… aerospace company Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), arguing that the Air Force is running a “flawed” competition to pick the agency’s next round of launch providers for national security missions.
“The welding flaws were similar to those the company acknowledged last year for missile tubes that will go on the new Columbia-class submarines. Those continue to be repaired.”
Army developing new artillery round guided by artificial intelligence. Whereas the existing Excalibur munition can hit a stationary object within 6.5 feed, the proposed C-DAEM will hit moving objects.
DARPA Tests Deploy Swarm Drones to Control City Blocks. A slice: “The program includes multiple “sprint” efforts.”
U.S. Navy awards FLIR with $12M contract to upgrade Littoral Combat Ships ‘digital eyes’. Thermal imaging, that is. I wonder whether this is a top priority for the LCS in order to make it effective, or whether thermal imaging is a broader Navy objective which could conveniently be funded through the LCS’s budget.
Navy Prefers Fielding ‘Revolutionary’ Combat Capability Through New Weapons Rather than New Hull Designs. Recommended article. It would seem, however, that just because the Navy failed on the Zumwalt and LCS doesn’t mean hull designs should be avoided. Rather, new hulls should be associated with very little else that is new in the components category. Perhaps a rationale for delaying a new Large Surface Combatant and going for a DDG-51 Flt. IV.
“The new U.S. Missile Defense Agency director is opposed to the transfer of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, or THAAD, to the Army.” The link is here. The director says THAAD has to stay within MDA because it won’t be prioritized in the Army and it needs to be integrated with the rest of missile defense. I wonder whether the MDA director is also in favor of his agency adopting the space sensor layer responsibilities from the SDA, which is responsible for integrating space. Interdependency and overlap cannot be avoided in complex organizations. MDA director is saying, “More budget and autonomy for me, but not for thee!”
“The Navy may need more than $5 billion to return Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake to a “mission capable” status following a series of earthquakes back in July.” That’s a lot of damage, aye?
DOD memo to kick off review of inefficiencies. Unfortunately, the Zero-Based Budget technique is the exact opposite of efficient. It just gives the appearance that they something is being done. “We will begin immediately and move forward aggressively, as all defense-wide organizations, appropriations, funds and accounts will be included in the zero-based budgeting review,” the memo states. This has been going on since the Jimmy Carter years (if not the 1950s) and hasn’t led to much success then… why now?
DOD new cybersecurity requirements leaves everyone scratching their heads. A slice:
“Roger Wakimoto, a vice chancellor at the University of California, Los Angeles… expressed concerns that the enhanced requirements “may inflict unintended consequences on fundamental research” and are “unclear” about whether they apply to basic research or academic institutions that take federal research funding.”
NIST isn’t just good for writing crybersecurity regulations: Newfound superconductor material could be the ‘silicon of quantum computers’. Uranium ditelluride. From researchers at NIST.
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