Sunday, April 28, 2024
Key Issues Optical clocks Prototype funding SPAFORGEN
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.
House and Senate lawmakers are recommending Congress back a proposal -- not funded in the Pentagon's fiscal year 2019 budget request -- authorizing the Missile Defense Agency to launch a new space-based sensor network capable of tracking enemy long-range ballistic and hypersonic missiles from launch to impact.
Lawmakers, impatient with the Pentagon's plan to take five years to expand the ballistic missile defense interceptor fleet in Alaska, want the Missile Defense Agency to both draft options for accelerating emplacement of 20 new Ground-based Interceptors by at least a year as well as prepare a blueprint for an entire new missile field to potentially further expand the number of silos at Ft. Greely.
The Standard Missile-3 Block IIA developed by Raytheon and Mitsubishi is suffering severe cost growth, with the price tag for the new weapon ballooning nearly 60 percent over the last three years, an escalation that would force a traditional Pentagon big-ticket weapon system program to face summary termination.
The Pentagon is eying Oahu, HI for a new radar to improve defense of both the U.S. archipelago state and the rest of the nation from North Korean long-range rockets, and is launching a study considering three potential sites on the island for the $1 billion Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii project.
Congressional investigators have uncovered new costs associated with the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program that would bring the running tab for the acquisition of long-range, guided-missile interceptors to $67 billion, 63 percent higher than the Missile Defense Agency's $41 billion estimate.
The Missile Defense Agency produced "mixed progress" in delivery and testing goals in 2017, according to a congressional audit that also found U.S. military commanders who rely on the Ballistic Missile Defense System do not have "full insight" into capabilities the agency provides to warfighters, including potential shortcomings.
The Missile Defense Agency's program of record for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system is $10 billion short of what the Army says it needs to defend troops around the world, a sore point that foiled negotiations last year between MDA and the Army over transferring responsibility for THAAD to the service.
Defense Department leaders have granted Raytheon a potential major contract boost along with a provisional green light to continue manufacturing the newest variant of the Aegis ballistic missile defense interceptor -- the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA which failed during its most recent flight test in January -- in order to keep the production line warm.
The Defense Department is exploring a potential new ultra-fast, air-launched cruise missile -- specifically a naval variant of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept -- a joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Air Force effort slated to produce a flying prototype in fiscal year 2019.
Lawmakers have proposed a nearly 20 percent cut to the Army's planned procurement of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle in fiscal year 2019, a surprise blow to one of the service's major modernization efforts just as the Oshkosh-led manufacturing program is poised to accelerate production.
The Missile Defense Agency is soliciting ideas for a kinetic interceptor to destroy ballistic missiles during the boost-phase of flight, a first step in establishing a parallel -- or potential rival -- program to the technologically ambitious effort to develop a speed-of-light weapon to kill long-range enemy missiles immediately after launch.
The Missile Defense Agency has launched a potential $1 billion competition for new radars being developed to increase the effectiveness of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense segment of the Ballistic Missile Defense System against long-range North Korean rockets.
The Defense Department plans to pair an Army-designed hypersonic boost glide vehicle with an off-the-shelf rocket to give the Air Force the ability to air-launch an ultrafast weapon as part of a new campaign to leverage the recent success of the Conventional Prompt Strike program, which Pentagon officials say has demonstrated technologies needed for a long-range hypersonic strike capability.
The Pentagon's new weapon system technology chief is poised to shake up the U.S. military's research and development investment portfolio this summer with recommendations for likely increasing funding across 10 priority areas between fiscal years 2020 and 2024 in an effort to produce potentially game-changing capabilities within a decade.
A house panel has adopted legislation that would require the Defense Department to prepare a National Security Science and Technology Strategy annually, an assessment to be provided to Congress that explicitly prioritizes investments across a $15 billion research portfolio that aims to provide the building blocks for potential new weapons.
The Defense Department wants Army ground forces outfitted with a tactical, hypersonic boost-glide vehicle to penetrate enemy air defenses and destroy time-sensitive targets, a notional weapon that would leverage investments in an air-launched, ultra-fast missile capability for the Air Force.
The Defense Department has established a new line in its spending forecast to account for shifting $190 billion from war costs back into the base budget between fiscal years 2020 and 2023, according to the office of the Pentagon's comptroller.
The Missile Defense Agency is moving ahead with assessments that could give the land-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system the means to intercept cruise missiles and aircraft, a new capability Congress mandated be included as part of the next round of improvements to Aegis Ashore systems in Europe.
Draft legislation would require Pentagon brass to validate a requirement for a potential conventional hypersonic strike triad -- setting the stage for a ground-, sea-, and air-launched ultra-fast boost-glide weapon -- along with cost estimates for accelerating initial operational capability of each notional leg of this fledgling new class of weapon.
Lawmakers want an independent assessment of a proposal to arm Predator unmanned aircraft with guided missiles to shoot down North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles, leveraging proven technologies in the American arsenal to rapidly field a system that uses kinetic interceptors to kill Pyongyang’s ballistic missiles during the boost phase of flight.