US Army, not Meta, is building the metaverse. (Venture Beat) “In terms of industry progress towards the cloud-supported, scalable metaverse, no organization has come further than the U.S. Army. Their Synthetic Training Environment (STE) has been in development since 2017. The STE aims to replace all legacy simulation programs and integrate different systems into a single, connected system for combined arms and joint training. The STE fundamentally differs from traditional, server-based approaches. For example, it will host a 1:1 digital twin of the Earth on a cloud architecture that will stream high fidelity (photo-realistic) terrain data to connected simulations. New terrain management platforms such as Mantle ETM will ensure that all connected systems operate on exactly the same terrain data.”
RIMPAC lessons will inform Navy’s pursuit of a program-of-record unmanned ship in 2025. (Defense News) “Brian Fitzpatrick, the principal assistant program manager for unmanned surface vessels, said the four [unmanned] vessels will have achieved a combined 100-plus days at sea due to RIMPAC and related activities. Feedback received from RIMPAC participants has been entirely about the payloads they carry, not the vessels themselves or autonomy software, he said.”
JADC2 Needs a leader. (Tao of Defense) “However, the idea of a Joint Program Executive Office increasingly has more merit. As a former program manager in a JPEO, I am very hesitant about this approach which is why this organization would need to be organized correctly and managed appropriately: It should be challenge-driven not requirements-driven… JADC2 should not be viewed as a single program like F-35 is today in the F-35 JPEO but more like the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) of the past… The structure of the JPEO should be around a product portfolio where different Product Managers… A cap on the number of FTEs should be established early (~200) and not allowed to expand… The JPEO will have authority to review and approve any Service budget submittals related to JADC2 activities… The JPEO leadership should not attempt to manage JADC2 using baselines and EVM-type tools.”
Congress weakens the US military with late defense spending bills. (1945) “A tardy defense authorization bill means an absence of U.S. military strength, a dearth of needed oversight, and needlessly wasted time and money while waiting. … Since the start of the war, the Pentagon has sent around 7,000 Javelin missiles to aid Ukrainian military forces in defending against Russian tanks, and around 1,400 Stinger missiles. That is one-third and one-quarter of America’s respective munitions stockpiles. The 2023 NDAA authorizes funding for more than $2.7 billion in additional munitions production and industrial capacity expansion.“
The downsides to strategic sourcing. (LinkedIn) JAIC acquisition chief Will Roberts: “I constantly struggled when choosing the most effective procurement vehicles for acquiring AI capabilities. I knew we wanted something repeatable and fast. Multiple award ordering vehicles were an option (i.e. IDIQs, GWACS, BOAS, BPAs, etc.). Sometimes, these are referred to as best in class vehicles. They can be repeatable and fast (“can be” are the key words – the contracting office must properly utilize FAR 16.5, 8.4, etc.). [But these often limit the vendor pools and scalability.] The good news is that there several procurement options that allow for streamlined orders and provide continuous opportunity and accessibility to new companies. One method is a Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA)… Agencies can also use Other Transaction Authority (OTA)… Finally, agencies can utilize the Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO… In the realm of emerging technologies, we need more industry players, not less.”
How the Pentagon is messing up a crucial contract finance study three years in the making. (Federal News Network) “…the government tends not to reward growth. And this is important for small businesses and midsize businesses who are doing business in the government space, you have set asides for small businesses, they do very well. They get sized out of their small status. And then they either get acquired by larger companies, they get merged with companies, or they simply go out of business. The other alternative is if they go back to small size status. So we’ve encouraged the Department of Defense to think hard about how can they better reward growth? … We’re not arguing for a midsize company set aside, because that just moves the goalposts.”
Lockheed doubles venture funds size to $400M. (Washington Technology) “… the fund will double again from $200 million to $400 million so it can help speed up defense innovation through investments in growing tech companies. This increase of the fund’s size comes amid recent efforts by other companies in the government market, including other large defense hardware makers, to up their game on the tech scouting and venture investment front. L3Harris Technologies has started working with Shield Capital on that front, while AE Industrial Partners has started efforts to raise $250 million for its second fund with Boeing already having committed $50 million. And Booz Allen Hamilton has formalized its venture capital organization with an initial $100 million allotment. Jacobs, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman are also involved in venture investments to varying extents….Malave’s use of the 21st Century Security phrase refers to how CEO Jim Taiclet has spoken about what he believes Lockheed should be: more than just a platform manufacturer, but also a provider of the software and connectivity that links people and systems in the field… The ventures fund has backed more than 70 startup companies since its launch in 2007. Lockheed Martin Ventures so far this year has already invested in 11 new businesses focused on areas such as sensor technology, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing and space services.”
Citing routine cost jumps, Senate appropriators add to Middle Tier authority. (Breaking Defense) ” David Norquist: “You get two potentially disruptive side effects, often at the same time. One is you’ll have a group that decides everything’s mid-tier. And so regardless of what your original intent is, they try and fit everything into the box, because they like the flexibility … The flip side is more inside the system, where people add all the old rules back because that’s how they’re familiar with doing acquisition. So you have to, sort of, watch both ends to say when we are given a new authority by Congress, is the Department of Defense [being] consistent with it and actually fully taking advantage of it?”… “What I’ve generally found in my time in government is the people that you think of as putting up the roadblocks, they’re not trying to be difficult. They have a different set of incentives, and they’re accountable to different things. And if you haven’t changed that, you shouldn’t be surprised they haven’t changed their behavior,” said Norquist, adding that by design, “We build bureaucracies to do the same thing over and over again.””
MQ-9 Reapers prove value in ACE pacific operations. (Air Force Magazine) “The Reaper’s new automatic takeoff and landing capability (ATLC), made possible with just a pallet and half of equipment, was at work again an hour later, as the the Reaper launched again. The Reaper agile combat employment, or RACE, demonstration was part of June’s Valiant Shield exercise. “It’s fundamentally shaking up how we present our force, because I don’t need everybody downrange anymore,” Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, commander of the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Creech, which oversaw the MQ-9s, told Air Force Magazine. Only 10 Airmen made the trip, instead of 55.”
What NAVSEA is working on in Mid-2022. (Naval News) ” DDG (X) [next-generation destroyer], Light Amphibious Warship and then on the horizon construction for T-AK (X) [new next-generation] Sealift ship, T-AH (X) [new] Hospital Ship and AS(X) [new next-generation sub tender],“
Iron Dome intercepts targets, works with US systems in Army test. (Defense News) “The U.S. Army has completed an interceptor test of the Iron Dome air defense system, the second event of its kind since two batteries were supplied to the service at the end of 2020… the U.S. Army plans to field the two Iron Dome Defense System-Army batteries as an interim cruise missile defense solution. The service has deployed one Iron Dome system to Guam since the fall of 2021… Iron Dome is designed for use at fixed and semi-fixed locations to defend against “sub-sonic Cruise Missiles (CM), Groups 2 and 3 Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), and rockets, artillery, and mortar threats.”“
HII touts big win for its tech business amid other delays. (Washington Technology) “HII, formerly Hunting Ingalls Industires, had a significant point of success to talk about on that front during its second quarter earnings call with investors Thursday: the win of a potential five-year, $826 million technology integration task order supporting the entire Defense Department. The task order goes by the full name of Decisive Mission Actions and Technology Services and ties directly to HII’s acquisition of Alion Science and Technology in last year’s third quarter for $1.65 billion, HII CEO Chris Kastner told analysts. Alion became a part of what is now the mission technologies segment of HII, formerly known as technical solutions.”
Here’s what we know about F-35 ejection seat woes so far. (Defense News) “At issue is the seat’s part called the cartridge, which contains magnesium powder that ignites to shoot an aviator out of the cockpit when they trigger an escape… ejection seat manufacturer Martin-Baker conducted a quality-assurance check and found that its production line was turning out defective cartridges. It’s unclear when the company realized the problem, or when it alerted its military customers.”
Senior Air Force official voices caution about increasing OSD’s involvement in JADC2. (Fed Scoop) Tim Grayson: “The concern I’ve got with OSD — this is not a knock on OSD … [but] we have a propensity within our government that says whatever your span of authority is, that is also your span of responsibility. So if I say OSD needs to have oversight of all of these things, then the scope — because I want lots of adaptability and lots of option space — the scope’s going to be huge. Then if it turns into I’ve got to worry about, as OSD, every little aspect of all that, I’m back to my complexity slide now from a bureaucratic perspective,” he said. “Just adding another layer of oversight function to all this I think just adds more confusion and complexity.” A better approach would be to create more narrowly focused teams for “mission integration management,” Grayson suggested. “You can build them out to very focused ad hoc teams that could dig down and be less overseers than facilitators.””
Opinion: Defense software requires infrastructure too. (Fed Scoop) “Infrastructure for software embraces four important elements: Unlimited computing power and unlimited data storage; Open APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow different software applications to talk to one another; Continuous deployment and delivery of software; and Ability to operate at the edge of communications networks… Finally, it is important to remember that we will never be able to fully guess the requirements of the future.”
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