The Insider

This Thursday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on the Defense Department's latest Selected Acquisition Reports and more.

We start off with coverage of the Pentagon's most-recently released Selected Acquisition Reports on various weapon systems:

DOD tallies $12.5B price tag for F-15EX fleet; 1970s airframe forecasted to fly until 2060s

The Pentagon estimates the total price tag for Boeing's F-15EX fighter aircraft program is $12.5 billion, a sum that allows the Air Force to replace its oldest two-seater fighters with a modernized variant of the 1970s-design combat system and puts a significant six-year squeeze on available funding to buy F-35 aircraft as Lockheed Martin struggles to reach objective manufacturing rates.

DOD to break out SM-6 reporting of new hypersonic strike and defense missiles

The Navy plans to establish a dedicated program to manage procurement of a hypersonic capability -- both defensive and offensive -- in development since 2018 and slated to begin production in fiscal year 2024, breaking the Standard Missile-6 Block IB off from other variants of the SM-6 for cost and schedule reporting.

Army tallies $7.2B light tank program cost, excluding $2.2B unfunded requirement

The Army has tallied a $7.2 billion price tag for its Mobile Protected Firepower program, a project to buy 377 light tanks for infantry brigades that will outfit six battalions but still leave the service shy of more than 30% of the total infantry requirement for a direct-fire capability needed to neutralize hardened enemy positions and armored vehicles.

The Pentagon wants to shore up the defense microelectronics industrial base:

DOD awards contracts to improve resilience in the defense microelectronics industrial base

The Defense Department has awarded a combined $17.5 million to two initiatives that aim to strengthen the resilience of the defense microelectronics industrial base.

Keith DeVries, deputy defense director of manufacturing technology, said during a Defense News webinar this week that he believes additive manufacturing has the potential to simplify and streamline the way weapons and other military items are produced:

DOD official touts additive manufacturing for hypersonic weapons

A senior Pentagon official this week highlighted the promise that additive manufacturing brings to the defense industrial base, specifically when it comes to hypersonic weapons, calling it a "game changer."

A recent international naval exercise integrated unmanned systems operations with crewed ships:

4th Fleet rides wave of 'technical firsts' in UNITAS

The U.S. 4th Fleet launched Starlink systems and reported "technical firsts" fielding unmanned aerial and surface vehicles during UNITAS exercises conducted with 20 partner nations in waters off Central and South America.

Two companies will produce the next batch of artillery shells for the Army, the Defense Department announced Wednesday.

American Ordnance and General Dynamics Ordnance & Tactical Systems will manufacture 155mm M1128 projectiles for $974 million by an estimated completion date of Sept. 26, 2028.

The announcement does not list the exact number of projectiles to be produced and states work locations will be determined with each contract.

Intended to become the Army’s primary high-explosive round, the M1128 projectile has a 30km range, a high fragmentation body and is compatible with the Army’s future Extended Range Cannon Artillery System.

Last month, service acquisition chief Doug Bush announced an earlier multiyear contract for M1128 projectiles to IMT Defense Corp. in Westerville, OH, costing $162 million.

Bush added that increasing artillery production has various hurdles such as establishing new production lines, filling the shells with explosives and producing the charges that go behind the shells.

The U.S. has aided Ukraine with more than two million 155mm projectiles of various types, as the country counters an invasion from Russia, according to the Defense Department.

The Army intends to procure 16,950 rounds, according to fiscal year 2024 budget documents.

The Defense Department today announced plans to create two BRAVO Artificial Intelligence Battle Labs, one based at U.S. European Command and the other at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, to host "hackathons" intended to develop and strengthen the military's AI capabilities.

Both labs will be used to organize U.S. federal government-wide BRAVO hackathons, which invite people to form emerging capabilities under department leadership, including some with coalition partners.

"BRAVO Hackathons represent an opportunity for DOD to practice and proliferate the fundamentals of user-centered design and agile software development," said Joe Larson, DOD’s deputy chief digital and AI officer for algorithmic warfare.

"By providing the seed funding to establish the AI Battle Labs in EUCOM and INDOPACOM,” he said, “we will be designing and testing data analytic[s] and AI capabilities with warfighters, not for them, informing and strengthening our ability to deliver exactly what they need to win."

The BRAVO Hackathon series will keep planning one-week long events to integrate data of any classification in a software development environment that allows untrusted, licensed commercial and open-source software and data that is otherwise not authorized for use in production systems.

"On behalf of the DOD, we will deploy BRAVO's awesome development experience to combatant commands to host timeboxed hackathons and continuously develop and integrate capabilities developed from operational theater data," said Stuart Wagner, Air Force chief digital transformation officer and executive agent for the BRAVO AI battle labs. "Given that a free society's largest competitive advantage is innovation and collaboration, the labs will provide a physical and digital space for serendipitous social collisions as DOD, industry, and coalition partners prototype solutions to challenges from peer competitors. Any U.S. citizen remains eligible to apply to participate in public BRAVO hackathons."

According to a DOD release, these multi-classification labs are intended to collect operational theater data, ranging from logistics to cyber, to share with the DOD enterprise which should in turn create central hubs for digital integration among federal entities, industry, coalition partners and U.S. citizens.

In accordance with the labs’ bottom-up approach, the release also encourages federal government employees or federal contractors to share cases, data, infrastructure or potential collaborations with the labs through the email: saf.cn.bravo@us.af.mil. And recommends U.S. citizens and U.S. industry professionals looking to work with the labs to contact the DIU at onramp-hack-bravo@diu.mil.

"We look forward to working with the BRAVO labs to ensure that developers and companies who want to work with DOD data can rapidly access the environments they need to demonstrate operational relevance," said Doug Beck, director of the Defense Innovation Unit.

The release states that the labs intend to interconnect combatant command, enterprise DOD and coalition partner capabilities from data ingestion and system integration to approved employment, citing the Air Force’s system-of-systems technology integration toolchain for heterogeneous electronic systems (STITCHES) as a service to integrate directly to the labs.

"The use of emerging AI tools to quickly analyze and leverage data for decision advantage is critical in today's increasingly complex threat environment," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Peter Andrysiak, chief of staff at EUCOM. "Establishing one of the BRAVO AI Battle labs within the USEUCOM region is an important investment for this command. The lab will enable greater innovation at the edge, with our Allies and partners, against a range of challenges at a pivotal time for the command."

BRAVO hackathons are not new to the department. Over three BRAVO hackathons at six different sites, 81 operational prototypes have been created at three classifications from operational DOD data. These occurred at approximately 2% of the cost of existing DOD minimum viable product innovation pipelines.

"Despite the speed and impacts from BRAVO hackathons, we are still finding the time from development of capabilities, calibrations, or tactics with operational data to employment in theater to be on the order of months or years," Wagner said. "We are deploying these labs to drop this timeline by a factor of 100 -- from months or years to days and eventually hours -- by increasingly automating bureaucratic processes such as data classification determinations and authority to operate applications. If successful, we will adapt our capabilities and tactics to our strategic competitors faster than they can adapt to us."

This Wednesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on a prototype long-range missile system being developed for Marine Corps attack helicopters, the Space Force's new space domain awareness collaboration hub, domestic supply chain production and more.

We start off with the Marine Corps looking to develop a long-range missile system that its attack helicopters can carry:

Marine Corps seeks new long-range munition for VTOL fleet

The Marine Corps is looking for contractors capable of rapidly prototyping a new, long-range precision weapon system to arm its fleet of AH-1Z Viper helicopters and other vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft.

The Space Force's new Tools Application and Processing Lab is designed to encourage government, industry, academia and allies to work closely with the service and Space Systems Command:

Space Force opens second TAP center in Colorado to solve SDA challenges

The Space Force has opened a collaboration center in Colorado Springs, CO, to find solutions to space domain awareness challenges, according to an announcement issued Monday.

With tensions rising on many supply chains being overseas, particularly when it comes to possible Chinese cyberattacks, the Defense Department is pushing for more domestic supply chain production:

DOD establishes munitions pilot program to foster domestic supply chains

The Pentagon's Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization office launched a munitions campus pilot project today intended to assist emerging U.S. businesses through a shared facility intended to decrease costs and lower entry barriers.

The Defense Department's top acquisition official spoke this week during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

LaPlante: 'Production diplomacy' is coming via new deals with U.S. allies

Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante, fresh from a meeting last week with NATO's top armaments directors, said defense contractors should expect the United States to soon announce more multinational procurement deals -- involving co-development, co-production and co-sustainment -- with its closest allies, including Ukraine.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks recently sent a memo on the Defense Innovation Steering Group:

Pentagon memo details Replicator implementation process

A Defense Department memo details the Pentagon's Replicator implementation mechanism, outlining the structure and process that the internal "Defense Innovation Steering Group" will use to fill pressing operational gaps through 18-month innovation sprints.

House Republicans were able to muster enough votes last night to advance debate on the fiscal year 2024 defense appropriations bill, a goal that had eluded them three times previously.

The House voted 216-212 to begin debate on the bill, which Democrats uniformly oppose and President Biden has threatened to veto because of various “culture war” provisions that target diversity programs, climate change mitigation and the Pentagon’s travel and leave policy for servicemembers seeking abortions. The bill is also likely to fail in the Democrat-led Senate.

House Republicans released a statement today arguing the defense appropriations bill actually “rejects culture wars” because it refocuses the Pentagon on warfighting and away from “partisan, unnecessary initiatives.”

But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had to withdraw the bill from consideration earlier this month and last week lost two votes to advance debate as many members of his caucus refuse to support increases in government spending and additional aid to Ukraine.

It remains to be seen if the defense spending bill can pass the full House, though a vote is expected Thursday.

McCarthy is also having trouble gathering support among his caucus for a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown, saying the House could vote on a GOP-authored CR at the end of the week. Some Republicans have said they would prefer a shutdown to increasing the federal budget.

The Senate last night released a bipartisan CR proposal, but it is unlikely to be supported by many House Republicans as it includes funds for Ukraine and does nothing to slash domestic spending.

The federal government is slated to shut down if Congress cannot agree to a CR by Oct. 1.

The Army has chosen Textron Systems and Griffon Aerospace to participate in the next phase of the Future Tactical UAS rapid prototyping program, the service announced Tuesday.

FTUAS, part of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift portfolio, has requirements that include runway independence and a “rapidly deployable UAS capability,” according to the service. Its vertical takeoff and landing will provide increased maneuverability, and it will have a “reduced transportation and logistics footprint,” according to the Army’s announcement. FTUAS will help brigade combat teams conduct reconnaissance and surveillance, aiding in collecting intelligence about the enemy during multidomain operations.

In February, the Army awarded five rapid prototyping other transaction authorities for Increment 2 of FTUAS to AeroVironment, Griffon Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Nevada and Textron.

In the first agreement option period, the Army evaluated each company’s submission against requirements, Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), cost, schedule and risk, according to the Army’s Tuesday announcement. This was followed by a preliminary design review that involved assessing each company’s weapon system design.

The second agreement option period, which begins Tuesday, will involve more evaluation of weapon system designs for Textron and Griffon. A critical design review will then establish the “final system design and initial product baseline,” according to the Army.

The critical design review will be followed by a third agreement option period involving flight demonstrations and “MOSA third-party verification,” according to the Army. A subsequent agreement option period will include delivering weapon systems and support equipment for testing and demonstrations with soldier touchpoints.

The Future Unmanned Aircraft System family of systems, which includes FTUAS, is a new start for fiscal year 2024, according to budget justification materials. The service included $53 million in procurement funding in its FY-24 request.

The Pentagon's Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation today announced $30 million in grants split across six different Defense Manufacturing Community Support Programs.

The DMCSP, which invests in long-term critical skills, facilities, workforce development, research and development and small business support, ­­­was established by the defense secretary to designate and support consortiums as Defense Manufacturing Communities and strengthen the national security industrial base.

On Aug. 16, the assistant defense secretary for industrial base policy designated six consortia as Defense Manufacturing Communities and instructed the OLDCC to ask them to submit grant applications in response to a DMCSP Notice of Funding Opportunity released on April 24 for the proposal solicitation period.

The awarded amount comes from fiscal year 2023 funds, with an additional $10 million in non-federal funds being added, for a total investment of more than $40 million.

"Delivering capabilities to our warfighters at scale depends on a resilient and robust manufacturing base," said Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante. "This year's awards will strengthen advanced manufacturing capabilities in defense-critical sectors while cultivating our most important resource: our people. I am confident that the collaboration with public, private and academic partners fostered by the Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program will have a lasting impact not only on our defense industrial base, but on our national security for years to come."

The Michigan Defense Resiliency Consortium will receive nearly $5 million to undertake a $6.3 million project to create the critical foundation for energy storage and battery manufacturing intended to support the Pentagon’s transformation from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles.

The Missouri Defense Manufacturing Community Consortium was awarded nearly $5 million for a nearly $8 million project to train and establish a steady pipeline of engineers and tradespeople skilled in modern digital advanced manufacturing technologies.

The New York Consortium for Space Technology Innovation and Development is set to receive $5 million for a project worth about $6.8 intended to address the need for advanced space technology manufacturing and supply-chain capabilities. This project will be a collaboration of universities, research institutions, industry experts and government agencies throughout New York.

The New York State Microelectronics Defense Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Workforce consortium was also awarded $5 million for a $7.8 million project to strengthen talent pipelines and improve resiliency among local suppliers in the microelectronics industry.

The Central Pennsylvania Defense Shipbuilding Talent and Innovation Defense Ecosystem will receive a nearly $5 million grant for a $6.1 million project to help the Navy try to meet its goal of increasing submarine production from one to three annually through supporting a long-term pipeline of skilled workers and increasing adoption of production automation in the submarine industrial base.

Finally, America’s Additive Foundry Consortium will receive $5 million for a $7.5 million project to address foreign supply chain issues by securing a U.S. supply of tactical alloys through additive, hybrid and intelligent manufacturing.

"These grant awards are focused [on] defense-critical sectors, from battery and energy storage to microelectronics and castings and forgings," said Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant defense secretary for industrial base policy. "These projects highlight the important innovation ecosystem that exists between public, private and academic partners, and DOD looks forward to following the progress on each of these initiatives."