Friday, April 26, 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.
The Navy has realigned orders for the Air and Missile Defense Radar program to better reflect current shipbuilding plans for the new variant of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers which will feature the new S-band radar, awarding a contract to Raytheon for a single AN/SPY-6 radar last week instead of two originally envision for fiscal year 2018, according to the service.
House lawmakers are proposing legislation to restore transparency to the Pentagon's ballistic missile defense test plans by requiring the Missile Defense Agency to reinstate advance public disclosure of major flight tests, brushing back claims by MDA that such information should be withheld.
A congressional audit of the Pentagon's major weapon systems portfolio reveals that two major acquisition reform initiatives -- statutory changes Congress spearheaded in 2009 and executive stratagems led by Defense Department procurement executives beginning in 2010 -- have yielded some success reigning in cost growth and improving buying power.
The Defense Department plans to launch a competition next week for a $1 billion radar project to develop and field a new radar site in Hawaii as part of a strategy to increase the effectiveness of the Ground Based Midcourse defense segment of the Ballistic Missile Defense System against long-range North Korean rockets.
Michael Griffin, the Pentagon's new weapons-technology chief, has commissioned a project to develop by early July a portfolio of strategies to advance research and engineering work on 10 technology domains, a move that could signal a potential recalibration of U.S. military modernization spending in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2020 budget proposal.
The Pentagon's weapons-technology boss has commissioned a new study that aims to head off "strategic surprise" in the coming decade by directing an influential advisory panel to examine U.S. military potential blind spots, weighing information about prospective adversaries' technological capabilities and operational concepts that could lead to "regrets in 2028."
The Air Force has established a nearly $1 billion program to prototype a long-range, air-launched, hypersonic strike weapon and Lockheed Martin has elbowed away two other competitors to win the project, the service has revealed.
The nominee to be the next head of U.S. Pacific Command estimates the organization's Hawaii-based headquarters has 25 percent of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability it requires, an appraisal that points to a significant shortfall but also a marked improvement compared to an assessment PACOM offered a year ago.
China's advances in developing a non-nuclear, hypersonic boost-glide missile are placing U.S. military forces in the Pacific region "under threat today," the Pentagon's top technology official claimed while calling for a renewed focus by the Defense Department to develop both an offensive hypersonic strike capability and a defensive capability against such ultra-fast missiles.
Iran does not present a sufficient enough threat to the United States to warrant investing billions of dollars in an East Coast missile defense site, according to the head of the Missile Defense Agency, who said he would prefer any additional funding Congress might provide be directed into the U.S. military's sensor network to improve threat detection and tracking.
The Pentagon is investigating whether a component that is believed to be the source of a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA flight test failure in January -- forcing a $130 million do-over -- could also cause other weapon systems that rely on the same component to also fail, according to a senior Defense Department official.
The Navy has delayed by about a year plans to complete an analysis of alternatives for a sixth-generation fighter, setting a fiscal year 2019 target completion date for the effort that began in May 2016 and was originally slated to be done last November.
A top U.S. military officer said there is an "extremely high" risk that hypersonic strike weapon technology being developed in China and Russia could proliferate to North Korea and Iran, a determination that is fueling efforts by the Defense Department to focus development on a new capability to defeat ultra-fast, maneuvering missiles.
The Missile Defense Agency is eying the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system to shoot down enemy long-range ballistic missile during the boost-phase of flight, a technically challenging gambit to add a new defensive layer against North Korean threats and reduce exclusive reliance on the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system to protect the United States.
The Defense Department demonstrated the ability to bolster its regional ballistic missile defense capability during a non-intercept flight test last week that showcased two Army-operated systems collaborating to track a short-range ballistic missile target, according to the Missile Defense Agency.
The Advanced Arresting Gear program -- a new technology critical to the Navy's next-generation aircraft carrier -- will cost 10 percent more than expected to develop and deliver to the fleet.
U.S. Transportation Command and the Office of the Secretary of Defense are conducting only one major mobility study in 2018 with no plans for a second mobility study to launch -- heel-to-toe -- in 2019, as comments by a senior Air Force official last year suggested.
The Navy has locked in new design changes for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to give the twin-engine fighter improved situational awareness, increased survivability and extended range -- upgrades that allow the fourth-generation weapon system to keep pace with next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.
The estimated cost for the Pentagon's major weapon system acquisition portfolio grew by $177 billion, or more than 10 percent, over the last year, swelling from $1.7 trillion to $1.9 trillion.
The Defense Department could be forced to strip more than $260 billion in planned spending from its fiscal year 2020 and 2021 budgets if discretionary spending caps required by the Budget Control Act for those two years are not adjusted, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.