The Space & Missile Systems Center’s Space Enterprise Consortium has been so successful at providing competitive prototypes, fast, that SMC wants to expand its scope dramatically.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. and Theresa HitchensA major overhaul is coming in software for missile warning
Space Systems Command’s FORGE program is the first, major missile-warning software modernization effort in 20 years.
The RFI explains that SDA is looking to potential contractors to supply “concepts for rapid prototyping, risk-reduction efforts that could be demonstrated in less than 18 months” that link to its proposed architecture.
By Theresa Hitchens
Let a hundred hypersonic flowers bloom, Pentagon officials say, instead of a single cumbersome mega-program.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
What happens when the Pentagon’s new ballistic missile defeat program doesn’t work? They keep using the old one, which has a spotty track record.
By Paul McLeary
The Pentagon has almost completed a study of how to shoot down hypersonic missiles. It’s also developing new offensive weapons — conventional, not nuclear — whose deployment will become legal with the end of the INF Treaty.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.By 2021, plans call for Japan to have eight Aegis destroyers, four of them capable of launching the SM-3 Block IIA missiles, whose second successful test in a row comes as a vindication after two previous failures.
By Paul McLeary
While standing up a new Space Force would likely run between $11 billion and $21 billion per year, the vast majority of that money — 96 percent — is already being spent by the Pentagon to run space operations, according to an analysis released Monday by budget expert Todd Harrison at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
By Paul McLeary
New Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
The Japanese government is spending billions on sea and ground-based missile defenses, but all the talk in the Pentagon is on space, as the U.S. scrambles to meet new hypersonic threats from China and Russia.
By Paul McLeary
“All of the fundamental research in hypersonic aerodynamics is United States (work),” said Pentagon R&D chief Mike Griffin. “We did not choose to weaponize the results of that research. Our adversaries have chosen to weaponize it. That’s the challenge. We will respond.”
By Colin Clark
Russian President Vladimir Putin is promoting what he says are unbeatable hypersonic weapons, and Capitol Hill is listening closely. The result is hundreds of millions in new funding lines.
By Paul McLeary
Pentagon planners aren’t only worried about North Korean ICBMs, but Chinese hypersonics and medium-range missiles. That means, according to analysts, that an array of distributed systems are needed to meet a wide range of potential threats.
By Paul McLeary
“I’d say six to seven years to essentially work out the Concept of Operations (and) develop the capabilities,” Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves told the Senate.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The Missile Defense Agency needs sensors in orbit to track hypersonic threats, the MDA director said this week. Such satellites would use mature technology and could perform other surveillance missions to help justify their cost, Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves told the McAleese/Credit Suisse conference Tuesday. Last week, as we reported, the chief of Strategic…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Faced with an improving Russian threat, the United States should deploy a serious space sensor layer to provide persistent birth-to-death tracking of missiles, including against the kind that rip through the air at low altitudes 20 times the speed of sound (hypersonics).
By Rebeccah Heinrichs