Addressing DoD’s tech focus areas requires new approaches. (DoD) DIU’s Michael Brown at a Mason GovCon event: “We don’t start with requirements, which often dictates how the department might start to bring in a new capability — a process that’s well-honed if you’re going to build a new aircraft or tank,” Brown said. “If you’re going to look at commercial technology, you don’t need to start with requirements. The commercial market has already built that.”… Budgeting is also an issue, Brown said. Traditional budgeting requires planning as much as two years in advance before dollars can be spent.
Air and Space Force chiefs: defense industrial base may be too fragile to surge production. (Air Force Magazine) “[CSAF] Brown says he worries about the age of the fleet and “manufacturing resources where the company that actually built … whatever it is doesn’t exist anymore.” Not only is he concerned with DOD’s external suppliers but “bits of our depot as well that may not be effective.” … “If we had to surge, we’d be challenged,” Brown said.”
Defense contractor revenue is strong, so why is the state of the sector weakening? (Federal News Network) “Bloomberg Government found in its fiscal 2020 report — the most recent data available — that most of the top 10 contractors across government, not just within DoD, saw their revenue increase over the previous year… “We’ve noted that the number of new entrants between 2019 and 2020 went from over 12,000 to just over 6,000. We saw another drop from 6,500 down to 6,300 new entrants over the last fiscal year [2020 to 2021],” Hallman said… The one area that has bucked this shrinking trend is research and development where the use of other transaction authority has increased the number of vendors by 9% over the last decade, DoD reported.”
Ukraine’s drones are doing serious damage to Russia’s military. (1945) “Turkish-made drones are manhandling Russian armor in Ukraine. The Bayraktar TB2 unmanned system is making its presence known and the Russians are feeling the heat… The medium-altitude, long-range Bayraktars are not large, in fact, they are many times lighter than American Reaper drones. But they punch above their weight, having killed at least 32 Russian vehicles, but like all claims of Russian casualties that number is difficult to confirm. The Ukrainians have been using the Bayraktar since 2019, although there are only about 20 in service… The drone can loiter for around 24-hours with a ceiling of 25,000 feet. Drone operators can be up to 185-miles away. In September, the Ukrainians ordered 24-drones from Turkish defense contractor Baykar Makina. The Turks can’t make them fast enough, so the Ukrainians have agreed to produce their engines… It is surprising the Russians are falling prey to the Bayraktars. Russia reportedly has an electronic warfare system called “Belladonna” that can incapacitate drones. This shows that Russian armored columns are advancing without proper air defenses.”
US Army to demo offensive drone swarms in next project convergence. (Defense News) “The Army awarded a $14 million contract to BlueHalo in February to develop the capability over a 30-month period… The capability will be demonstrated “as a proof of concept” at Project Convergence 2022, which will take place this fall… The Army, for instance, is working on developing and integrating high-power microwave capability to destroy small drone threats, with plans to spend more than $50 million in fiscal 2022 on the effort… General Dynamics Land Systems and venture capital-backed startup Epirus announced they were teaming up to integrate a counter-drone swarm system on combat vehicles in October 2021.”
Three ways the Navy can surge its unmanned surface force. (Real Clear Defense) “… the most prominent Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) efforts such as Sea Hunter, Sea Hawk, SCOUT, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet’s IMX 2022 have only been demonstrations and experiments… Additionally, the two top potential Navy USV programs of record, the Large USV (LUSV) and Medium USV (MUSV) have been paused to address payload integration issues…
Pentagon awards $1.8 billion in contracts to build out its military satellite internet. (CNBC) “A pair of aerospace giants – Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman – and private venture York Space will each build 42 satellites for the SDA’s Transport Layer Tranche 1 (T1TL). Lockheed Martin won $700 million, Northrop Grumman won $692 million, and York won $382 million. The SDA’s Transport Layer network represents the Pentagon’s bid to build a satellite internet system. Companies such as SpaceX’s Starlink, OneWeb, Amazon, Telesat have been pouring funds into developing private broadband satellite networks in low Earth orbit. But the Pentagon aims to create its own “mesh network” with the Transport Layer, which is envisioned as “a resilient, low-latency, high-volume data transport communication system.””
Space Force to reorganize its acquisition command to ‘focus on the threat.’ (Space News) “Following a 90-day review, the head of Space Systems Command Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein proposed a new structure built around five program executive offices: Assured Access to Space; Battle Management Command, Control, and Communications (BMC3); Space Domain Awareness and Combat Support; Communications & Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT); and Space Sensing.”
DoD officials discuss advancements in joint all domain command, control. (DoD) “After 9/11, the department, with the services, created an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system linked by satellite communications, ground relays and data dissemination nodes that was good at targeting terrorists, he [Anthony Smith] said. However, that system didn’t handle jamming, spoofing and other things that would be expected in a fight with a peer adversary… “The near term for JADC2, I think, is going to be building stopgap fixes,” he said. For the long term, there will need to be software-defined systems and an open system architecture. “
Boeing increases use of 3D printing to speed up production of WGS military satellite. (Space News)”Making a WGS satellite in five years is a shorter timeline compared to the typical seven-to-10-year production schedule for large and complex military spacecraft. “We’re printing more than a thousand parts for WGS-11+, giving us the capability to introduce customization in a way that improves system performance, without requiring extensive integration times or customized tooling,” said Troy Dawson, Boeing Government Satellite Systems vice president… Large geostationary satellites have anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of parts, so printing a thousand parts is a small percentage.”
Standup of Marine littoral regiment will usher new gear into Pacific theater. (Defense News) “Some EABO units will conduct strike missions on land and at-sea targets; some will create refueling and logistics hubs; some will do jamming, deception, reconnaissance and more. But they’ll all look relatively similar as they come off a transport aircraft or small ship, making it tough for the adversary to identify them… First is the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, for long-range strike… Second is the MQ-9A Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle for extended-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance… Third is the Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar, or G/ATOR, as part of the communications architecture to enable data sharing… And lastly are two separate means of organic mobility: a long-range unmanned surface vessel the Marines would own and operate themselves, to move goods or potentially people around littoral areas, as well as the light amphibious warship the Marines would leverage in tandem with the U.S. Navy.”
Details emerge on new unmanned long-range bomber and fighter projects. (Air Force Magazine) “The 4+1 plan—a roadmap for fighters that includes the Next Generation Air Dominance system, the F-35, the F-15EX, and the F-16, with the A-10 as the “plus one”—“is still valid” … Kendall said he’s looking for an unmanned bomber concept that would be half the cost of the B-21 and told reporters later, “I’d love to have it be less than half. I’d love to have it be a quarter or an eighth.” … The B-21’s ceiling cost, under the contract with Northrop Grumman, is $550 million in base year 2010 dollars, or $713.6 million in 2022 dollars. It wasn’t a “detailed analysis” that led him to the half-cost figure, Kendall said, but “I have an awful lot of experience with weapon systems and their cost.”… the unmanned bomber has to “match” the B-21 in terms of its “range, endurance, speed.””
How mistakes in modernizing a US navy cruiser can benefit destroyers. (Defense News) “Thomas said the Navy is avoiding the biggest mistake: putting HM&E systems down for so long and then trying to restart them again. She also hopes the DDG effort will focus on sequencing of the work, especially with the longer availabilities involving the SPY-6 and SEWIP installations on top of HM&E work… Tardy — the surface ship modernization program manager at NAVSEA — said he doesn’t want to draw too close a comparison between the cruiser modernization effort and the upcoming DDG Mod 2.0 program. Many of the cruiser challenges stem from the ship’s long-term reduced operating status, which isn’t part of the plan for destroyers.”
General Atomics debuts ‘Gambit’ drone for Air Force’s unmanned sensor contest. (Breaking Defense) “Under the OBSS program, the Air Force is hoping to field an unmanned aircraft with high levels of autonomy and an exquisite sensor suite, that can fly beyond the line of sight of fourth and fifth generation fighter jets and send them targeting data and other information about potential threats…. The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded General Atomics a $17.8 million contract last fall to develop a prototype OBSS aircraft. The company is going head to head against Kratos, which won its own $17.7 million contract at the time.”
608 US Air Force F-16s are getting the type’s largest combined upgrade package ever. (The Warzone) “The program will involve more than 18 USAF bases, multiple contractors, and will cost an estimated $6.3 billion over “several years.” The service states that many of these upgrades have already begun… The Viper’s new AESA radar system will allow the jet to detect and track targets at greater rangers and higher levels of precision, including targets at low altitudes or with small radar cross-sections and in dense electronic warfare combat environments… The Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83, also known as Scalable Agile Beam Radar, or SABR, is suited as a retrofit replacement for the jet’s current mechanically-scanned AN/APG-66/68 radar.”
DISA awards $11B defense enclave services contract to Leidos. (Fed Scoop) “Under the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity Defense Enclave Services contract, Leidos will lead what DISA calls the Fourth Estate Network Optimization (4ENO) initiative — an effort to modernize and move the Department of Defense‘s 22 Fourth Estate agencies and field activities to a single platform.”
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