Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition.
SpaceX launces the Polaris Dawn mission to many historic firsts.
Drones continue to be a prolific part of modern warfare.
AI requires significant energy and focus on mission outcomes.
Army exploring new rapid, commercial acquisition practices.
DoD needs more munitions and now has some new options.
The Navy needs shipbuilders ASAP to maintain plans.
Buying IT needs a new model - specifically an agile one.
The Space Force continues to expand its capabilities.
Have a great weekend!
Top Stories
SpaceX Polaris Dawn
“Back at home we all have a lot of work to do,
but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world.”
Jared Isaacman
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with four astronauts on Sep 10.
They are the farthest humans traveled since the Apollo program >50 years ago.
Sara Gillis and Anna Menon, space operations engineers at SpaceX are the two women who have traveled the furthest in space.
Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis performed the first ever commercial spacewalk using a new SpaceX spacesuit.
They are also performing 40 science and research experiments during the mission.
Kudos to the entire SpaceX team!!
Our Moonshot Moment Is Here
Nadia Schadlow and Craig Mundie
American policymakers have spent years decrying the loss or impending loss of key competitive sectors to China, including 5G telecommunications networks, solar panels, advanced manufacturing, and quantum computing. Recently, it was reported that China was outspending the U.S. on fusion energy and that it could surpass U.S. fusion capabilities in three to four years. The U.S. can’t let this happen.
Fusion will provide reliable, carbon-free electricity for an expanding global economy. That will have profound geopolitical consequences.
If we allow China to dominate fusion tech and to deploy it at scale, Beijing will hold a central position in the geopolitics of energy going forward.
Scientists and engineers, working on competing models for producing fusion, have made transformational progress on several classes of daunting problems, faster than public perception and U.S. policy.
Thanks to American innovation and determination, the fusion moment is here. When matched with private sector investment, it’s a potent force.
We could lose this moment to China unless the U.S. government takes steps now to accelerate manufacturing at scale and deployment.
Fusion must be considered a considered a key part of the shift to clean energy.
The U.S. government must create a regulatory environment that differentiates modern fusion technology from 20th century nuclear energy and that allows for scaled deployment.
Loan programs and tax incentives that apply to renewables need to be opened up to fusion.
The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for the New Era of Warfare
Raj Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff
In the the First Matabele War, fought between 1893 and 1894, the British employed a Maxim gun — the world’s first fully automatic weapon — in battle but the brutal era of trench warfare the Maxim gun ushered in didn’t become apparent until WWI.
We stand at the precipice of an even more consequential revolution in military affairs today. A new wave of war is bearing down on us.
Artificial-intelligence-powered autonomous weapons systems are going global. And the U.S. military is not ready for them.
Weeks ago, the world experienced another Maxim gun moment: The Ukrainian military evacuated U.S.-provided M1A1 Abrams battle tanks from the front lines after many of them were reportedly destroyed by Russian kamikaze drones.
Yet as this is happening, the Pentagon still overwhelmingly spends its dollars on legacy weapons systems.
It continues to rely on an outmoded and costly technical production system to buy tanks, ships and aircraft carriers that new generations of autonomous and hypersonic weapons can demonstrably kill.
The U.S. military requires unique platforms, such as stealth fighters and submarines, as well as newer technologies, including drones.
All weapons systems, old or new, need to take full advantage of the software and A.I. revolution — a revolution driven forward primarily by Silicon Valley, not by large, traditional defense contractors.
While D.I.U.’s budget is more than 30 times as large as it was in its first full year of operations, now totaling almost $1 billion annually, the Pentagon spends only pennies on innovation for each dollar it throws at legacy systems.
The Replicator initiative accounts for just 0.059 percent of the defense budget at a time when our adversaries are making monumental shifts.
China, of course, doesn’t need a D.I.U. This top-down, state-run economy is chasing quantum computers, nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons, and lofting into orbit its own 13,000-satellite equivalent to Starlink.
The question now is whether we can achieve this transformation in time to deter the next great power war and prevail in the more contained conflicts that threaten to envelop the U.S. and our allies.
Our Take: This is an excellent summary of what we have been observing. A desire clearly exists from many DoD leaders to embrace the change that is coming and a recognition of the threats that these asymmetric capabilities bring. However, this is combined with a sort of lethargy about how fast to move into the new era. In some circles, there seems to be a demand to have new CONOPS fully enumerated and all possible technology fully matured before fielding any significant quantities. In an era where a platform costs many millions of dollars, that was prudent but new systems that leverage autonomous behaviors, are modular, are software-enabled, use digital modeling and employ modern manufacturing practices - delaying is not the answer.
Drones on the Battlefield (CNAS)
Anna Pederson and Molly Campbell
From the battlefields of Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine, the deployment of drones has become a critical element of modern warfare. Will the explosion of UAVs change the character of war?
As drones become an increasingly significant factor on 21st century battlefields, the countries supplying cutting-edge drone technology are changing.
While Israel and the U.S. have historically leveraged their domination of the military drone market to regulate proliferation, the entry of Iran, China, and Turkey has triggered a dramatic increase in global proliferation.
The Drone Proliferation Dataset was compiled to further analyze trends in global drone proliferation, transfers by type, and region-specific drone imports.
Our Take: The one clear takeaway from these charts, if nothing else, is that drones are not going anywhere. DoD is smart to shift towards procurement of more cUAS systems that can better protect against the threat but its also a clear signal that this technology is now ubiquitous and we need to take full advantage of it and drive new concepts of employment for their use.
Anduril Reveals New Family of Software-Defined, Autonomous Cruise Missiles
Anduril announced that it developed a new line of air-breathing, software-defined, autonomous cruise missiles (Barracuda-Class).
The Barracuda family of weapons leverage a modular design that enables the missiles to be mass-produced at low cost and high volume in order to meet the DoD’s growing demand for munitions.
The Barracuda has a price tag that’s 30% less than similar weapon systems. One missile requires half the time to produce, 95% fewer tools and 50% less parts.
Each of the three variants — Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250 and Barracuda-500 — vary in size, range and payload capacity, but all of the systems can be fitted with additional capabilities to support a range of missions and launch mechanisms.
All three variants are currently flying and undergoing continuous test and design iterations for their subsystems.
Powered by Anduril’s Lattice for Mission Autonomy software, the Barracuda weapons are designed to be deployed in teams.
The autonomy used in the systems enable them to better understand their environment and fly in a collaborative formation with other missiles to identify targets, manage survivability and perform complex maneuvers.
Anduril was one of four companies involved in the Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV) effort (run by DIU and the AF’s Armament Directorate) along with Zone 5 Technologies, Leidos-Dynetics and Integrated Solutions for Systems.
“What we had sought to do with Barracuda is solve that problem at the level of design, to build a system that is simple, that is easy to manufacture, that is software-defined and mass-producible. This is not designed to go specifically and rigidly at one specific problem. We have designed Barracuda to be able to range across a series of targets. The ability to do this is sort of fundamental to the software definition of the system, which allows for rapid upgradability and ease of modernization to really change the capabilities of the system.” Chris Brose
Our Take: It wasn’t that long ago when most of DoD was consigned to forever buying super expensive weapons ($1-6M each). It has to be encouraging to service leaders to have other cheaper but highly capable options that can address the growing shortfall (despite multi-year buys) of munitions for the Pacific fight.
DoD Rolls Out Proposed Changes to Prototype OTA Regulations
DoD’s proposed rule seeks to implement statutory changes (to 32 CFR Part 3) that expand DoD’s ability to make use of OTs, and invest in new research and production opportunities with nontraditional partners.
The proposed rule would update statute to account for each of the appropriate circumstances whereby DoD may award a prototype OT, as follows:
At least one “nontraditional defense contractor” or “nonprofit research institution” will participate to a significant extent in the prototype project; or
All of the significant participants in the transaction are either small businesses or nontraditional defense contractors; or
The agency determines either that an OT would provide:
“for innovative business arrangements or structures that would not be feasible or appropriate under a procurement contract” or
“provide an opportunity to expand the defense supply base in a manner that would not be practical or feasible under a contract”; or
If none of the other circumstances apply, an OT may be awarded if at least one-third of the total cost of the prototype project will be paid out of funds provided by sources other than the Federal Government.
The proposed rule would amend the statute such that:
(1) DoD also has the ability to award a sole source, follow-on “production OT” for the manufacturing of a successful prototype in lieu of awarding a FAR-based production contract; and
(2) the prototype OT solicitation and agreement do not need to include express notice of a follow-on production award in order for DoD to issue such a follow-on contract or OT.
The proposed rule would also clarify that for consortiums running multiple prototypes, only one of those prototypes has to be successful to support a follow-on production award even if the others have not yet been completed.
Proposed Rule: Transactions Other Than Contracts, Grants, or Cooperative Agreements for Prototype Projects
Our Take: These changes were already in practice but this codifies them in statute and makes them much harder to possibly reverse in the future.
Defense Tech
How Bad Will the AI Power Crunch Be?
To win the AI race, the U.S. needs to supply its data centers with a sufficient amount of electricity. Goldman Sachs projected that AI power use will grow from 4 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2023 to 93 TWh in 2030 (57% average growth per year).
Epoch AI, an industry tracker, estimates that the amount of raw compute used by leading-edge models is growing by 310% each year.
Even if chips become 25% more energy efficient per year, this gives a roughly 228% annualized growth rate in energy consumption of the largest models.
This gives a sense of how severe the local power crunch will become — and how steep the take-off could feasibly be.
A number of changes will disrupt these trends.
A lot of focus has been placed on the power required to train models.
As capabilities improve and AI adoption grows, inference — the computations taking place when a user queries an AI model — is set to grow rapidly as well.
As inference demand rises, the true long-term cost of diffused AI could be multiples higher than current projections.
As we find more uses for LLMs, and can employ them more quickly and easily (ubiquitous coding agents), there will likely be a proliferation of software.
Multiple policy fixes need to be considered. The siting, permitting, and licensing processes for power plants and transmission are extraordinarily lengthy and complex. Streamlining them is an urgent priority.
The scale and type of AI power will create transmission and distribution challenges. The deployment of smart grid technologies, will be crucial in improving efficiency and responsiveness across the board.
Boeing to Launch Space-Based Quantum Demo in 2026
Boeing announced plans to demonstrate quantum networking in space — a technological feat that could help change the way the military processes data and identifies targets.
The company plans to launch the effort, dubbed Q4S, in 2026 using its own R&D money.
The experiment will demonstrate a concept called entanglement swapping — the ability to bring together, or entangle, the quantum states surrounding particles that haven’t previously interacted.
The process is required to build expansive, hack-resistant networks in space.
Through the demonstration, the company hopes to learn more about how to build quantum networks that could prove transformational for a number of industries, including defense.
The U.S. government spends about $1B each year on quantum technology development through its National Quantum Initiative, which it established in 2018 to help maintain an edge over China.
If Q4S is able to demonstrate entanglement swapping within one spacecraft, Boeing’s next target is to develop a multi-satellite experiment to prove the capability works within a small, space-based network.
Our Take: Some may question Boeing taking any risky technology projects at this time but it is encouraging to see legacy defense primes invest their own IR&D on moonshot projects that could provide DoD with a significant capability.
Prioritization, Agility Key to Post-Quantum Standards Implementation
NIST’s release of encryption standards to protect against future attacks from quantum computers set in motion new work for government and industry to implement those algorithms.
Federal officials discussing the migration are highlighting the importance of actions such as prioritizing high-value assets, working toward “crypto agile” systems, and purchasing compliant tools.
Identifying where cryptography standards in need of changing currently exist is among the first tasks for agencies and other organizations.
Deciding what cryptography needs to be addressed earlier is the next step which depends in part on risk.
The need to work toward “crypto agile” systems where its possible to change out algorithms as they evolve is also crucial.
Federal officials need to consider crypto-agility in their new purchases and refrain from buying new systems that don’t implement post-quantum standards.
AFRL Generative AI Program Already Has 80,000 Users
Launched in June, NIPRGPT now has about 80,000 users proving the demand for the tool across DoD.
Insights from current NIPRGPT use will also be used for future efforts to build upon the system and create fit-for-purpose GenAI capabilities.
One impetus for creating NIPRGPT as a tool for DOD came when considering the amount of useful information the department has that isn’t available publicly.
A lot of use cases have to do with toil reduction, getting a minute back on mission, being able to focus on lots of things like curiosity, content-creation or summation.
“What we have tended to find -- and our research is still really early in this -- is that, to various degrees, people have either had the curiosity in them encouraged or beaten out of them. So, particularly when we introduce a tool like NIPRGPT, a huge part of that was to give people a safe space to practice their curiosity in a new and different way. And if you think about it, it’s kind of like building a muscle.” AFRL CIO Alexis Bonnell
What’s Unique About the CDAO’s Upcoming GIDE?
The Global Information Dominance Experiment (GIDE) #12 will put the minimum viable capability for CJADC2 that officials have been collaboratively refining in recent years to its most international test yet.
Each GIDE event is leading up to a worldwide, joint activity where combatant commands and international military partners collaboratively are expected to unleash next-generation command-and-control capabilities in late 2025.
During the last few iterations, the U.S. Five Eyes partners — Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. — had to “watch from a distance,” due to technical challenges associated with sharing data.
But for GIDE 12, DoD expects to be able to technically integrate much more than in the past and potentially be able to transfer it autonomously.
A key focus of GIDE 12 involves “a horrible military acronym” known as C5P — or Cross Combatant Command and Coalition Cooperative Planning.
There are three mission threads that are being addressed with GIDE 12:
Improving the ability for the Joint Staff and our allies and partners to see the world collaboratively and make decisions much more quickly in a truly global way and truly digitized way.
Helping the military services enable joint kill chains.
Driving improvements with allied and partner data-sharing.
“Our goal is to significantly expand that out for GIDE 12, and also test it in a really robust operational environment to allow us to be able to see, can we achieve true global integration with some of those allies and partners against a very robust mission set, and can we actually do it in a way that’s performing and that’s ready for current operations?” Col. Matthew Strohmeyer
Pentagon Using AI to Modernize Legacy Code
DoD stills has applications that run on mainframes that are critical to day-to-day operations, and the people who wrote those are dead.
How do you modernize those? How do you facilitate those and move those applications into a more cloud-friendly environment?
DISA’s using AI capabilities to modernize legacy code that all the people who ever wrote it are long gone. It’s not perfect, but it gets us like 80-85% of the way there, and then we’re able to manually fill in that last 10-15% to bring these applications into the 21st century.
That’s a combination of cloud capabilities, but it’s also a combination of AI and the ability to think outside the box from a leadership perspective.
Take Off Handcuffs and Make DoD IT Buying More Agile
DoD must streamline its IT procurement and acquisition policies if the US wants to stay ahead of its adversaries in coming years.
The U.S. is falling behind China and other adversaries because the current defense procurement and acquisition policies don’t account for unknown emerging technologies.
A lot of the capabilities that we’re talking about when we talk about AI, machine learning, our adversary is taking full advantage of them, and we are too for the extent that we can get access to.
The acquisition timelines that we have to deal with in the US are much longer than what our adversaries are doing. If we can streamline our acquisition processes, then we’re going to be able to put capabilities in the hands of the warfighter quickly.
“We still buy IT as if it was a weapon system. You have to do your planning and your budget cycles in such a way that don’t really facilitate agile capabilities. It’s September of 2024. I just submitted my budget for 2026, and in that budget I had to submit my five year plan. So not only did I submit my budget for 2026, I had to also plan what I was going to spend all the way through to 2031.” John Hale, DISA’s Chief of Cloud Services.
Our Take: Yes, fully agree. See the Software Acquisition Pathway to start. The Atlantic Council Commission on Software Defined Warfare will have more ideas in this space soon.
Army
Army’s Next Budget Invests Heavily in Drones and EW
That’s an area where I think we also need to have more agility in our funding mechanisms because of the technology in those capability areas is changing so rapidly that we can’t afford to get locked into something and then be only allowed to use that something for the next 10 years.
Both Wormuth and George have discussed the possibility of budgeting differently in order to get some capability into the hands of soldiers much more quickly.
One of those possibilities is asking Congress to fund pots of money dedicated for a specific capability rather than budget across a number of specific line items that tend to be a specific product or program.
There is such a deep realization that we have got to change more quickly and that tech is changing rapidly right now that we need to have more agile mechanisms.
The Army used to have 10-12 individual line items and now may have two or three.
“Some of the areas that GEN George and I feel very strongly that we need to invest more in, both from the perspective of the Army... but also the needs of the joint force, is in the areas of UAS, counter-UAS, and EW.” Christine Wormuth
Our Take: Yes, DoD definitely needs more budget flexibility. As the PPBE Reform Commission and we have screamed from the rooftops of DC for years, the DoD and Congress need to partner to devise a budget system that can be more responsive to changes while still providing sufficient rigor and oversight.
Army Picks Two Companies to Get Small Drones to Brigade Combat Teams
The Army picked Anduril Industries and Performance Drone Works to provide Small UAS, to Army units as part of an effort to buy capability fast and get it into soldiers’ hands as the service races to modernize its force.
Anduril and Performance Drone Works will provide the first tranche of systems that will meet the company-level SUAS requirement in a deal valued at $14.4M.
Army Chief GEN. Randy George calls the effort “transformation in contact,” where the service buys available commercial-off-the-shelf capability and then battle tests it with soldiers, instead of spending decades developing something before fielding it only to discover it is outdated by the time it gets to units.
“Transforming in contact is the way our Army can adapt its formations and get new technology in the hands of soldiers to experiment, innovate, learn, and change at the pace required. The Company Level Small UAS Directed Requirement effort is a great example of how we are achieving this.” GEN George
“The program is another example of the Army’s ability to rapidly move from an idea to a requirement, to a competition, to testing, to contract awards for production, the Army’s acquisition chief. This shows the acquisition system can move at the pace needed to support the Army, especially in rapidly emerging technology areas like small uncrewed aircraft systems.” Doug Bush
Related Story: Inspired by Ukraine, US Army picks two commercially available drones
Small Fleet, Fewer Flights Weaken Army Aircraft Training
Army helicopter crews are flying one-third of the hours they did at the peak of the past two decades, as the number of manned aircraft has declined by 20%.
The Army saw the availability of aircraft increase as its fleet of craft has gotten younger.
In 2011, the Army saw its peak with air crews flew an average of 302 hours.
As of 2023, the average flight hours have dropped to 198 hours.
In 2000, the percentage of manned aircraft that were mission-capable was just over 50%. It has remained above 60% since 2007 and sits at 68% as of last year.
In 2000, the Army had nearly 5,000 manned aircraft. Last year it was around 3,900.
The Black Hawk, the Army’s largest fleet, has seen the average age of aircraft rise from 12 years in 2000 to 18 years in 2023
Read CBO Report: Availability and Use of Aircraft in the Army
Arms Manufacturers Catching Up with World's Insatiable Need for 155mm Rounds
Since the war began in Ukraine the demand for the relatively low-tech 155mm ammunition has skyrocketed, with the nation firing as many as 8,000 rounds per day.
The Army is looking to significantly ramp up 155mm production, with a stated goal of producing 100,000 rounds per month by 2025.
As of February, the Army was manufacturing 30,000 155mm rounds per month, doubling its previous output of 14,000 rounds prior to the conflict.
Doug Bush said the Army is now on a path to producing 70,000 to 80,000 rounds per month by the end of 2024 or early 2025.
DoD needs to relook at stockpiling policies to increase stockpiles, but it is expensive and artillery shells do age and become less reliable.
The more efficient fix is not to maintain massive peacetime stockpiles but have the ability to, when needed, ramp up faster. That way, you get the very latest version” of a weapon, “not a big stock of older ones.
The Army will assume ownership of the capital equipment, subsequently leasing it back to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems through a government-furnished materiel agreement.
Dr. William LaPlante, USD(A&S) said the facility has been set up such that if you really wanted to reconfigure the line to build more advanced munitions such as Excalibur 155mm precision-guided rounds for example, it could be done.
LaPlante said that for the Army’s 100,000 155mm rounds per month by 2025 goal, those munitions will primarily consist of the typical high explosive shells.
“If you could maintain a factory of robotics that doesn’t need as many people and the robots could be maintained at a lower cost, there’s your surge capacity.” Doug Bush
Outgunned, Outranged: The Ukraine War Illustrates Where Fires Modernization is Needed
It’s not often that anyone would think of the U.S. as being outgunned in this day and age, but in the realm of artillery it’s likely true. While most NATO countries, Russia, and China went to longer L52 cannon barrels years ago that provide greater range, the U.S. Army still uses and only manufactures the smaller L39 barrel that provides what can only be called last-generation capability for 155mm field guns.
The first increment of the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) is being developed to replace the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System.
The Mid-Range Capability, also known as Typhon, will strike targets with SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles at ranges from 300-1,725 miles that aren’t covered by PrSM and under-developmental hypersonic missiles.
Rocket artillery has also enabled advancements in precision strike, but lacks mass.
Army canceled the Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) program, keeping the M1299 self-propelled 155mm howitzer prototype an S&T effort.
AFC Concept for Fires 2028 has validated the need to move away from certain existing systems in the arsenal that lack sufficient capacity, lethality, and range to deter and defeat peer threats.
Adapting rather than adopting a proven system takes you from an off-the-shelf system to something that becomes bespoke and will take time, money, and effort
The priority, on the other hand, is rapidly fielding capability, which is what the Army’s looking for with its desire to get capability into the field by 2030 that meets as much of the ERCA requirements as possible.
Another reason to adopt is so the U.S. and others can take advantage of the latest innovations at the round.
Other Army News:
Army Aiming For One More Hypersonic Weapon Test by Year’s End
Army Implements Generative AI Platform to cArmy Cloud Environment
Parallel Tracks Aim to Improve Army C2 While Pursuing Long-Term Options
Navy
Navy Awards BlueForge Alliance New $950M Contract to Boost Sub Industrial Base
The Navy awarded BlueForge ~$1.3B in work to boost the submarine industrial base.
The new $950M contract continues efforts to bolster the SIB in preparation for AUKUS work.
The contract supports urgent ongoing efforts to diversify and strengthen the supply chains, drive national/regional workforce attraction, targeted training capacity increases and enterprise wide retention improvements.
This work will scale manufacturing technology (additive manufacturing, robotics / automation) capacity and capability that is essential for defense industrial base wide production and maintenance.
Roughly $500M of the contract award is categorized under FMS.
BlueForge Alliance is a Texas-based nonprofit company that has rapidly made a name for itself in the defense industrial space by working with the Navy and submarine prime contractor General Dynamics to hit the service’s aspirational goal of hiring 100,000 new shipbuilders over the next 10 years.
Related Article: Amid Struggle to Build Subs, Navy Gives Company Running Ads and Website a $1B Contract
How a Sailor Shortage is Crippling Ship Maintenance at Sea
63% of Navy executive officers reported that insufficient manning made it moderately to extremely difficult to complete repairs while underway.
As of late last year, the Navy was lacking nearly 14,000 enlisted sailors to keep its aircraft carriers, surface ships and attack submarines properly manned.
Aircraft carriers, cruisers and amphibious assault ships did not have enough enlisted sailors assigned to them to meet requirements for safe operations.
More capable sailors that perform a lot of maintenance get burned out and tired of taking up the slack for other sailors and leave the Navy to do the same work for better pay and working conditions.
Air Force
How a New Organization Is Helping Tie the Air Force Together with Software
The Air Force Sustainment Center Software Directorate, barely one year old, was established in summer 2023 to unite three software engineering groups, a total of 5,000 engineers spread among a dozen locations. Their work here is a sign that the Air Force’s coding efforts have grown since USAF stood up its first software factory less than a decade ago.
As part of the Sustainment Center, the Software Directorate is among the Air Force’s largest software-focused organizations, yet typically flies under the radar.
The Software Directorate focuses on the future, trying to see what new advances and improvements they can program into software to enhance aircraft performance.
Older aircraft like the B-52 or E-3 are also getting updates.
But even more than platform-specific code, software that is applicable across platforms and enables better technical integration.
What that looks like is a common, government-owned standard interface, through which any aircraft system can exchange data. Such Open Mission Systems have been a holy grail for years for program executives.
Federating systems within aircraft should accelerate updates. Already, speed is improving, even if it’s not as fast as many would like.
“We are constantly very aware of what the threat is from our adversaries … being able to create software very quickly in a DevSecOps environment, to be able to take software and put software on a platform very, very quickly, to be able to handle whatever threat is out there.” Michael Jennings
Air Force Integrating AMRAAM Weapons Onto First Batch of CCA Drones
Raytheon is working with the Air Force and the two vendors competing in the ongoing development-for-production phase of CCA Increment 1 to incorporate the missiles onto the drones.
CCA drones are intended to fly alongside the fifth-, sixth-generation manned aircraft in the future. The department intends to rapidly produce the uncrewed platforms to begin testing them in operations before the end of the decade.
The unmanned aircraft will carry a range of equipment in order to accomplish multiple missions — from ISR to offensive strike.
Anduril and General Atomics were awarded contracts to create detailed designs, manufacture and conduct flight tests for the first batch of CCAs, known as Increment 1.
Once the Air Force nails down its preferred design, the two companies — as well as any other vendors interested — will be able to compete for the final production contract expected to be made in 2026.
Although the company did not share which specific variant of the AMRAAM is being integrated onto the CCAs, the range of the newest variant — the AIM-120D — is estimated to be around 100 miles.
Anduril, General Atomics to Showcase Drone Wingmen Models at Air Force Conference Next Week
The Air Force will show off full-scale models of two autonomous combat drones next week during its flagship conference.
These will be loyal wingmen, and they will be controlled by a crewed fighter, either an F-35 in all likelihood or possibly NGAD.
Legacy drone maker General Atomics and defense startup Anduril beat out Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin in April to win contracts to develop uncrewed wingmen as part of the first increment of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
Under their contracts, both General Atomics and Anduril will build prototype CCAs, which are set to fly next year.
The Air Force will then determine in 2026 whether to start production of the drones developed by either or both of the vendors — or to potentially purchase CCAs from one of the companies previously eliminated from the program.
The A-10 Era is Over for This Legendary Air Force Attack Squadron
For over 30 years, the 354th Fighter Squadron has put "the 18-year-old with a rifle" at the center of their A-10 mission. The Air Force is shuttering the unit this week.
Other Air Force News:
Space Force
Space Force Awards Follow-On Contract to Scale Terrestrial Data Transport System
MeshONE-T is a ground-based architecture that serves as a data-transport-as-a-service for other customers within the DoD.
Space Force’s acquisition arm has awarded a $188M contract to Sev1Tech to expand its ground-based data transport network.
Under the follow-on agreement, Sev1Tech will now scale the terrestrial network over 85 fixed sites and enhance its capabilities with 24/7/365 managed transport services and enterprise-wide upgrades.
meshONE-T is ideal for moving large capacity, big bandwidth and high-performance data over long distances.
The capability is one of the Space Force’s key efforts related to CJADC2.
“When you join the meshONE network, and even if you just get one node at your location, you now are connected to every other node in the mesh network.” Col Peter Mastro
Space Force Seeks Industry Input on Automating Hybrid Satellite Networks
Space Force Commercial SATCOM Office is seeking industry input on automating the operation of a hybrid satellite communications network, combining government systems with commercial providers.
The RFI defines network orchestration as the actions required to dynamically configure multi-system hybrid (commercial and military) satcom networks to achieve reliable, resilient, and cost-effective communications services for the DoD and mission partners.
Read: SSC Automated SATCOM Network Orchestration RFI
U.S. Defense Program Seeks Next-Generation Space Monitoring Tools
The Space Security and Defense Program is doing market research on advanced space domain awareness technologies available in the 2030-2040 timeframe.
The Space Security and Defense Program (SSDP), a joint initiative of the DOD and ODNI, on Sept. 11 issued a RFI on advanced space domain awareness technologies.
The SSDP is responsible for assessing potential threats to U.S. space assets and for gathering insights on technologies for the defense of U.S. systems.
The SSDP asks for proven and innovative SDA concepts for use between 2030 and 2040 and is interested in industry capabilities and services available at the scale and speed to effectively address threats in a dynamic and proliferated environment.
Anduril Moves its AI Focus to the Heavens, Planning New Space Monitoring Sats
The first launch in 2025 will serve as a testbed for maturation of multiple Anduril and third party payloads which we will be announcing in the coming months.
Anduril intends for the satellites to be launched by the end of 2025 — with the Space Force clearly the target market.
Top brass from both the Space Force and US Space Command repeatedly have said that improved space domain awareness is a first-order priority.
Anduril is looking to design multiple payloads, all based on its AI-powered Lattice software, the same platform used to power the counter-drone capabilities currently in use under the company’s nearly $1B contract with SOCOM.
Anduril will design, manufacture, and integrate modular mission payloads designed to enable unique mission requirements, leveraging our extensive expertise across imaging, EW, C2, and mission autonomy.
These payloads will provide warfighters with real-time data exploitation, autonomous coordination of satellites, and resilient communication capabilities
NGA Taps 10 Firms for $290M Satellite Data Analytics Contract
NGA selected 10 companies to compete for up to $290M in contracts over the next five years to provide commercial satellite imagery and data analytics, aiming to bolster the government’s global monitoring and intelligence capabilities.
The agency announced Sept. 13 that the following vendors will be on-ramped to the program known as Luno A:
Airbus U.S. Space & Defense
Booz Allen Hamilton
BlackSky
BlueHalo
CACI
Electromagnetic Systems Inc.
Maxar Intelligence
NV5 Geospatial
Royce Geospatial Consultants
Ursa Space Systems
The Luno program is intended to demonstrate a tangible commitment to commercial Earth observation services and signals the importance of private-sector data and analytics in supporting U.S. intelligence and defense operations.
International
How China has Throttled its Private Sector
“The whole industry has just died before our eyes.
The entrepreneurial spirit is dead. It is very sad to see.”
Venture capital finance has dried up amid political and economic pressures, prompting a dramatic fall in new company formation.
In 2018, at the height of VC investment, 51,302 start-ups were founded in China.
By 2023, that figure had collapsed to 1,202 and on track to be even lower this year.
The crisis in the sector partly reflects the slowdown in the Chinese economy, which has been buffeted by the protracted Covid-19 lockdowns, the bursting of its property bubble and the stagnation of its equity markets. As bilateral tensions have risen, US-based investors have also largely pulled out.
But it is also the direct result of political decisions taken by President Xi Jinping that have dramatically changed the environment for private business in China.
Many start-up companies sold equity to investors on the basis that they would buy back those shares if they did not list on the stock market or get acquired by a certain date. But a wave of failures has led VC firms to try to claw back assets from their insolvent investee companies through the courts.
China’s VC sector has turned into a debt-chasing monster.
New start-ups face even more onerous terms. It is no longer enough that the company is on the hook for repurchasing shares; founders must take personal liability for the debt.
The rapid contraction of an industry that helped make China a technological superpower will hamper future innovation.
People are leaving and question whether China VC will ever come back.
China Claims Breakthroughs in Autonomous Vehicles
If Chinese companies succeed in solidifying their dominance of the autonomous vehicle and LiDAR markets, the security implications are profound.
Autonomous vehicles represent an estimated $2 trillion global market, and are expected to triple in value over the next decade. They are not just the future of transportation, but also have massive applications for the intelligent systems at the center of both U.S. and Chinese military plans.
In this economic and military race for the future, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology (SIMIT) claims to have made two new breakthroughs toward overcoming one of the most crucial speedbumps: autonomous vehicles’ ability to perceive their surrounding environment and track movements.
Their gains in the “brain” of autonomous vehicles are significant, as they come amidst other fast-paced developments with the “eyes” of vehicles, and signal substantial progress in China’s quest for autonomous vehicles.
As the importance of autonomous vehicles, their suite of sensors, and the security implications therein grows, so too will the need to maintain U.S alternatives to adversarial advancements. If the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ SIMIT continues to refine their capabilities, this need will only rise in tandem.
Anduril Brings Roadrunner Drone and Solid Rocket Motor to Australia for First Time
Anduril Australia is primarily known for the cooperative development program we do in partnership with DTSG, ASCA and the Royal Australian Navy of the Ghost Shark XL, a UUV capability, and we are far less well known for our wider land and air defense capabilities that we sell to customers all around the world.
Already used by the US military for air defense in some of the most complex operational environments in the world Australia and the Indo-Pacific region in general could benefit from such a capability like Road Runner.
The company describes the weapon as “a radically new, recoverable, cost-effective kinetic interceptor for ground-based air defence.
The Roadrunner-M on display contains a high-explosive interceptor meant to destroy an array of aerial threats up to and including larger aircraft.
One of its most interesting characteristics is its ability — after a recon mission or if it isn’t needed to destroy a target — to return to base and land at a pre-designated location for refuelling and reuse.
Ukraine Has Invented Its Own Precision Glide Bomb. It Could Become A Key Weapon For Strikes On Targets In Russia
Ukraine is preparing to fight back—with its own glide bombs. A recent video shot by the crew of a Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-27 fighter depicts an air force Sukhoi Su-24 bomber carrying a prototype gliding munition under its wing.
Ukraine’s Air Force was developing a new glide and guidance kit to transform Soviet-vintage unguided bombs into precision munitions. The test flight on that Su-24 was an important step in the new weapon’s development.
If Ukraine can establish local production of the new bomb, it might begin to catch up to Russia’s own glide-bombing campaign.
The new bomb would join a growing portfolio of made-in-Ukraine munitions that includes the Neptune cruise missile, the new Palianytsia “missile drone” and a host of one-way attack drones—including at least two models of pilotless sport plane that can fly a thousand miles with an explosive payload.
NATO’s DIANA Picks 10 Disruptors for Phase II Accelerator Effort
The NATO-led Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) has selected 10 companies to move into Phase II of its accelerator program as the alliance steps up efforts to secure technological advantages over adversaries.
Aquark Technologies (UK), Astrolight (Lithuania), Dolphin Labs (US), Ephos (Italy), Gridlock (UK), IONATE (UK), Lobster Robotics (Netherlands), Phantom Photonics (Canada), Revobeam (Poland) and Secqai (UK) all made the cut after squeezing out applications from 34 rival start ups.
The chosen firms are involved in developing deep technology solutions aligned to one of three defense and security challenges identified by NATO allies: sensing and surveillance, energy resilience, and secure information sharing.
More specifically, quantum devices, smart renewable energy platforms, underwater drones and intelligent antennas are among the technologies and vehicles under development.
DIANA kickstarted five new challenges in July 2024. A cohort of new innovators will be selected from a competition involving more than 2600 applicants and go on to join the accelerator in early 2025.
Congress
Senators Cramer, Kelly Launch Senate Defense Modernization Caucus
Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), members of the SASC, participated in a panel discussion on defense modernization and announced the launch of the bipartisan Senate Defense Modernization Caucus.
The mission of the caucus is to foster defense investments and innovative capabilities to deter and counter foreign adversaries.
The Senate Caucus will work closely with Representatives Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) and Pat Ryan (D-NY-18), who serve as co-chairs of the House Defense Modernization Caucus.
Primary initiatives of the Senate Defense Modernization Caucus:
Conduct research on emerging tech, defense trends, modernization priorities, and staying updated on relevant legislation, policies, and budgetary developments.
Review existing defense modernization policies, statutes, and regulations to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.
Engage with military leaders, government officials, and industry experts to provide insights on defense modernization challenges and opportunities.
Engaging with industry leaders to gather input on innovative technologies and strategies that can enhance defense capabilities.
Our Take: Kudos to Jane Lee and the Software in Defense Coalition for their leadership in supporting the caucus.
GAO Report on Critical Materials
Action Needed to Implement Requirements That Reduce Supply Chain Risks
(H/T Moshe Schwartz)
The U.S. imported >95% of the rare earths that it consumed.
From 2019 through 2022, almost three-quarters of these imports came from China.
Rare earths and other critical materials, like tantalum and tungsten, lack equivalent substitutes that perform at the same level.
DOD uses large quantities of rare earths and other critical materials in its weapon systems but has limited influence on the markets for these materials.
DOD estimates that its total demand for rare earths is less than 0.1% of global demand.
HASC Hearing in Silicon Valley
Feat. Mark Valentine (Skydio), Brandon Tseng (Shield AI), Shyam Sankar (Palantir), Peter Ludwig (Applied Intuition), and Richard Jenkins (Saildrone).
Only 16 more days until the end of the FY. CRs cost tens of billions and risks lives.
Podcasts, Books, and Videos
Decoding Agile Acquisition Frameworks w/Jonathan Mostowski, Defense Mavericks
The Race for Autonomous Ships and Naval Dominance w/Dino Mavrookas, American Optimist
Clear Strategies Pairing Innovation and Deterrence Can Win a Cold War with China w/Dr. Megan Reiss, Arsenal of Democracy
Securing Startups with People in Mind w/Jeremy Vaughan, Second Front
The Modern Commander, Modern War Institute
Upcoming Events and Webinars
Air Space and Cyber Conference, AFA, Sep 16-18, Washington DC
Undersea Warfare Conference, NDIA, Sep 16-18, Groton, CT
State of the Aerospace & Defense Complex, Sep 16, El Segundo, CA
Advana Recompete Industry Day, CDAO, Sep 18, Reston, VA
Future Force Capabilities Conference, NDIA, Sep 24-27, Virginia Beach, VA
Unmanned Systems West, ACI, Sep 25-26, San Diego, CA
Military Tactical Comms, DSI, Sep 25-26, National Harbor, MD
DARPA Discover DSO Day, Oct 3-4, Boston, MA
Defense Conference 24, PSC, Oct 8, Arlington, VA
Stanford Conference on Technology + National Security, Oct 9, Stanford, CA
Pacific Defense Contracting Summit, DLF, Oct 8-10, Honolulu, HI
AUSA Annual Meeting and Expo, Oct 14-16, Washington DC
Midwest Defense Innovation Summit, Oct 16-17, Indianapolis, IN
TechNet Indo Pacific, AFCEA, Oct 22-24, Honolulu, HI
Expeditionary Warfare Conference, NDIA, Oct 22-24, Laurel, MD
Microelectronics Commons and NSTC Symposium, Oct 28-30, Washington, DC
Systems and Mission Engineering Conference, NDIA, Oct 28-31, Norfolk, VA
See our Events Page for all the other events over the next year.
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