Cyber Command prepares to gain significant budget control. (Fed Scoop) “The fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act gave the commander of Cybercom responsibility for direct control and management of planning, programming, budgeting and execution of the resources to maintain the cyber mission force, an authority known as enhanced budget control. Previously, the commander only had oversight of about $600 million from an overall Department of Defense IT budget of around $40 billion… “We’re having to build our POM starting in 2024 and, of course, acquisitions.”… Under this new paradigm, funding for major acquisition programs that the services were directing on behalf of the command will shift to Cybercom, although the services’ program executive offices and program managers will continue to execute the programs… Cyber Command officials have touted that they are improving their acquisition structure, noting that the organization created a Program Executive Office Cyber within its advanced concepts and technology directorate.”
China outpaces US tenfold on hypersonic missiles: US General. (Asia Financial) “China is “aggressively pursuing hypersonic capability tenfold to what we have done,’’ said US Air Force General Glen D VanHerck, commander of the US North American Aerospace Defense Command… In the past five years alone, experts say the US has conducted only nine hypersonic tests. In the same time, the Chinese have done hundreds, Air Force General John E Hyten told the Washington Post… Other media reports say US military experts are still trying to understand how China managed to get this done. However, the recent defection to Mi6 of a top-ranking Chinese scientist in Hong Kong could help solve that mystery.”
The Air Force just soared past an electric aircraft milestone. (Popular Science) “The flights by Griffiths and another Air Force aviator were notable for being the first time that Air Force pilots have flown an electric aircraft in the Agility Prime program while on board it… “If you’ve driven an electric car, or even a golf cart on a golf course, as soon as you press that pedal down, you’ve got instant torque,” he says. “Same exact thing when we hit that thumbwheel, we can go from zero to 100 percent instant power.””
Washington to supply Ukraine with AeroVironment drones. (Flight Global) “The White House on 16 March disclosed it will provide Ukraine with an additional $800 million in the form of “direct transfers of equipment”, building atop a previous $200 million… US congressman Michael McCaul confirms the systems are AeroVironment Switchblades… Switchblades are tube-launched, electric-powered drones that carry munitions and electro-optical cameras, which help operators strike targets… The company has described the weapon as competing in the tactical missile market, a segment otherwise occupied by Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, Lockheed/Raytheon Javelin missiles and Raytheon TOW missiles… AeroVironment’s stock shot up nearly 10% on 16 March.”
Littoral disaster: navy wants to retire 10 Littoral Combat Ships according to report. (The Warzone) “… as part of its budget proposal for the 2023 Fiscal Year. This would despite the oldest example still on active duty being only seven years old. Last year, the service admitted that it would take years to implement critical fixes to the propulsion systems on all of the Freedom class vessels it has acquired to date… . A design flaw has led to repeated failures in the combining gear on multiple ships in this class in recent years. The combining gear connects a set of gas turbines to the main diesel engines that power these vessels, allowing them to hit top speeds of over 40 knots, something that was a key Navy requirement during development. These LCSs can only sail at between 10 to 12 knots on the diesel engines alone. Last year, the future USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul became the first Freedom class ship to receive a fix that the Navy says will rectify this issue.”
Startup whose AI will help track drug runners’ boats gets $5 million in funding. (Fortune) “Modern Intelligence also said that it has been selected to test its maritime surveillance technology this summer at the U.S. Navy’s Naval Special Warfare’s Trident Specter exercises… Dulin says the company is trying to upend how military systems have traditionally been built and sold to the government. “Part of what is so messed up historically, is that everyone’s incentives have been to lock the customer into a vertical silo,” he says. As a result, data from one contractor’s sensor cannot easily be integrated with data from another’s, and every contractor is building its own A.I. systems to classify images. Modern Intelligence hopes to change that with a system built on simple open interfaces and application programming interfaces (APIs), just like most commercially available software… on Modern’s advisory board are Ellen Lord [and] Jason Yosinki, a co-founder of Uber’s A.I. research lab.”
Pentagon’s JADC2 strategy: more questions than answers. (Breaking Defense) “The eight-page “summary” document [PDF] essentially defines JADC2 and sets out the ambitious goals for the program, but provides little new insight into how the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military services actually are moving to make it work… The strategy lays out “three guiding C2 functions of ‘sense,’ ‘make sense,’ and ‘act,’ and an additional five enduring lines of effort.”
- Establish the JADC2 Data Enterprise.
- Establish the JADC2 Human Enterprise.
- Establish the JADC2 Technical Enterprise.
- Integrate Nuclear C2 and Communications (NC2/NC3) with JADC2.
- Modernize Mission Partner Information Sharing.
The defense department is a bad customer. Let’s change that. (Defense One) “Being the only buyer, DOD can often use its buyer’s monopoly to dictate market conditions and acquire systems without heeding the struggles of the companies selling to it… First, the Defense Department should dole out grant money more quickly… Second, the Department should provide startups more access to military customers… Third, shorten the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process, which is how money gets allocated to military acquisition programs.”
Inside the US military and defense sectors: the VA baked companies getting jobs and the big contractors funding startups. (Crunch Base) “Over the past couple years, per Crunchbase data, the five largest U.S. contractors have backed over 30 known rounds. Of the group, the most active looks to be Lockheed Martin… Standouts include:
- Wisk Aero, a Silicon Valley-based developer of self-flying electric air taxis, raised $450 million in January from Boeing.
- Epirus, a startup competing to supply what it describes as “drone-zapping weapons” to the U.S. military, raised $200 million in a February Series C round at a valuation of $1.35 billion. T. Rowe Price led the financing, but the list of participating investors was long and included General Dynamics Land Systems.
- Slingshot Aerospace, a developer of technology to help satellite operators navigate space traffic, raised $25 million this month in the second tranche of its Series A round. The company, which counts Lockheed Martin Ventures as one its backers, includes the U.S. Air Force and NASA among its customers.
Drones could be key to solving on of the US Air Force’s biggest training challenges. (Breaking Defense) “The Air Force has awarded North Carolina-based Blue Force Technologies an initial $9 million contract to develop uncrewed air vehicles optimized for adversary air missions, the Air Force Research Laboratory announced last week… The effort, which AFRL has dubbed the Bandit program, calls for Blue Force Technologies to mature its UAV design — known as Fury — over the next 12 months… The goal is “to develop an unmanned platform that looks like a fifth-generation adversary with similar vehicle capabilities.”… “If we can replace even just 10% or 15% of those red air sorties with [F-35s] being able to put back on blue air, Fury is going to be paying for itself in readiness overnight.””
As US navy rethinks fleet, Ingalls shipbuilding faces uncertain future. (Defense News) ““Ingalls and Bath Iron Works will face an uneven demand for DDGs, and it will be hard to plan workforce and infrastructure investments when they have to depend on congressional plus-ups to sustain a stable demand signal.”… As Ingalls seeks to prepare for the future, the yard has completed a five-year, $850 million capital expenditure investment program known as Shipyard of the Future, which includes 3D modeling tools, additional covered workspaces that protect employees from the elements, new laser-cutting and robotics technologies, and more.”
What should be the United States’ next move on hypersonic tech? (Defense News) “In recent months, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has repeatedly asked pointed questions about the purpose they should play in the U.S. arsenal and whether they’re worth the considerable price tag… “Hypersonics are a way to penetrate defenses, but they’re not the only way.” … The weapons could cost anywhere from $50 million to $100 million apiece, he explained — though the hope is to get them down to $10 million a shot — and the military needs to consider what targets would justify using such an expensive munition… “I rethink all of our programs all the time,” [Kendall] said when asked whether he’s considering altering the Air Force’s approach. But hypersonic projects would likely continue “in one form or another,” he added.”
Congress gives DoD more money for space, with caveats. (Space News) “Appropriators added nearly $1.3 billion for U.S. Space Force and Space Development Agency projects… [It] pays for an extra Global Positioning System satellite, increases spending on small launch services and Space Development Agency (SDA) missile-detecting satellites… House appropriators, for example, had previously withheld funding for the Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC), an organization created to design the military’s space architecture using digital models and simulations. The 2022 bill approved the $37 million DoD requested for SWAC but warns that “concerns persist that the analytical and decision-making process within the Space Force is overly complex and convoluted.”… The 2022 military spending bill added $70 million for small launch services, including $20 million for the Rocket Launch Systems Program and $50 million inserted into a new program called Tactically Responsive Launch.”
Top Navy official says service needs a larger fleet and a larger share of the budget. (Defense News) “… the Navy weighed dramatic options to pay for its shipbuilding needs — including retiring at least a dozen surface ships to pay for a second destroyer. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a January speech that all indications are the FY23 budget request will be a “bloodbath” for the Navy… “The top line is going to be what it’s going to be,” Gilday said.”
C3 AI and the rapid sustainment office achieve authority to operate (ATO) from US Air Force. (Yahoo!) “Enabled by the C3 AI Suite and the C3 AI Readiness application called the Predictive Analytics and Decision Assistant (PANDA), the CBM+ program is the solution used by the Air Force to optimize fleet maintenance, increase aircraft availability, and minimize aircraft downtime… The ATO will also reduce the time it takes to stand up applications for future government customers… C3 AI is the first application in the USAF Cloud One to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Kubernetes Services (EKS) in a production application at the IL5 level.”
Hermeus COO: Hypersonic aircraft can help the US military overcome the tyranny of distance. (Sandboxx) “American special operations forces tasked with fighting or training proxy fighters for conflicts in Africa and the Middle East will be spread further and operating with less support than ever before in the modern era in the coming years… Hermeus sees it as essential to pursue a lower-cost approach to rapid development of combat aircraft… Hermeus’ uncrewed hypersonic aircraft could be less expensive than high-dollar fighters like the F-35.”
Report: Microsoft braces for negative field tests of military HoloLens. (RoadtoVR) “[The] US Congress has allegedly frozen $394 million from the Army’s IVAS budget, which Business Insider notes leaves only $405 million—around $200 million shy of what Microsoft supposedly needs to recover development costs. Additionally, it’s also said some close to the project fear the Army will simply walk away from the contract.”
DoD estimates $2.5 billion price tag for global constellation to track hypersonic missiles. (Space News) “These funds are only a down payment to kickstart the deployment of the Tracking Layer Tranche 1, a constellation of 28 infrared sensor satellites that would cost about $2.5 billion to procure and launch… DoD’s Space Development Agency (SDA) in 2020 bought the first eight satellites of the Tracking Layer — four from L3Harris and four from a SpaceX-Leidos team. Both have passed design reviews and are scheduled to launch in 2023. The agency planned to start buying the next batch of 28 satellites in 2022 but no funding had been requested in the Pentagon’s budget… Had Congress not added the $550 million, the procurement of the Tracking Layer would have been delayed until fiscal year 2023.”
Northrop says IBCS successful in latest flight test. (Defense News) “In the first flight test, the system tracked a “high-performance, high-speed tactical ballistic missile (TBM) target,” aided by Northrop’s Joint Tactical Ground Station, which delivered space-based sensor data to the system… The JTAGS provided early warning for IBCS before a ground-based sensor was able to detect the threat and pass the information to IBCS. The Army was able to intercept the target using IBCS, according to the statement…. IBCS demonstrated, during the second flight test, the ability to defeat two cruise missile targets “in a stressing electronic attack environment,” the statement notes. The system maintained “continuous track custody of the targets” by fusing data from multiple sensors that were degraded from electronic attack.”
Wave Motion wins $1.3M award to work on prototype jet-gun launcher for US navy. (Yahoo!) “The jet-gun concept involves firing a jet of supersonic gas to push a projectile to very high speeds. Since there’s no physical structure or barrel surrounding the projectile, Wave Motion says the system has the potential to be up to 100 times more compact than a rocket or regular cannon of equivalent power. “Rocket launches usually cost thousands of dollars per pound of payload,” Wave Motion says on its website. “Instead of the steep price that rockets demand, our jet-gun will be able to launch payloads for $100 [per pound].””
Leave a Reply