Tuesday, February 7, 2023
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 Defense Department would be required to draft a report on the feasibility of fashioning a multinational, integrated air and missile defense system to counter Iran with the aim of connecting the capabilities of at least 10 nations across the Middle East into a cohesive architecture.
A Senate panel has endorsed a proposed live-fire demonstration to explore a cruise missile defense architecture to protect high-priority domestic assets, authorizing $50 million in the Missile Defense Agency's fiscal year 2023 budget in support of North American Aerospace and Defense Command.
The Pentagon would be required to draft a plan to pay for a fleet-wide replacement of the homeland defense ballistic missile inventory, according to legislation proposed by a Senate panel that would identify the price tag associated with expanding the program of record for the Next Generation Interceptor beyond 20 guided missiles to a total of 64.
Senate lawmakers are proposing a dramatic increase in spending for the Glide Phase Interceptor in fiscal year 2023 -- a nearly $300 million boost the Pentagon's top technology shop last fall determined would not necessarily accelerate plans for fielding a hypersonic defense.
A key congressional committee wants the Missile Defense Agency to continue developing next-generation directed-energy technology, proposing a $5 million increase to the fiscal year 2023 budget to extend work on a project with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on a Diode-Pumped Alkali Laser (DPAL).
The project to develop a new air and missile defense system for Guam should be elevated to the Pentagon's highest-profile acquisition category and assigned the responsibility of a senior Defense Department official, according to new legislation that aims to ensure the effort does not get mired in seams across the bureaucracy.
A national cruise missile defense system to protect the lower 48 states from strategic attack on the homeland below the nuclear threshold from Russia or China could be acquired for $32.7 billion, considerably less than a congressional analysis estimated last year, according to a new study that aims to influence the Pentagon's fiscal year 2024 budget proposal.
An influential Pentagon advisory panel will soon launch a sweeping study of advanced U.S. military technology that will prioritize near-term asymmetric capabilities and recommend actions that could recalibrate future investments in weapon system development.
The White House revealed new details about the planned architecture for the air and missile defense system intended to provide persistent, all-direction protection of Guam from advanced Chinese threats -- making public Pentagon plans to acquire a land-based variant of the Aegis vertical launch system in addition to previously announced mobile launchers.
The Air Force Research Laboratory took delivery earlier this year of a compact, ruggedized laser developed for potential use as a defensive weapon on fighter aircraft, according to Lockheed Martin which claims the new airborne laser is the smallest, lightest, high-energy laser of its power level built to date.
The Pentagon's "fly-before-you-buy" plan for the Next Generation Interceptor calls for procuring 11 prototype guided missiles, flying six against ballistic missile targets and utilizing the remaining five for ground tests as well as possible do-over launches in an effort to field by 2027 an improved homeland defense shield against a potential North Korean nuclear strike.
The Missile Defense Agency is targeting 2024 for initial delivery of a key building block of a new air and missile defense system for Guam, announcing plans to award Lockheed Martin a sole-source contract for the Aegis weapon system portion of the new capability as well as a new mobile launcher.
The initial prototype of the U.S. military's marquee hypersonic strike weapon failed during a major test over the Pacific Ocean on June 29 in an event that featured the inaugural flight of a new, two-stage rocket built by Lockheed Martin paired with a Common-Hypersonic Glide Body manufactured by Sandia National Laboratories.
The Missile Defense Agency's testing program barely conducted half of its planned flight, ground and cybersecurity tests in 2021 -- extending a long-running pattern of under-executing assessments necessary to demonstrate new capabilities U.S. commanders depend on to protect the U.S. public, allies and armed forces from advanced missile threats.
The Missile Defense Agency failed to deliver one-third of the most advanced guided missiles the Navy requires to defend ships and allies from ballistic missiles around the world, with particular difficulty producing the newest and most powerful Aegis interceptor -- the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA -- slated for Japan, U.S. destroyers and land sites to defend against Iranian threats.
Northrop Grumman has begun manufacturing a critical component of its Next Generation Interceptor, weaving composite threads to create a newly designed rocket throat nozzle to demonstrate the efficacy of its proposal in a competition against Lockheed Martin to build a new intercontinental ballistic missile killer.
The U.S. project to establish a second Aegis Ashore site in Europe -- beleaguered by construction problems that have delayed by five years plans to declare the system operational -- achieved an important benchmark this month when the Navy activated the radar and weapon system even as work to complete the physical structure in Poland continues.
The Pentagon has narrowed the competition for development of a Glide Phase Interceptor, selecting Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman to continue refining concepts for a counter-hypersonic missile in a move that sidelines Lockheed Martin from the contest and sets up high-level review of the two remaining designs in early 2023.
The Defense Department may soon be required to draft options for Taiwan to expedite acquisition of improved air and missile defense capabilities -- an assessment that could build a case for future sales of new guided missile interceptors, radar and more to the self-governing island that Beijing regards a breakaway province.
The Defense Department quietly scaled back the most ambitious parts of a 2017 plan to improve missile defenses in South Korea, delaying until 2030 plans for full integration of upper- and lower-tier Army programs and completely removing plans to integrate Navy Aegis from the improved architecture.