US Air Force ready to test tech for new battle management system. “The vision involves networking every shooter and sensor to a cloud computing environment and using artificial intelligence to ensure that relevant information is immediately sent to whichever platform needs it.” Doesn’t seem like there’s much money in it yet. The Broad Agency Annoucements appear to be unfunded.
Making the most of the Air Force’s investment in Joint All Domain Command and Control. “The tough questions here relate to acquisition authorities: for each step outlined above, who makes technical decisions, and who pays for them? For example, if the Air Force defines interface standards, will the individual military services pay to make their systems compliant?”
The UK Ministry of Defence’s Adoption of the government-wide system for project approvals. “The Treasury guidance is focused on a project, while the MoD often needs to be thinking in programme terms, a programme being a collection of related projects.”
US Air Force launches three-year fielding plan for skyborg weapons. Interesting throughout. “I expect that the pilots, depending on the mission, [will] decide: Does the Skyborg return and land with them and then go to fight another day, or is it the end of its life and it’s going to go on a one-way mission?”
Palantir technologies files to go public. 2.5K employees on LinkedIn. $20+ billion valuation. Revenue topping $1 billion a year. Perhaps a lot of that valuation and revenue is not from the DoD, we shall see.
Defense tech company Anduril raises $200 million to create a software-driven Defense Dept. contractor. Valuation is nearly $2 billion (!). Now has a DHS program of record. Anduril had just $7 million in contracts in FY2019, and already in FY2020 has over $46 million.
Chad Millette: The Most Important Paragraph in Air Force Acquisition Instruction. “… the PM can determine that a process or procedure is non-value added and skip it (also avoiding the gated approval of the process functional owner) ON THEIR OWN AUTHORITY.”
DARPA awards contract to retrofit L-39 Albatros jets for AI dogfighting tests. “awarded Calspan Corporation a $14.1 million, four-year contract to retrofit up to four Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros jet trainers for artificial intelligence-controlled flight experiments.” Part of the Air Combat Evolution program.
Israel asks United States to ‘swap’ two of their KC-46 tankers. Israel wants to pull forward two of their KC-46 purchases from FY2023 to FY2021. With all the deficiencies, what is their rationale?
Byrne gets additional Austal ship added to FY21 NDAA, joins Brooks and Rogers in advancing key defense bill. That’s $260 million in pork back to his constituents in Alabama for an Expeditionary Fast Transport.
HASC amendments question space acquisition reforms, challenge DoD plans to procure new systems. “The committee directs the Comptroller General of the United States to review the draft report on an Alternative Acquisition System for the United States Space Force.”
Leave a Reply