Friday, April 19, 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 Missile Defense Agency is hailing a “very successful” March ground test of laser technology that a senior official said penetrated a threat-representative ballistic missile component, buoying support within the agency for a new speed-of-light weapon and hopes for a future capability to destroy an enemy target immediately after launch.
The Navy is readying the Barracuda mine neutralizer for a preliminary design review in June, advancing development of a next-generation capability that is slated to be part of a new unmanned and autonomous technology package to clear contested waters for aircraft carrier strike groups and other surface combatants, executing in hours tasks that now can take weeks.
The Pentagon has officially stopped producing an annual aviation inventory and funding plan which had been sent to Congress after delivery of the president's budget for nearly a decade, denying defense aviation wonks a key resource in scrutinizing the U.S. military's long-term investment about the approximately 14,000 aircraft flown and operated by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
The Defense Department is seeking permission from Congress to shift $115 million appropriated in prior years into accounts that would allow the Army to immediately jump-start a $437 million purchase from Israel of two Iron Dome batteries to provide an interim capability by 2020 against cruise missiles, unmanned air vehicles, mortars, rockets and artillery.
The Missile Defense Agency last spring finalized a contract to accelerate development of a new Ground-based Midcourse Defense warhead that locked in costs 55% above estimates for the pre-acceleration plan -- a bid to speed development that unraveled within months when design challenges surfaced saddling the project with an estimated two-year delay.
An influential Pentagon advisory panel has completed a classified assessment of potential U.S. military applications of 5G network technology to aide defense policymakers contemplating the ramifications of the looming adoption of fifth-generation wireless technology networks -- being shaped in part by China -- that promise step-change improvements in data speed, volume and latency.
ANDOVER, MA -- Protruding from the side of a pair of two-story buildings here are dozens of oversize pipes that turn down at a right angle and extend directly to the ground, a quirky architectural feature that brings to mind insect legs.
The Defense Department has set a new plan to achieve a ten-fold increase in directed-energy technology over the next decade with potential to power lasers for combat on land, at sea and in air and space and identified existing contract vehicles to begin executing this new Laser Scaling Plan with fiscal year 2019 funds.
The Army has begun deploying a new prototype Long-Range Persistent Surveillance passive sensor developed to meet urgent needs from commanders in Europe, the Pacific and U.S. Central Command, launching a two-year campaign to provide improved capability to detect enemy cruise missiles, aircraft as well as unmanned aircraft systems.
Gen. John Hyten, head of U.S. Strategic Command and the presumptive next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has singled out the fledgling Space Sensor Layer project as a modernization priority in a letter to lawmakers, a move that comes as fissures are showing among Pentagon leaders about the best approach to developing a new low-earth orbit constellation.
The Missile Defense Agency has nearly completed work on the $2.1 billion in emergency spending projects awarded in late 2017 to counter threats from North Korea, according to a top Defense Department official, despite delays with marquee efforts in that missile defeat and defense enhancements package.
The Navy and Marine Corps are assessing more than 80 emerging technologies along with new concepts of operation in a 10-day exercise across numerous locations that aims to vet potential combat capabilities as part of the services' effort to expedite fielding of new weapons and ways to fight, according to the services.
The Missile Defense Agency has pushed back plans for a new Pacific Radar by two years -- delaying all key milestones for a new sensor needed to plug holes in the U.S. military's ability to track projected future North Korean long-range rockets during the midcourse of flight -- while also trimming planned five-year spending on the project from $1 billion to $764 million.
The Missile Defense Agency is working to determine the full extent of the delay to the Redesigned Kill Vehicle program and -- based on technology testing currently underway -- plans to revise the estimated two-year schedule slip by either lengthening the delay or trimming it as soon as this summer, according to a senior Defense Department official.
The Missile Defense Agency and the Air Force are seeking $30 million to launch a classified, joint program over the next three years that could be used to begin a new interceptor program or modify an existing guided missile based on scant details in the Pentagon's new spending request.
The Defense Department is asking industry about the feasibility of demonstrating a 1,000 kilowatt-class laser for missile defense as soon as 2025, seeking industry feedback on the potential for scaling up electrically pumped, directed-energy technology -- for an undisclosed platform and mission -- to power levels that in theory could destroy an enemy ballistic missile during the boost phase of flight.
The Missile Defense Agency is laying the technical groundwork for the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA -- a Navy interceptor originally designed to counter medium- and intermediate-range threats -- to also have an operational mission against intercontinental ballistic missiles, potentially stretching the reach of the new weapon to reinforce defense of the nation against North Korean threats.
The Defense Department has markedly curtailed what last year was a $1.4 billion five-year investment plan for a pair of programs -- the Common Kill Vehicle and the Multi Object Kill Vehicle -- that promised to deliver next-generation warheads for future ballistic missile defense in a decade.
The Pentagon will nearly double its planned investments in hypersonic capabilities over the next five years, from $6 billion to $11.2 billion, a sum higher than one of the Defense Department's top hypersonics officials recently cited because it reflects planned spending on both offensive and defensive capabilities.
The Army has formalized plans with Raytheon and Lockheed Martin to wind down by September the original Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) program of record, a key part of the service's pivot toward a new approach to accelerate the fielding of a Patriot radar replacement by 2022 through a “Sense-Off” competition beginning in May.