Army acquisition exec pushes for joint JADC2 office, large-scale exercise. (Breaking Defense) “Doug Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, likened the envisioned JADC2 office to the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System Office (JCO), which is overseen by the Army. Though with a much smaller scope than JADC2, the JCO has helped to prioritize investments from a joint perspective and, Bush said, a similar office at the level of the office of the secretary of defense could do the same for the Pentagon… “They’ve also been influential in, for example, working on when there’s an urgent need, making sure that the system responds with the reprogramming… making sure we buy what’s urgently needed.”… Bush seemed to be suggesting a more robust arrangement than what already exists in the Pentagon in the form of the JADC2 Cross-Functional Team
Hyten: Space Force ‘hasn’t cracked the code’ on faster acquisition. (Space News) “The Space Force in 2020 drafted a proposal to change its acquisition process but it never got anywhere, Hyten noted. “The chief of space operations General [John] Raymond and his team put together an approach and they couldn’t get it through the bureaucracy for two years.” “The entire time I was there as the vice chairman, it never made it through the bureaucracy all the way back to Congress,” Hyten added. .. Hyten said the Space Force is in a tough spot, caught between a DoD bureaucracy that wants to minimize risk and an appropriations committee that says the service is “trying to do too much too fast.” “I don’t know if anybody’s looked, but the threat is real. It exists today,” he said… “I would hope that the appropriations committee understands that they’re going to have to start taking risk in appropriations as well,” Hyten said.
Will AI steal submarines’ stealth? (IEEE Spectrum) “… the game of submarine hide-and-seek may be approaching the point at which submarines can no longer elude detection and simply disappear. It may come as early as 2050, according to a recent study by the National Security College of the Australian National University, in Canberra… Gower considers underwater drones to be “the least likely innovation to make a difference in the decline of submarine stealth.” A navy would need a lot of drones, data rates are exceedingly slow, and a drone’s transmission range is short. Drones are also noisy and extremely easy to detect… Gower believes a more powerful means of submarine detection lies in the “persistent coverage of the Earth’s surface by commercial satellites,”… Experts have known for decades about the possibility of detecting submarines with SAR [synthetic aperture radar] based on the wake patterns they form as they move through the ocean. “
Existing DIU director urges Pentagon to refresh how it adopts commercial tech for future wars. (Fed Scoop) Commercial capabilities like SAR “are going to be needed on an ongoing basis and on an increasing basis” as warfare evolves to incorporate more and more digital assets, according to Brown. While he prepares for his departure from DIU, the director and his team have been pressing Pentagon leaders to reimagine legacy acquisition methods, budgeting processes and fielding approaches for commercial technologies, which develop on much faster cycles…. “We’ve advocated for something we call a ‘fast follower strategy’ where the military isn’t leading in the development of a technology… Brown suggested the DOD establish a new concept of “capabilities of record” that could parallel military budgeting for “programs of record.”
DoD seeks executive to lead Defense Innovation Unit. (DoD) “The incoming Director will be a thought leader in the field of defense technology transition and play a high profile role in communicating the Department’s vision and shaping public discourse on the topic. The Director of DIU is a direct report to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the DoD’s Chief Technology Officer. More information about the position and instructions on how to apply are available at www.cto.mil/diu-director. Applications will be accepted until Friday, August 12, 2022 at 11:59PM EST.”
New unmanned combat aircraft designs revealed by BAE Systems. (The Drive) “The first of BAE’s newly revealed designs is a relatively small drone capable of operating either individually or as part of a networked swarm, while the second is larger and more in line with various lower-tier unmanned combat air vehicle concepts. Both are intended to be highly modular, allowing them to be configured for various mission sets, including reconnaissance, strike, and electronic warfare, as well as have varying degrees of autonomy…. While BAE Systems does not appear to have said so yet specifically, it seems clear that the U.K. armed forces, specifically the RAF and the Royal Navy, are the main targeted customers for these concepts.” Concept 2 performance estimates: five-hour endurance, the ability to fly up to an altitude of 40,000 feet, and reach a top speed of at least 0.75 Mach. Estimates for the smaller Concept 1: flying for up to four hours at altitudes up to 30,000 feet and at speeds of up to 0.5 Mach.
US contractors test futuristic drone aboard US Navy’s stealth destroyer. (Defence Blog) “This is another big step forward towards Shield AI’s goal of putting a swarm of V-BATs on every US and allied naval vessel — destroyers, amphibs, carriers, patrol craft — in the world,” said the company… Shield AI says the V-BAT, with its innovative, near-zero footprint vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and long-endurance capabilities, is unlike any UAS on the market today. Propelled by a single, ducted, thrust-vectored fan, it takes off and lands in the style of a SpaceX rocket.”
Aerospace defense company opening Atlanta facility, creating 180 jobs. (The Atlanta Journal Constellation) “Anduril Industries, a startup that’s made headlines for netting large defense contacts and developing unmanned military technology, is opening up a new manufacturing and research facility in west Atlanta, according to a Thursday news release from Gov. Brian Kemp’s office. The company plans a $60 million investment and said it will create more than 180 jobs in Fulton County over the next three years… The office will be home to Anduril’s subsidiary Area-I, a Georgia-based manufacturer of unmanned aircraft systems. Area-I has been active in the state for more than a decade and was acquired by Anduril last year for an undisclosed amount.”
Air Force needs more efficiency from raindrop software factories: Former DoD cyber official. (Breaking Defense) “Ed Wilson, former deputy principal cyber advisor to the secretary of defense, said though he’s a “big fan” of the “software factories for DevSecOps,” and sees their continued growth, he questioned how the service could “gain a bit more efficiency at times.” He added his “fear would be we’re not growing enough talent that can be successful in those environments. And so I think we need to pay attention to that talent pool for the DevSecOps.”… DoD wants to establish a “standard and dynamic inventory of baseline training and augment that training with investments in cross-Service, on-the-job apprenticeship programs and rotation opportunities,” according to the strategy.”
Hypersonic ARRW flies successfully for second time, completing booster tests. (Air Force Magazine) “The test marked the 12th time the ARRW had flown captively on a B-52 bomber and the second time it had successfully separated from the launch aircraft; it flew successfully in May. Three earlier attempts at test flights ended in failure, as the missile either failed to separate from the carrier aircraft or failed to fire a booster rocket. Those setbacks caused USAF to reduce funding for the program. In the July 12 test, “The AGM-183 weapon system reached hypersonic speeds, and primary and secondary objectives were met,” the Air Force said.”
Several UAVs under development for next-generation carrier air wing. (USNI News) “Loiselle [OPNAV N98] did define three categories of unmanned aircraft his office is considering. “The first set is something that can go into a hostile environment, high threat environment, and it can stay there, it can persist in a high threat environment. The second set is something that can go to that high threat environment, perform a given mission, briefly – a strike mission –and then leave and have a very high chance of coming home,” he said. “The last set is something that is at an attritable price point, a much smaller vehicle that might perform any number of different missions.”… The UAVs aren’t part of the NGAD (pronounced En-JAD by the Navy, Loiselle said) program but would be part of the ongoing development of the fighter.”
Department of Defense announces industry engagement day for the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER). (DoD) “… to be held at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL) on July 26, 2022. Components will propose experiments to be conducted in near-term Joint exercises and compete for RDER funding. The Secretary will select among proposed experiments based on alignment to the Joint Warfighting Concept and potential to yield demonstrable warfighting utility…. These efforts will culminate with multi-competent experiments that combine multiple prototypes and capabilities to expeditiously explore new concepts and create new capabilities.“
Iron Beam: How Israel’s New Laser Weapon Works. (Wall Street Journal) Video. One Iron Dome interceptor costs $50K. Iron Beam could be $2 per kill, and benefits from minimal logistics requirements. But Iron Beam is effective at shorter ranges only and is affected by weather (such as prevails in October and November). It takes several seconds for Iron Beam to destroy a target. It could be deployed early 2023. Uses 100kW of power, while some US lasers use 300 kW, allowing them to double the range of Iron Beam (from 12 to 24 miles) while Iron Dome interceptors can hit up to 43 miles. Biden recently announced US co-development support for Iron Dome and Iron Beam, including $1 billion.
DoD fleshing out plans for next generation of hypersonic weapons. (Fed Scoop) ““We’re taking our future look and creating a future strategy that we’re calling national hypersonics initiative 2.0.,” Michael White, principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering… The initial set of systems that are already in the works include “capability phasing plans,” he noted, which will allow for incremental upgrades. However, the DOD is also pondering “what’s the next set of capabilities that give us that next leap and impact and effect that we can achieve with hypersonic systems.” White didn’t lay out all the new concepts that are under consideration but noted that there is interest in reusable hypersonic capabilities that could be used for purposes other than blowing up high-value targets… Another pillar of the hypersonics 2.0 initiative is to try to make new weapons more affordable so the DOD can buy them in large quantities.”
Lockheed delivers airborne laser LANCE to Air Force Research Lab. (Breaking Defense) “While the Pentagon has pushed forward a number of different directed energy weapons in recent years, the value of this one, dubbed LANCE, is its minimal space, weight and power requirements. “It’s one-sixth the size of what we produced for the Army going back to just 2017”… in addition to LANCE, there is a beam control system, built by Northrop Grumman, which directs the laser on its target, as well as a pod that is mounted on the aircraft. Boeing is responsible for that pod subsystem, which the Air Force said it received in February 2021.
Analysis: Space Force budget growth could be short lived. (Space News) “One thing is certain: with an ever changing Congress and executive branch, actual outyear DoD spending will certainly diverge from the current projections” … Despite congressional support and strong arguments in favor of continued space investment, he said, “spending levels for the national security space budget will ultimately be shaped by exogenous factors as well as the attitudes of congressional appropriators.” Penn noted that the 2023 defense plan was put together long before the inflationary pressures started and well before Russia invaded Ukraine. “
Air Force says options limited for speeding up Wedgetail. (Defense News) “Adapting used airframes likely isn’t an option, Hunter said. While the Wedgetail is based on Boeing’s 737 air frame, it has a “unique combination” of components that means there aren’t many used airframes the government could acquire. The Wedgetail acquisition will also require software development, making use of open systems architecture, Hunter said… In the May hearing in which Duckworth raised concerns about the timing of the Wedgetail delivery, Lt. Gen. Duke Richardson, Hunter’s military deputy, said the Air Force might be able to buy E-7s more quickly once the certification process is done. But he also cautioned not to rush the contract process.”
Britain’s Royal Air Force chief says drone swarms are ready to overpower enemy defenses. (Defense News) “RAF’s 216 Test and Evaluation Squadron and the Rapid Capabilities Office trialed five drone types in 13 experiments with various payloads and equipment over three years. The work yielded enough insights for the service to declare an “operationally useful and relevant capability,” using its current fleet of drones, he said. “We are exploring new models of capability delivery and accelerated production ‘when we need them’ rather than ‘in case we need them,’ from the twin jet 3D-printed Pizookie, to commercially available large drones fitted with novel payloads, to large quadcopters,” Wigston said.”
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