Pentagon tech chief seeks to bolster R&D work with allies. (Defense News) “… [Shyu] has discussed the Pentagon’s research and development priorities with her counterparts in Australia, Japan, Latvia, Germany and the U.K. in an effort to establish monthly teleconferences with U.S. allies… “The first tranche of experiments that we’re doing in FY23 has three projects that are joint ― two with Australia and one with the U.K.”… The comments come amid nervousness from some allies and the U.S. defense industry over Democratic efforts to boost domestic manufacturing by strengthening “Buy American” requirements.”
DoD on cusp of cutting-edge innovations. (Military Spot) “As far as spending for research and development for items that have great utility for the warfighter, Shyu said the department is focused on developing innovative technologies in which the commercial industry has no business interests that warrant their investment… The department’s Innovation Steering Group, or ISG, serves as a forum to drive systemic strategy, policy, programmatic, cultural and budgetary changes that will allow the department to more effectively identify, to invest in and to transition capability to the warfighter, she said, mentioning that she chairs that group.”
World’s best AI Pilot. (Shield AI’s Ryan Tseng on LinkedIn) “2020 – Dominated 1 vs 1 dogfighting; Mid 2021 – Training for 2 vs 2 dogfighting; Late 2021 – Training for 30 vs n. Getting the architecture right enables radical acceleration of learning and capability expansion.”
At second project convergence, US Army experiments with joint operations in the Arizona desert. (C4ISRNET) “In 2021, the Army brought more than 110 technologies to Arizona for experimentation. They were able to test 27 different combinations of sensors and shooters, using 15 types of sensors and 19 types of shooters. In 2020, the service could only do six meaningful sensor/shooter combinations… The J7, which drives concepts with the Joint Staff, laid out what it wanted to see to the Army, while the J6 “made sure we stayed on path in terms of how we conformed with their efforts and progressed their efforts,” he said. As the military struggled to create a joint common operating picture, the Joint Staff sent a team to Yuma to sit down with operators to understand the challenges of integrating the services’ data.”
Top general says JADC2 cross-functional team to work for 3-5 more years. (Fed Scoop) “Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, the Joint Staff’s J-6 director, said that once the technology behind JADC2 is more mature the cross-functional team (CFT) could be replaced by a new, yet-defined structure… Crall defended the CFT structure after a report published by the Center for Strategic and International Security called for a program executive office or lead military service to drive the broad changes needed to network data and other technologies that will be required to build JADC2… But for Crall, the CFT is “the best governance for our current time,” he told FedScoop. “One could argue there are other alternatives once this matures.”
MDA: Hypersonic missile tracking prototypes on point for 2023 launch. (Breaking Defense) “The Hypersonic and Ballistic Space Sensor (HBTSS) satellites would be cued by the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) and Defense Support Satellites — and in future the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared System satellites — that detect the infrared plumes from missile launches. The HBTSS sensors would track the missiles in their high-speed glide phase, then “hand off” targeting coordinates to shooters such as the Navy’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system and the Army’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense interceptors.”
US Army’s hypersonic supervisor talks tech portfolio. (Defense News) “… the request for white papers will be probably about a month away, will be really for two things: directed energy and counter-UAS as a service… It’s likely the business model will end up being a prime with multiple partners because you might want to have some electronic means, you might want to have a high energy means, you might want to have a kinetic means. There’s lots of ways to do that. But rather than we buy the widget and and do all of that work, we’re going to try a different model, which is as a service.”
Metallurgist admits to falsifying Navy submarine steel strength test results for 36 years. (The Drive) “Elaine Marie Thomas, 67, of Auburn, Washington, was the director of metallurgy at a foundry in Tacoma that provided steel castings to Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding, which in turn used them for submarine hulls…Thomas is said to have provided false results for at least 240 production batches of steel, which amounts to around half of the entire Navy output from the Tacoma foundry in that same period… Exactly what drove Thomas to falsify the results of the strength tests is still unclear, but according to the Justice Department, she thought it was “stupid” that the Navy demanded the tests be carried out at -100° Fahrenheit… Thomas will be sentenced in February and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.”
GE is breaking apart. Is Boeing Next? (Forbes) “Tuesday’s announcement that General Electric will break itself up and shed its healthcare and energy businesses was a surprise, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been. Industrial conglomerates have fallen from investors’ favor while pure-play companies are in vogue, largely because investors believe they can do a better job allocating capital and making investment decisions. As GE puts it, “GE will be an aviation-focused company shaping the future of flight.” That approach is likely to appeal to the market… To come full circle, you can’t rule out a combination of Boeing’s commercial unit and GE Aviation. Vertical integration is frowned upon, but the overwhelming bulk of Boeing’s jetliners (around 90% by value) are GE or GE/Safran (CFM) powered, anyway. This too could guarantee a competitive response, perhaps even a merger between Airbus and Rolls-Royce.”
Army lost telemetry tracking data with its precision strike missile at 499km. (Breaking Defense) “The flight of the Lockheed Martin-made weapon, called PrSM, beyond the 499km (310-mile) threshold would be significant because it breaks a previously restricted distance barrier set by the now-expired Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.”
Bigger drones better AI: US Air Force installs its Skyborg robot brain in a pair of stealth drones. (Forbes) “The Air Force’s Skyborg team flew two General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger stealth drones on the “multi-hour” Oct. 26 flight over California. One of the Avengers was the standard model of the subsonic, jet-powered stealth drone with a 66-foot wingspan. The other was an extended-range model with a longer fuselage and a 76-foot wing. Both Avengers were company-owned airframes… The drones in the Skyborg test each clutched a Legion pod under their wing. The Lockheed Martin-made Legion is an infrared sensor that the company has optimized for stealthy, radar-free air-to-air engagements.”
Army developing software to let PNT sensors talk to each other. (Breaking Defense) “What pntOS is at its core is an application programming interface, a software intermediary that can connect disparate programs or applications to allow them to “talk” to each other if they don’t speak the same language. Application programming interfaces are centerfold to the larger Department of Defense’s move toward Joint All-Domain Command and Control, in which disparate systems regardless of the warfighting domain will have to pass data to each other.”
Why the world’s militaries are embracing 5G. (IEEE Spectrum) [Hard to exerpt…] “It’s not a leap to see the advent of ultrafast 5G technology as an inflection point in military technology. As artificial intelligence, unpiloted systems, directed-energy weapons, and other technologies become cheaper and more widely available, threats will proliferate in both number and diversity. Communications and command and control will only become more important relative to more traditional factors such as the physical capabilities of platforms and kinetic weapons.”
OMB warns of hiring freeze, funding gaps, if Congress pursues full-year continuing resolution. (Federal News Network) “The current continuing resolution, which provided agencies with temporary stop-gap funding needed to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September, expires Dec. 3… “It would also mean that the 2.7% pay increase the president has proposed for military service members would come at the expense of $2 billion in cuts to the rest of the defense budget,” OMB said.”
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