Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
This Friday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on Army helicopter programs, the Defense Department's scrapping of a space-based missile tracking system and more.
The FY-22 Omnibus Appropriations Act, signed by President Biden earlier this week, includes increases for procurement and research and development for legacy Army aviation programs like the Black Hawk and Chinook, as well as increases for Future Vertical Lift:
Army aviation benefits from overall defense increase
Army aviation programs, including legacy programs and Future Vertical Lift priorities, appear to be among the winners from the defense spending increase above what President Biden requested in the fiscal year 2022 omnibus spending law.
A Space Tracking and Surveillance System technical risk assessment conducted last year determined the satellites -- which launched in 2009 -- had to be promptly pulled out of service:
MDA scrapped plan to squeeze additional service life from STSS after 2021 risk analysis
The Defense Department last summer decommissioned a pair of missile defense satellites -- the Space Tracking and Surveillance System -- which delivered three times their original forecast service life but were nevertheless expected as recently as last year to remain in orbit supporting the U.S. military until 2023.
The Marine Corps' next-generation CH-53 heavy-lift helicopter program could be operational by the end of 2022:
Marine Corps' CH-53K program completes operational testing
The Marine Corps' CH-53K program completed initial operational test and evaluation earlier this month and is on track to be operational this year.
The Defense Department's classified Joint All-Domain Command and Control implementation plan is done:
Pentagon completes classified JADC2 implementation plan
The Pentagon has finished its classified Joint All-Domain Command and Control implementation plan and has released an unclassified executive summary of its JADC2 strategy, which is intended to set the department on a path to connect all U.S. military battlefield sensors to a single network.
Congressional leaders have named the people they want to be part of the new Planning, Programming, Budget and Execution Reform Commission:
PPBE Reform Commission roster finalized
The membership of a new reform commission has been finalized that has the potential to upend the Pentagon's decades-old budget planning regime.
The director of operational test and evaluation's annual report for fiscal year 2021 originally didn't provide enough details about the Army's M-SHORAD system, but the Project on Government Oversight obtained a not-for-public release version that did include additional details:
DOT&E: Computer crashes 'often occurred' in M-SHORAD operational assessment
Computers that are essential for tracking and responding to airborne threats on the Army's new short-range air defense system repeatedly malfunctioned during a December 2020 operational assessment, according to the Pentagon's top weapons tester.
Pentagon leaders will consider a decision as soon as this spring to leapfrog a previous goal to target development of a 500-kilowatt, missile-killing laser and instead scale up from current work on 300 kilowatt-class power directly to a megawatt:
DOD eyes decision to accelerate ballistic missile-killing laser development
The Defense Department -- buoyed by recent rapid advances in directed-energy technology and alarmed by North Korean progress in maturing intercontinental rockets as well as other potential adversary threats -- is readying a proposal to accelerate development of the Holy Grail of lasers: a megawatt-powered weapon capable of killing ballistic missiles.