The INSIDER daily digest -- Sept. 10, 2020

By John Liang / September 10, 2020 at 2:48 PM

This Thursday INSIDER Daily Digest has an exclusive interview with North American Aerospace Defense Command's deputy director of operations and more.

U.S. Northern Command's new modernization strategy, the Strategic Homeland Integrated Ecosystems for Layered Defense (SHIELD), aims to harden maritime and air approaches to the United States to create a capable defense:

NORTHCOM retooling homeland defense for Russian, Chinese threats with SHIELD modernization plan

U.S. Northern Command wants to retool the U.S. weapon system inventory for homeland defense against Russian and Chinese threats -- particularly new, long-range, conventional strike weapons designed to hobble critical domestic infrastructure -- with unprecedented air and maritime sensing capabilities linked to all-domain command and control tools that would guide a new array of anti-missile systems.

Project Maven is the Pentagon's AI pathfinder program that uses algorithms to detect objects of interest in imagery collected by drones:

USAF partnering with JAIC to deploy 'AI as a service'

The Air Force is collaborating with the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to leverage the digital infrastructure enabled by its enterprise-wide cloud, software development and data support initiatives to achieve Project Maven's original goals and develop 'AI as a service' for all the military departments.

The Office of Naval Research has awarded a $500,000 contract, made using special acquisition authorities to bypass a full-and-open competition, to Saildrone:

Navy studying slow-moving USVs for data collection; potential market survey to follow

The Navy urgently contracted the use of five wind-powered, unmanned surface vessels for data collection during a major exercise with the intent to survey industry for other capabilities if the demonstrations are successful.

Inside Defense spoke this week with Air Force Lt. Col. Christina Rusnock, materiel leader for F-22 modernization:

F-22 Capability Pipeline's first release delayed to September 2021

Unexpected software development challenges have pushed the first delivery of a major F-22 upgrade from the end of 2020 to September 2021 and drove the program and prime contractor Lockheed Martin to transition in June from a cost-plus contract to a hybrid, fixed-price arrangement.

Five brigade combat teams last year were chosen for Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System capabilities assessments in an effort to replace the RQ-7S Shadow UAS:

Army's FTUAS assessments expected to wrap up this month, helping inform requirements

The Army is addressing capability gaps and receiving feedback from units assessing prototypes of the Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System as the service works to define a capability development document for the effort, a service official said yesterday.

Defense Department acquisition chief Ellen Lord said this week that the Pentagon believes it will need between $10 billion and $20 billion to address costs incurred by defense contractors between March 15 and Sept. 1:

Lord: DOD may take up to six months to reimburse contractors for pandemic impacts

Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord said today it may take up to six months to reimburse defense contractors seeking reimbursement for hardships and inefficiencies experienced during the COVD-19 pandemic, but she reiterated that Congress has yet to appropriate any money for the cause.

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