Wednesday, September 27, 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 Air Force wants to launch a competition for a new "state-of-the-art" long-range radar in fiscal year 2024 to defend Hawaii from cruise missile threats in response to an "urgent mission need" from U.S. Indo-Pacific and Northern commands along with the Federal Aviation Administration and have the new sensor operational by 2027.
The Air Force's fiscal year 2024 budget advances the first part of a planned $1 billion down payment needed to launch production in FY-26 of the U.S. military's next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile, seeking $539 million in advanced procurement for the LGM-35A Sentinel.
The U.S. government is eyeing a key role for Japan in the Pentagon's marquee hypersonic defense program that could give Tokyo responsibility for helping design and build some of the most advanced components of a Glide Phase Interceptor, and plans to facilitate exploratory meetings soon between defense companies on both sides of the Pacific.
The Biden administration is fundamentally recalibrating Indo-Pacific plans in the fiscal year 2024 budget request, increasing total spending to counter China by nearly 33% compared with last year's Pacific Defense Initiative forecast, increasing scores of projects by more than $3 billion in part by shifting $850 million away from previous PDI priorities.
The Missile Defense Agency is readying a sole-source contract with Boeing as part of the project to break up the Ground-based Midcourse Defense continuing sustainment and development work, announcing plans for a potential five-year deal for a Ground-based Interceptor Integration and Test Contract (ITC).
The Biden administration is proposing nearly $30 billion in fiscal year 2024 to counter missiles, a request that includes $10.9 billion for the Missile Defense Agency, funds improved space-based sensors, seeks $1.5 billion to defend Guam against Chinese ballistic, cruise and hypersonic threats and bolsters the U.S. military's all-domain missile defense backbone.
The Pentagon this week scrubbed a long-delayed, high-stakes hypersonic weapon flight test after discovering a faulty component during a pre-flight check of the joint Army-Navy program to develop an ultra-fast, maneuvering, intermediate-range offensive capability, setting in motion a review to resolve the root cause of the problem.
The Pentagon estimates it will cost at least $120 billion and 20 years to vacate the mid-band electromagnetic spectrum being eyed for auction to telecommunications companies developing the 5G commercial market and put at risk military capabilities that currently use S-band systems such as the Aegis radar and assured navigation and more for strategic missions.
China quietly destroyed a high-flying spy balloon last month over the Atlantic Ocean in waters off South America, somehow downing an airship previously spotted over Costa Rica at about the same time a platform that appeared identical was transiting the United States last month, according to senior military officials.
The top U.S. military official responsible for defending the nation against a North Korean nuclear strike said he is "concerned" about the Pentagon's ability in the future to defend the nation against a limited attack.
Army leaders huddled in secret last week to contemplate one of the most consequential decisions in two generations: whether the time has come to replace the Abrams main battle tank and what exactly a fifth-generation combat vehicle replacement might be.
The U.S. government is protecting select strategic sites from small-uncrewed air systems with new counter-drone technology developed by a Utah startup that nabs a threat mid-air with a net, a system that is also proving itself in operations over Ukraine by thwarting some Russian intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as kamikaze drone strikes. (UPDATED)
The Missile Defense Agency wants to know why a solicitation for a big-ticket contract -- one that eventually tallied $3.2 billion -- failed to entice more than a single industry bid after the government spent many years designing an acquisition strategy that aimed to revive competition in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program.
The Army's fiscal year 2024 budget request is a "balancing act" that aims to fund the service's modernization goals while also paying for personnel and improvements to housing infrastructure, said the service's top civilian -- and will not include any dramatic funding shifts compared with the FY-23 spending proposal.
The Defense Department has completed a new, long-term aviation inventory and funding report, and -- in a major break with prior practice -- will no longer make the document public, withholding from scrutiny investment plans for one of the government's largest portfolios that cost more than $50 billion annually to support about 14,000 aircraft.
Lockheed Martin's venture capital arm, Hanwha Aerospace and AIM13|Crumpton Venture Partners are collectively investing $17.8 million in Fortem Technologies to help the Utah company scale its counter-drone capabilities, a market forecast to grow to $4.7 billion by 2027.
A key House lawmaker is calling for wide ranging enhancements to homeland ballistic missile defense after North Korea over the weekend launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on a lofted flight into the sea that experts said demonstrated the potential for Pyongyang to strike anywhere in the United States.
The Defense Department next month will conduct a full-rate production review of the Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense (AIAMD) program, a final milestone in the program's 14-year development that aims to unlock a planned $2.2 billion production run through 2027 and pave the way for both fielding to U.S. forces as well as potential foreign customer sales.
The U.S. and Canadian governments are augmenting the aging North Warning System with a new radar network armed with classified collection capabilities called "Crossbow," which is intended to improve the ability to detect approaching airborne threats while the two nations work to develop and build a new Over the Horizon Radar system.
The Defense Department is moving to lay the industrial groundwork necessary to mass produce high-energy lasers across the force -- on ground vehicles, ships and aircraft -- by shoring up weaknesses in manufacturing capacity of critical components needed to scale production of these powerful speed-of-light weapons.