Navy plans to sink large undersea drone program. (Breaking Defense) “[The Navy] worked to “establish, resource and defend” the LDUUV program over a 14 year period. The service has sought at least $200 million in funding for development and testing efforts up through 2021, according to budget justification documents…. The program’s cancellation is not likely to go over well with Congress... Its failure to get off the ground — or out of the submarine — will be fuel for the fire of lawmakers who vigorously argue the Navy’s investments in unmanned technology puts cart before the horse — or payload before the drone… The service adopted a two-phase strategy for developing LDUUV, with the government investing a large portion of in-house research upfront, followed by industry competing for the chance to produce the Navy’s design. Most of the money saved by canceling the program stems from the second phase of the program being dropped.”
Space entrepreneurs need straight answers from DoD. (Space News) “An “innovation steering group” assembled by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks to coordinate technology investments might have the noblest of intentions, but it is missing one critical perspective: the entrepreneur… The department needs to listen to these individuals and not just the policy experts who have grown too comfortable speaking on their behalf… Buy or don’t buy – it’s really that simple. Disingenuous studies that conclude with more questions than they started will only push more space startups towards the infamous “valley of death.””
Air Force’s math on F-15EX and F-35 doesn’t add up. (Breaking Defense) “the FY22 “flyaway cost” for an F-35A is $85.8 million. That buys a $53.4 million stealth airframe, a $12.8 million engine, internal targeting and Infrared search and track (IRST) systems, and a $12.2 million offensive and defensive electronics package. That is a complete package… [The F-15EX has a] cost of $89.8 million that includes a $73.2 million non-stealth airframe, two engines totaling $11.31 million, $1.2 million in Auxiliary Mission Equipment, $1.1 million in software engineering… [This excludes $13.6M for EPAWSS, $2.5M for targeting, and $10.9M for IRST]… an internal, unclassified CAPE chart Breaking Defense has reviewed tells a very different tale. It shows the cost to fly an F-15E for a full year is $7.7 million, compared to only $7 million for an F-35A.”
A massive “space cannon” can shoot payloads into space at hypersonic speeds. (Interesting Engineering) “Green Launch is developing a system to send small launch vehicles into space using a massive gas cannon, a press statement reveals. With a 54-foot (16.5-meter) launch tube, the company was able to fire a payload into the stratosphere at a velocity exceeding Mach 3.,, The hydrogen impulse launcher — described on the U.S. Army’s website as a “space” gun — features a long thin barrel filled with hydrogen mixed with helium and oxygen. When these gases expand at immense speeds, a projectile is fired at velocities several times the speed of sound. The SHARP program’s 400-foot (122-m) impulse launcher broke records in the 90s by launching payloads at speeds of up to Mach 9. [Army was working on the tech in the 1960s.]
Giant ‘space slingshot’ set to launch NASA craft in 2022 revealed. (New York Post) “The launcher is aiming to test out its spinning skills on a NASA craft containing a satellite. It will spin the craft at up to 5,000 miles per hour. Concept images show how SpinLaunch uses a rotating carbon fiber arm within a 300-foot diameter steel vacuum chamber.”
Document reveals $14 billion backlog of US defense transfers to Taiwan. (Defense News) “Pandemic-related acquisition issues have sparked a backlog in the U.S. delivering $14.2 billion worth of military equipment to Taiwan that the island has purchased since 2019… which includes Taiwan’s $8 billion purchase of 66 F-16 fighter jets as well as $620 million to replace expiring components of its Patriot missile system… Prior to the backlog, Congress had largely remained focused on incentivizing Taiwan to make cheaper purchases consisting of large quantities of asymmetric munitions versus the more expensive, state-of-the-art weapons.”
SpaceX beating Russian jamming attack was ‘eyewatering’: DoD official. (Breaking Defense) “SpaceX founder Elon Musk claimed that Russia had jammed Starlink terminals in the country for hours at a time. After a software update, Starlink was operating normally… a private firm beating back Russian EW attempts with software updates is the kind of thing that makes Pentagon EW experts pay attention.”
JAIC director sees improvement in Pentagon contracting for artificial intelligence capabilities. (Fed Scoop) Lt. Gen. Groen: “We have less, but still some, you know, folks in the department who are just giving government data away, right, and then buying it back from a vendor,” he said. “Hey, we’re not doing that shit anymore, right. Like government intellectual property, we know how to protect that … and we’re teaching everybody how to protect that so that we get the benefit.”… Now, the JAIC is “very close” to having the ability to implement these contracting vehicles on its own without the assistance of other agencies, he noted.
Pentagon reorganizes industrial policy office to shore up defense firms, supply chain. (Defense One) “The consequent reorganization “dissolved” the position of deputy assistant secretary for industrial policy, she said. Jesse Salazar, a Biden administration political appointee, held the position for the past 14 months… The reorganization also added a “career principal deputy” position to oversee the two new deputy assistant secretaries, Maxwell said. The industrial-policy office’s newly updated org chart says the role is currently filled by Michael Vaccaro, a non-political civil servant.”
Space Force has no plans to divest legacy assets, SSC boss says. (Air Force Magazine) “Space is really a startup, and space is really large. So based on that, we’re really not seeing the need to divest ourselves of any legacy assets,” Guetlein said. “Additionally, satellites are on orbit for a very finite amount of time, and they will replenish themselves over time, just due to loss of fuel or loss of redundancy, etc. So we’re really not seeing the need to retire any of our legacy assets.”… “I think what we’re seeing around the globe is an enormous amount of value and capability that the commercial industry is bringing to the table. With that capability, they’re building in redundancy.” [Two things in my mind: (1) lower relative O&M cost for satellites; and (2) piggy-back on commercial investment (while commercial is looking to piggy-back on USSF).]
DoD audit says Army’s $22 billion ‘mixed reality’ goggle needs more soldier input. (Defense News) DoD IG: “… the service risked “wasting up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to field a system that Soldiers may not want to use or use as intended.” The report focuses primarily on the fact that neither the Army nor Program Executive Office-Soldier defined “minimum user acceptance levels to determine whether IVAS would meet user needs.”… But “it is difficult to determine specific cause and effect as there are many variables that influence soldier acceptance,” Patterson wrote… The IG recommended that Bush develop an “Army-wide policy” that requires program officials to define user acceptance measurements for testing and evaluation.””
Another Pentagon official exits, saying US is at risk of losing tech edge. (Bloomberg) ““By the time the Government manages to produce something, it’s too often obsolete,” he [Preston Dunlap] said in a nine-page resignation statement he billed as a “playbook” to help guide the Pentagon, which he later made public on LinkedIn. “Much more must be done if DoD is going to regrow its thinning technological edge.”.. “Ironically as I’m writing this, I received notification that the phone lines are down at the Pentagon IT help desk. Phone lines are down? It’s 2022, folks,” he wrote.”
Navy on cusp of awarding contract for new torpedo. (National Defense Magazine) “In October, the sea service released a request for proposals for the Compact Rapid Attack Weapon program. The RFP sought bids to manufacture the prototype for the very lightweight torpedo, or VLWT, developed by Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Laboratory. Once fielded, it will be the Navy’s newest torpedo since the 1990s… At 9 feet long and around 200 pounds, Northrop Grumman’s VLWT prototype is a fraction of the size and weight of the 600-pound Mark 54 lightweight torpedoes currently used by the Navy… “Defensively, this torpedo is being designed to engage an incoming torpedo. Offensively, it’s been designed to engage a submarine.””
Army’s Gray Eagle jamming pod program could expand to other aircraft. (Breaking Defense) “The US Army is updating the requirements for its Multi-Function Electronic Warfare-Air Large (MFEW-AL) program… The MQ-1C Gray Eagle-mounted jamming pod is expected to be an integral part of the Army’s future electronic warfare arsenal… “We’re proving out that it’s really platform agnostic, as long as the platform can support the power and weight,” Strayer said. “We have an opportunity to deploy it in a number of different configurations to get the right line of sight that you need to do the mission you need to do.””
US Space Force space defense squadron tasked to focus on deep space. (C4ISRNET) “The U.S. Space Force stood up the 19th Space Defense Squadron this month in Dahlgren, Virginia, to focus on cislunar space domain awareness… Cislunar space is the area between geostationary orbit, which is more than 22,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, and the moon’s orbit… AFRL is soliciting bids to build a Cislunar Highway Patrol System, or CHPS, with an eye on a 2025 launch date.”
Navy’s new shipbuilding plan offers three paths to Congress. (Breaking Defense) “Without real budget growth, the two low range options achieve 305-307 manned ships in FY2035, and ultimately 318-322 manned ships in FY2045,” according to the document. “The higher range achieves 326 manned ships in the mid-2030s, and ultimately 363 manned ships in FY2045.” A brief footnote in the document states, “the ability of the industrial base to support [the profile including real growth in the budget] has not been independently assessed.”
Pentagon needs realistic experimentation for emerging tech, says Navy scientist. (USNI News) “Experimentation must be viewed as a necessary asset in mission planning and operations. Live, virtual and constructive experiments using existing platforms and systems and models are helping the Defense Department assess a way forward with JADC2 and other ambitious Pentagon programs needed soon, James Stewart, chief electro-magnetic warfare scientist at the Navy’s Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., said on Wednesday. “You can’t just assume things are going to work when you go out to the field,” Stewart said.”
AI competition with China should be done the American way. (Hudson Institute). “In this alternative model, leaders would seek to promote the sharing of concepts and technology by centrally funding infrastructure like code repositories, but they wouldn’t seek to converge projects or standards. They would instead look to amplify success where it emerges.”
Communication antenna: a key system of modern submarines. (Naval News) “To understand that complexity, just imagine a surface vessel and a submarine side by side and look at the antennas embarked on both of them. The surface vessel gets its radiocommunication antennas dispatched from stem to stern and from deck to the top of the mast. The idea is to separate HF, VHF, UHF, IFF … antennas from each other to prevent any interference between them. Submarine gets one single antenna mast where all the very same frequencies must closely work together!”
Israel has shot down drones with an airborne high-power laser. (The Drive) “A press release accompanying the announcement states that multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were intercepted and destroyed above a test range using the new airborne laser system. Footage shared online shows the system deployed on a Cessna 208 Caravan behind a windowed panel on the left side of the aircraft’s rear fuselage. Few specifics about the laser system’s capabilities have been released, but DDR&D’s Head of Research and Development, Brig. Gen. Yaniv Rotem, stated that the system successfully intercepted drones at a range of more than 1km… An airborne counter-drone system also will be less impacted by atmospheric distortion than its ground-based counterparts… Last year, Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced an unspecified “technological breakthrough” related to an airborne laser system being developed in conjunction with Elbit Systems. That system was claimed to cost just one dollar per intercept, compared with the “tens of thousands of dollars that each Iron Dome interceptor missile costs.””
For military spending to counter China, PDI tells only a small part of the story. (AEI) “The unclassified summary… indicates that deterring China in the Pacific has almost doubled in cost to $9 billion compared to last year’s $4.7 billion estimate from INDOPACOM. In addition, PDI would nearly triple in cost over the next five years from $22.7 billion projected in March 2021 to $67 billion noted in the new estimate… Instead of binning the department’s budgets into initiatives like PDI, Congress should view the entire defense budget in this context and, if necessary, consider asking DOD for a comprehensive budget exhibit for all capabilities devoted to this effort. “
Britain’s military procurement agency gets new management. (Defense News) “Andy Start will lead the program following the April 21 announcement that he will replace the current boss at the Defence Equipment and Support organization… Start joins DE&S from Capita Public Service, a major support services provider to the military and other government sectors in Britain… DE&S is responsible for procurement and support for about 80% of British defense equipment purchases. The country’s nuclear program is the main effort outside of DE&S’ responsibility… The organization employs about 11,500 people and spends more than £10 billion (U.S. $13 billion) annually
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