Wednesday, June 3, 2020
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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 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.
The Army has picked a winner in the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor program -- a contest between Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to replace the Patriot radar -- but will not identify the company yet because the service is in "active negotiations" to finalize contract terms, according to a senior official.
The Army's fiscal year 2021 budget will propose realigning $10 billion in investments across the Pentagon's new five-year spending plan to pump additional resources into 31 so-called "signature systems" that underpin the service's modernization plan.
The Army estimates the Bradley replacement program will cost $45 billion to develop and procure, a tally that assumes at least two defense contractors would submit bids for the rapid prototyping phase of the competition for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle.
The Missile Defense Agency is looking into the early 2020s and thinking about how best to structure future contracts to manage the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, contemplating whether to bundle end-to-end development and sustainment of the interceptor fleet into a single deal or break it up into a package of smaller competitive contracts.
Raytheon executives are optimistic about concluding negotiations with the Defense Department for multiyear procurement of Standard Missiles worth more than $3.5 billion, bolstered by a recent handshake agreement with the Navy for a five-year block buy of the SM-6 and continuing discussion with the Missile Defense Agency for SM-3 Block IB purchases across a similar term.
The Pentagon's acquisition executive has cleared the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA program, in co-development since 2006 with Japan, for transition to production -- signaling confidence in the interceptor after early flight-test challenges and setting the stage for the rollout of a major operational enhancement to the Ballistic Missile Defense System.
Raytheon is “very confident” the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA -- a new ballistic missile interceptor developed with Japan to defeat medium- and intermediate-range threats -- can also knock down intercontinental ballistic missiles, delivering Washington and Tokyo more than they originally bargained for.
The tab to identify U.S. suppliers to replace Turkish companies providing parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program could be as much as three times the amount Ankara contributed to the development of the new weapon system, more than washing out any financial benefit associated with Turkey's early role in the program.
A Pentagon decision to transition the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor from development to production is "imminent," according to a Raytheon executive, a milestone that could allow the ballistic missile defense project to tap more than $450 million in production orders that have been on ice pending resolution of technical questions by Defense Department brass about the new interceptor.
In the latest move to field an industry team to support efforts to rapidly prototype a ground-launched hypersonic glide vehicle, the Army has selected General Atomics to support flight test execution of the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon. (UPDATED)
The Missile Defense Agency plans to release an updated version of a draft solicitation for a Next Generation Interceptor on Oct. 1, a revision of the preliminary request circulated to industry weeks ago as part of a rapid effort by the Pentagon to reboot the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program after terminating the Redesigned Kill Vehicle last month.
The Defense Department's inspector general is planning this month to begin auditing hypersonic weapons research and development projects, a move that comes after Pentagon leaders announced plans to nearly double spending over the next five years on the new class of ultrafast weapons -- both offensive and defensive -- to more than $11 billion.