The Defense Department this month plans to brief industry on its new plan to satisfy military overhead weather requirements following Congress' termination of the Defense Weather Satellite System -- the Pentagon's portion of the former National Polar-orbiting Satellite System -- following schedule delays and cost growth.

One of the Army's chief modernizers said today he expects the service will soon approve the earliest initiatives to emerge from the ongoing “force mix/force design” study expected to significantly impact the future of the ground force.

A Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey crashed today in Morocco, killing two Marines during an annual exercise with the Moroccan military, said Navy and Marine Corps officials tracking the issue.

The Defense Department has detailed its long-term aircraft plans in a report that for the first time includes all military rotary-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, operational support and executive aircraft programs -- providing unprecedented detail about the Pentagon's 10-year, $770 billion plan to sustain a fleet of more than 14,000 aircraft.

Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall approved the full production and fielding of the Multifunctional Information Distribution System portion of the Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS-JTRS) in a recent acquisition decision memorandum.

The Marine Corps commandant has formally declared his service has no unfunded requirements for fiscal year 2013 beyond the annual budget request submitted in February, waiving an opportunity to advance a wish list for additional military hardware that lawmakers in years past have used -- as the Pentagon's budget grew steadily over the last decade -- to add billions of dollars in defense spending.

The Defense Department today issued a draft request for proposals for a Next-Generation Jammer, starting the clock on a four-way competition to replace the Navy's ALQ-99 tactical jamming pods.

The Air Force may buy as many as 148 Combat Rescue Helicopters in the Pentagon's latest effort to recapitalize the service's aging HH-60G aircraft, a 35 percent larger fleet than previously disclosed, according to the service.

The Air Force has kicked back an alternative force-structure proposal put forth by several state governors in an attempt to combat the impact of the service's strategic changes to the Air National Guard.

Top Defense Department officials have hammered out a new ranking of the military's most acute capability shortfalls, a classified list of potential Achilles' heels intended to help drive investment decisions between fiscal years 2014 and 2018.

Army Aviation Program Executive Officer Maj. Gen. Tim Crosby said he is getting preliminary results back on studies to better understand the stress of high operational tempo on Army rotorcraft.

The CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter will reach the fleet in fiscal year 2019 and the helo's first flight has been bumped a year to 2014, according to a top Marine Corps official and a recent Government Accountability Office report.

The Army this month will brief industry on its plans for the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle program, a replacement for the Vietnam-era-designed M113 vehicle, as it prepares for a possible $5.5 billion competition to modernize a key component of the service's heavy brigades.

The size of the Pentagon's weapon system acquisition portfolio shrank by $102.5 billion over the last year to $1.6 trillion, a 5.6 percent reduction that is due in large part to the migration of 14 major programs from the roster of big-ticket military projects because they are near the end of the procurement cycle or because they have been terminated.

The Defense Department has approved a proposed Navy acquisition strategy that would allow Northrop Grumman to select a new aircraft for the MQ-8C Fire Scout program, part of an “endurance modification” effort to swap out nearly all of the hardware and software from the MQ-8B Schweizer airframe into a larger Textron-Bell 407 helicopter.

The Pentagon's recent decisions to dial back F-35 production over concerns about aircraft maturity added $6 billion to the program's total price, according to a new report that forecasts the cradle-to-grave cost of the Joint Strike Fighter to be $1.5 trillion -- a 15 percent increase over last year's $1.3 trillion forecast.

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee today called on Congress to pass a budget immediately, saying that kicking the can down the road will hurt both the economy and prospects for future defense spending.

The Pentagon's acting acquisition executive has formally reset the Joint Strike Fighter program's acquisition baseline, capping a 20-month effort by senior leaders to recalibrate estimated cost, schedule and performance and establishing new "affordability" targets to strive for by 2019.

The Navy will look into the possibility of procuring 10 destroyers in its planned multiyear contract instead of the nine outlined in its 30-year shipbuilding plan, submitted to Congress today, according to a letter Navy Secretary Ray Mabus sent to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

The Navy's latest 30-year shipbuilding plan, sent to Congress today, is affordable for the next five years but thereafter "presents a resourcing challenge" largely due to the multibillion-dollar investment requirements associated with building a new class of nuclear ballistic missile submarines, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has told lawmakers.