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.
The Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System -- a project that has consumed $2.7 billion and more than a decade just to commence limited user testing -- won strong public backing from Army leaders this week, a turnaround from two years ago when the program was allegedly at risk of being dramatically curtailed or even terminated over schedule delays and cost.
The Army today said it intercepted cruise and ballistic missile targets during an assessment of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Management System, raising service leaders' expectations that problems which plagued a similar test in 2016 are resolved.
If the U.S. military can ever master technology capable of a boost-phase intercept -- the ability to shoot down enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles immediately after launch -- it will likely be employed in a retaliatory strike because thwarting an initial salvo would come very close to an offensive operation, according to a senior Defense Department official.
The Missile Defense Agency last week took receipt of industry proposals for a Next Generation Interceptor and has begun source selection, a process expected to yield two winners and potentially a faster development and deployment schedule for the new guided missiles slated to protect the nation against North Korean -- and potentially Iranian -- intercontinental ballistic missile threats in the 2030s.
Oshkosh Defense is proposing design changes to the newest variant of the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, the FMTV A2, in an effort to both resolve reliability issues that surfaced during production vehicle testing earlier this year and get its truck back to being assessed at Aberdeen Proving Ground this fall, according to a service spokeswoman.
The Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor suffered a previously unreported fault during a key flight test in December 2018, a glitch serious enough to give senior Pentagon leaders pause about pivoting from development to production despite the fact the weapon intercepted its intended target, a congressional audit revealed.
The head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is lobbying senior Defense Department leaders to include a new project in the fiscal year 2022 budget currently being developed to establish a vast new test and training complex to support large-scale experimentation of advanced warfighting concepts.
The White House is objecting to three missile defense provisions in the House version of the fiscal year 2021 authorization bill, including legislation that would reinstate funding for the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii, mandate an analysis of alternatives for a homeland defense architecture, and the panel's recommendations regarding the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor.
The Defense Department is seeking relief from a statutory requirement to provide Congress a report by the end of September on the status of Missile Defense Agency plans to transfer elements of the Missile Defense System to military departments, according to a new congressional report.
Congressional auditors are recommending an independent review of the Missile Defense Agency's process for developing and executing its annual Missile Defense System flight test plan after finding the agency has delayed, merged with a future test or canceled more than 60% of its assessments over the last decade due to developmental delays, range and target availability, or modifying test objectives.
The Defense Department last August terminated the Redesigned Kill Vehicle after the cost estimate tripled and the goal of fielding the new warhead for the Ground-based Interceptor in six-and-a-half years stretched to more than 10-and-a-half years, an outcome that came after both the Missile Defense Agency and RKV contractors ignored repeated warnings about the risks associated with the new warhead program.
Senior Pentagon officials have misgivings about the U.S. program to develop a counter-hypersonic weapon, citing the technical challenges of developing a new interceptor capable of being fast and nimble enough to outperform an emerging class of ultra-fast hypersonic glide and cruise missiles, according to a congressional audit.
The Missile Defense Agency is readying a solicitation by the end of this year to formally commence a competition for a Regional Glide Phase Weapon System, an expected two-way, 18-month competition to develop a prototype hypersonic defense interceptor.
Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, wants an Aegis Ashore missile defense system on Guam by 2026 to defend the U.S. territory against advancing ballistic and cruise missile threats, arguing the combination of land- and sea-based missile defenses currently deployed there are limited to protecting one side of the island only and insufficient to provide 360-degree defense from China's ships and aircraft.
House lawmakers are recommending a $20 million addition to the Navy's fiscal year 2021 shipbuilding account in an effort to head off cost growth in the service's $12.9 billion, T-AO 205 John Lewis Fleet Oiler Class program.
The House Appropriations Committee is encouraging the Navy to begin laying the groundwork for a block buy of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers beginning in fiscal year 2023, a follow-on to the current multiyear procurement contract that ends in FY-22 in order to extend purchases of Flight III DDG-51 variants until the still-to-be-defined replacement called the Large Surface Combat is ready for production.
Lawmakers are looking to add $50 million to the fiscal year 2021 defense budget to further development of a prototype "micro" nuclear reactor capable of generating up to 10 megawatts of electricity, a potential capability that could give the U.S. military -- one of the largest energy consumers in the world -- a revolutionary new way to power installations and possibly more.
The Defense Department is conducting a precursor assessment for a potential new capability that aims to provide senior leaders with accurate, timely, unambiguous warning and attack assessment of air, missile and space threats -- a next-generation, command-and-control system referred to as the Integrated Tactical Warning Attack Assessment.
In rebuke of Pentagon plans to defund the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii project, three congressional committees have reinstated funding in fiscal year 2021 for the ground-based sensor in recent weeks -- a move that comes as an internal Defense Department report aims to recommend what to do with the program in the FY-22 budget proposal.
House lawmakers are recommending $90 million in fiscal year 2021 for the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office, looking to bankroll the newly established shop with additional funds to extend a host of research and development projects the Pentagon recently asked academia to propose.