The Insider

The Senate Armed Services Committee will meet in closed session next week to craft its version of the fiscal year 2026 defense authorization bill.

The panel’s subcommittee’s, according to the congressional calendar, will begin meeting in closed session on Monday, while the full committee will meet Wednesday.

Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) has said he wants to see the topline for FY-26 increased above the Trump administration’s $848 billion regular appropriations request for the Defense Department, which is the same as what Congress enacted in FY-25.

Lawmakers, however, voted today to pass a separate budget reconciliation bill that would increase defense spending by $113 billion in FY-26, bringing the total national defense topline somewhere around $1 trillion.

But Wicker and other lawmakers have said they believe the FY-26 defense budget should be increased even more.

“What we have in front of us is an inadequate budget request and with precious little detail and no follow-on data about fiscal years 2027, 2028 or 2029,” Wicker said during a June 18 hearing in which he pledged to fight to increase the defense topline.

The House Armed Services Committee has not yet officially announced when it will hold its all-night marathon to mark its version of the bill, though congressional staffers said July 15 is a possibility.

This pre-Independence Day INSIDER Daily Digest has news on an Army "affordable," mobile and high-speed theater strike capability, plus the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve program being eliminated and more.

Dubbed Affordable High-Speed Strike (AHSS), the new-start initiative is part of the Army's Long Range Precision Fires modernization effort, backed by a modest but symbolically important $501,000 seed funding, according to Real Time Defense, a new analytical tool that facilitates deep dives into DOD budgets and programs:

Army seeks seed funding to launch new Affordable High Speed Strike missile in FY-26

The Army is seeking fiscal year 2026 funding to jump-start a new missile development effort aimed at delivering an "affordable," mobile and high-speed theater strike capability, a clean-sheet missile concept unfettered by Cold War treaty limits.

The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) program "was eliminated as part of the budget to streamline defense innovation redundancy, and optimize resource allocation toward more impactful modernization initiatives," according to a department-wide budget justification book for FY-26:

Pentagon terminates RDER program, military services assuming responsibility in FY-25

The Pentagon is terminating funding for its rapid experimentation and prototyping initiative in fiscal year 2026, transitioning the program's key elements to the military services, according to recently released budget documents.

Document: OSD's FY-26 budget justification books

The unexpected pause in Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicle procurement closely follows the Army's move to cancel all future JLTV procurement as part of a major force restructuring, blindsiding the Marine Corps, which has historically procured JLTVs in smaller quantities:

Marine Corps to pause JLTV procurement following Army divestment

The Marine Corps will pause procurement of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle in fiscal year 2026, according to the service's budget request, which indicates the stoppage is intended to allow producer AM General to catch up on a delivery backlog.

In the aftermath of the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, the U.S. intelligence community is conducting a battle damage assessment expected to last several weeks to determine if the Massive Ordnance Penetrators were successful:

Following Iran strike, Air Force exploring enhancements to Massive Ordnance Penetrator

As the dust begins to settle following U.S. strikes last month on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities -- which marked the first-ever use of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator -- the Air Force is beginning to envision a new bomb to hit deeply buried targets with even greater impact.

Last but by no means least, the latest cyber defense news from our colleagues at Inside Cybersecurity:

Atlantic Council offers options to strengthen U.S. supply chains for competition in offensive cyber

In a recent report, the Atlantic Council reviews the current state of the U.S. supply chain compared to China and provides recommendations on shoring up capabilities to participate in effective cyber offensive operations.

This Wednesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on the Army's Anubis Technology Maturation Initiative, the Navy's Modular Attack Surface Craft program and more.

An Army project, known as the Anubis Technology Maturation Initiative (ATMI), launched in fiscal year 2022 to figure out how to put together a prototype of a Snapdragon chip that can receive and process the Defense Department's modernized M-code GPS signal:

Army turning to commercial industry for M-code GPS processing

The Army for the first time has successfully paired its modernized, jam-resistant GPS signal with commercial-grade processing chips to help it reduce internal slog as part of a plan to build a secure position, navigation and timing (PNT) capability with less time and money, Pentagon officials told reporters yesterday.

The Navy's Modular Attack Surface Craft program will soon enter a prototyping phase with industry to develop technology, demonstrate unmanned capability, and hopefully reduce risk for future procurement:

New details about MASC USV emerge in Navy budget proposal

As the Navy prepares to combine medium and large unmanned surface vessel efforts into one program, fresh details have emerged in the service's fiscal year 2026 budget request, which details research and development plans for the new Modular Attack Surface Craft program.

The Army's No. 2 uniformed officer spoke this morning at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

Army to lead new task force on drones that reports directly to Hegseth

The Army will lead a new joint interagency task force on unmanned aerial systems and counter UAS, Vice Chief Gen. James Mingus said today.

Epoch 1, or the Missile Track Custody program, supports the Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking Medium-Earth Orbit effort, which seeks to launch a proliferated constellation of satellites:

First Epoch 1 launch slips to FY-27

The initial launch of the missile warning/missile tracking satellite part of the Epoch 1 program has been delayed from fiscal year 2026 to the middle of FY-27, a Space Systems Command official said today.

Army officials at Rock Island Arsenal's Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center in Illinois expect a new 3D printer to come online sometime next year and give the service the capability of scaling to a rate of 10,000 drones per month:

Army's sprint to 10,000 3D-printed drones a month could take off next year

ROCK ISLAND, IL -- This past spring, Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, the deputy commanding general of Army Materiel Command, challenged the service to begin scaling up its additive manufacturing capabilities, including an effort to 3D-print drones at scale.

Following delays and software defects, full-rate production has been approved for the F/A-18 E/F Infrared Search and Track system, according to a Navy spokesperson, with an acquisition decision memorandum scheduled to be signed this summer.

After achieving initial operational capability in November 2024, the IRST Block II program was scheduled to reach a full-rate production decision by January. However, this was pushed back due to delays in flight testing, according to a Government Accountability Office report released June 11.

These operational test delays were attributed to “software defects that caused IRST pods to falsely report overheating,” according to GAO’s annual weapon systems assessment. Now, these software issues have been resolved, the Navy spokesperson told Inside Defense.

Defense Department Director of Operational Test and Evaluation officials told GAO that the defect was easy to resolve and could have been fixed during developmental testing if that program had allocated more time for it, according to the report, which adds that this is the second time IRST had surpassed its baseline schedule in the past three years.

IRST Block II will allow Super Hornet squadrons to detect and track targets from a distance and in certain environments where radar may prove ineffective. Operational testing of the system was completed in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024, according to a report released by DOT&E in January.

The Senate, after a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Vance, has passed a massive budget reconciliation policy bill that, among numerous other provisions, includes $150 billion for the Defense Department.

The bill now returns to the House, where Republicans must pass it with their slim majority before sending it to President Trump, who has said he wants to sign the bill into law before July 4.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) released a statement lauding the defense portion of the bill, which would make $150 billion available to DOD. The White House is planning to spend $113 billion of the total amount in fiscal year 2026.

“This defense funding represents a critical leap forward for our national security,” Wicker said. “This historic legislation includes funds to jump-start the Golden Dome system to protect the homeland, increase our supply of munitions, rapidly advance unmanned ships and drones, enhance military readiness, reestablish deterrence, and advance shipbuilding to produce a 21st-century naval fleet.”

Defense spending has never been part of reconciliation before and -- for legislative reasons -- is vague in terms of how DOD can spend the funds.

Wicker has made it a priority to get senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to testify before the committee that they will “unequivocally” follow congressional intent when it comes to spending on specific programs.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, uniformly opposed the bill. They were joined by Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Rand Paul (KY) and Thom Tillis (NC).

The Army will allocate $108 million for a Vehicle Protection System suite that will fold three different capabilities under a new start in fiscal year 2026, according to recently released procurement budget documents.

The suite will include “active, reactive and passive protection capabilities,” to achieve “detection avoidance, threat detection, threat intercept and threat mitigation,” according to a description of the line item. It incorporates three capabilities: modular active protection systems (APS), signature management and top attack protection.

Top attack protection will receive the bulk of the VPS dollars as the Army plans to allocate $91.7 million for the “passive add-on armor,” which is placed over compartments and hatches of ground vehicles to shield crews against threats from above.

The funds will procure enough sets of top attack protection worth four Armored Brigade Combat Teams, according to the Army. The system is intended to cover the entire combat vehicle fleet and eventually other ground vehicles, too.

The suite also includes $15 million for signature management, which involves painting 389 Army combat vehicles to camouflage them from thermal sensors to reduce their detection likelihood.

That leaves just $852,000 in FY-26 for modular APS units with a laser warning receiver, designed to warn crews of any threats to the vehicle aided by lasers.

In FY-22, the Army invested $70.7 million into procuring 138 modular APS units with laser detection, plus 17 “additional spares,” the documents show.