Sunday, June 30, 2024
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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 growing proliferation of weapons with global reach is prompting Pentagon leaders to launch a study on the need for a robust domestic air defense capability to protect the entire nation -- which, since the advent of flight more than a century ago, has relied in part on two vast oceans as a buffer against adversaries attacking American citizens and soil with low-flying aircraft and missiles.
Two long-time Missile Defense Agency civilian leaders -- the No. 2 and No. 3 officials with more than three decades of MDA leadership roles between them -- stepped down suddenly from their posts last week against a backdrop of tension between the agency and the Pentagon's weapon technology boss over a wide array of issues over how to proceed with new missile defense capabilities.
The Air Force as soon as January plans to begin initial modification of the first of two commercial Boeing 747-8 jumbo jets slated for the $5.3 billion next Air Force One program, dubbed the VC-25B, a major event in the high-profile effort to demonstrate initial flight in late 2021.
U.S. missile defense contractors are pitching ideas for improving the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system with alternative interceptor concepts in a gambit to provide near-term upgrades should the Pentagon proceed with the technically ambitious Next-Generation Interceptor program that could take a decade or more to field.
The Defense Department plans to update the cost estimate for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent in late spring of next year, setting the stage for a potential major recalibration of the price tag for the new ballistic missile program that generated a pair of valuations in 2017 that varied by more than $20 billion.
An influential Air Force advisory panel has concluded that an alternative intelligence enterprise derived in part from data fused from open sources could provide a new way to locate, identify and attack targets in highly contested environments, according to an abstract of a new study by the group.
The Pentagon's independent cost estimators have pared back forecasted savings the Navy can expect to realize under a multiyear procurement of Virginia-class submarines from $2.5 billion to $1.8 billion, giving the planned 2019 deal the most anemic cost avoidance package achieved through a block buy in the program's two decades of consolidated purchases.
The Pentagon's push to develop a new interceptor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system would require the Missile Defense Agency to swap out existing antennae for new sensors optimized for a notional Next Generation Interceptor at six sites around the world with facilities that play a pivotal role guiding exo-atmospheric kill vehicles through space to intercept enemy warheads.
The Missile Defense Agency has formally lifted a restraint imposed last year on production of the newest Aegis ballistic missile interceptor following an early 2018 flight test failure, awarding Raytheon a $267 million option to proceed with building 24 Standard Missile-3 Block IIA rounds.
House lawmakers are launching an investigation into the August decision to terminate the Redesigned Kill Vehicle, directing the Defense Department to provide key documents associated with the ballistic missile defense warhead project as well as outline options for clawing back from contractors some of the $1.2 billion invested in it between 2015 and 2019.
The plan for a technologically ambitious Next Generation Interceptor -- a potential decade-long project to develop a new long-range, guided missile to protect the nation against anticipated North Korean and Iranian ballistic missile threats beginning in 2030 -- is fueling a debate about the shape of the program late in the fiscal year 2021 budget endgame.
The Missile Defense Agency has selected Harris, Leidos, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon to develop prototype designs for the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program -- a project formerly called the Space Sensor Layer -- to develop a network of orbiting satellites optimized to continuously track long-range missiles from launch to impact.
The White House Office of Management and Budget is balking at Defense Department plans for a Next Generation Interceptor, exposing a rift inside the Trump administration over how to modernize the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system just weeks after Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's top technology officer, sold Senate appropriators on plans for the new-start program.
One of the Senate's most vocal missile defense proponents said he was blindsided by the Pentagon's decision in August to terminate the Redesigned Kill Vehicle and raised concern the replacement program -- the new-start Next Generation Interceptor -- could take so long to develop and field it will leave the United States vulnerable to North Korean threats.
The Army has set an "aggressive" test plan for the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon program that calls for six flights, including two executed by soldiers who will operate the first battery of the new ground-launched strategic weapon by 2023, according to a senior service official.
Raytheon appears to have missed the window to protest the Army's award to Lockheed Martin of the A4 Sentinel radar upgrade, conceding defeat in the estimated $3 billion project the same week the company won a potentially larger Army radar program, the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor.
The Army's top air defender -- a key player in overseeing day-to-day operations of the Ground Based Midcourse Defense System -- voiced continued support for the fleet of ballistic missile interceptors in the wake of the Pentagon's decision to terminate the Redesigned Kill Vehicle, a move that will delay plans to modernize the current interceptor fleet.
The Army, which two years ago said it needed an additional $10 billion to fully fund its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense requirements, has recalibrated its need for the ballistic missile defense system that "balances" operational requirements and affordability, according to a senior service official.
The Army is forging gun tubes and readying initial contracts for a new system intended to operate with the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon in the opening salvos of a major fight against a near-peer military force. The Strategic Long Range Cannon is a prototype mega-cannon envisioned to fire rounds hundreds of miles at high-priority enemy radar and air-defense sites, namely those of Russia and China.
The Army has selected Raytheon to build the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, handing defeat to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman who had hoped to oust the incumbent Patriot radar builder.