program that will delay plans for propagating it for use across the U.S. fleet.
The Missile Defense Agency's fiscal year 2022 budget request seeks funding for a new Guam missile defense capability, the creation of a cruise missile defense to protect domestic sites against Russian and Chinese threats as part of an $8.9 billion proposal that would also fund development of a Next Generation Interceptor, a Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor constellation and a hypersonic defense system.
The Navy plans to rip out the DDG-1000's Advanced Gun System mounts -- the original focus of the Zumwalt-class destroyer's offensive firepower -- to make room for a new vertical launch system that will fire Conventional Prompt Strike missiles, as part of a new goal that scraps five years of planning to field long-range hypersonic weapons on conventionally armed Ohio-class submarines.
The Pentagon estimates the Weather System Follow-On program will cost $1 billion, setting a baseline price tag for the microwave component of the next-generation operational environmental satellite system being developed to address three gaps in the U.S. military's space-based meteorological capabilities.
The Pentagon is formally delaying by seven months the final acquisition milestone for the GPS Next Generation Operational Control Segment, a move that consumes a majority of the $6.2 billion program's remaining schedule margin as part of the continuing fallout from a key OCX supplier spinning off a business to a Chinese-owned company.
The Navy estimates the cost to develop and procure a fleet of 20 new guided-missile frigates is $24.7 billion, setting the average cost for each new FFG-62 Constellation-class warship at about $1.2 billion. (UPDATED)
The Defense Department is readying a major live-fire test to bolster the last line of defense against ballistic missiles for major warship formations, such as aircraft carrier strike groups, by pitting a pair of the newest Standard Missile-6 variants against a medium-range ballistic missile target in waters off Hawaii.
The Missile Defense Agency is now betting on a service life extension project to improve the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system until the Next Generation Interceptor is ready for fielding, a shift in messaging from the agency's gambit last year that proposed an underlayer featuring new variants of the Aegis and Terminal High Altitude Area defense systems.
A NATO flotilla -- including a 15-ship task force representing 10 nations -- is in the North Atlantic this week for an integrated air and missile defense demonstration, Formidable Shield 2021, to assess allied interoperability and command-and-control structures against subsonic, supersonic and ballistic missile threats.
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.