The INSIDER daily digest -- July 30, 2024

This Tuesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, the Replicator drone program, hypersonic strike and more.

We start off with coverage from this week's Life Cycle Industry Days conference:

Air Force selects five vendors to build CCA autonomy

DAYTON, OH -- A mix of five traditional and non-traditional businesses have received contracts to develop the mission autonomy for the first increment of Collaborative Combat Aircraft, Air Force Brig. Gen. Jason Voorheis, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, said Monday.

Air Force Under Secretary Melissa Dalton spoke this week at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution:

Dalton says Air Force seeks 'cost-effective mass' amid CCA development

The Air Force needs more money to modernize key weapon systems, though the service is beginning to shift toward "cost-effective mass," the service's under secretary said Monday.

A new Government Accountability Office report finds that most of the Defense Department's efforts to develop hypersonic weapons "aren't using modern digital engineering tools, such as virtual representations of physical products":

Pentagon plans at least $45 billion in offensive hypersonic strike acquisition

The U.S. military has committed to more than $45 billion in offensive hypersonic strike capabilities, excluding likely procurement for cruise-missile variants of new ultrafast maneuvering weapons, according to a congressional audit of the new technology portfolio that provides a first picture of total planned acquisition costs.

Document: GAO report on hypersonic weapons

The Defense Department inspector general's office is looking into the Replicator drone program:

Pentagon IG to review Replicator program

The Pentagon's top watchdog will review the Defense Department's Replicator effort, which aims to field thousands of inexpensive, autonomous drones by August 2025 to counter China's military mass in the Indo-Pacific, according to a memorandum issued Monday.

The Commission on the National Defense Strategy released its consensus final report this week, describing the most serious threats to U.S. national security since World War II:

New National Defense Strategy Commission backs spending surge

The newest incarnation of the bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission has sent a report to Congress echoing a key recommendation of the previous commission: the Pentagon needs more money and lawmakers should act accordingly.

Document: Commission on National Defense Strategy final report

The Integrated Capabilities Office, which stood up July 19, is a secretariat-level office designed to continue the work of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall's Operational Imperatives for modernizing the service for current potential threats:

Air Force stands up Integrated Capabilities Office to tackle operational imperatives

The Air Force this month stood up the first in a series of offices designed to better integrate capabilities across the service's organizations as part of its restructuring plan announced earlier this year.