Missile Defense

​The Army has set an "aggressive" test plan for the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon program that calls for six flights, including two executed by soldiers who will operate the first battery of the new ground-launched strategic weapon by 2023, according to a senior service official.

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-TX) says the impeachment inquiry into President Trump's hold on Ukraine aid is "sucking all the oxygen out of the room" as lawmakers look to negotiate contentious issues in the defense authorization and appropriations bills, respectively.

Raytheon appears to have missed the window to protest the Army's award to Lockheed Martin of the A4 Sentinel radar upgrade, conceding defeat in the estimated $3 billion project the same week the company won a potentially larger Army radar program, the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor.

The Army's top air defender -- a key player in overseeing day-to-day operations of the Ground Based Midcourse Defense System -- voiced continued support for the fleet of ballistic missile interceptors in the wake of the Pentagon's decision to terminate the Redesigned Kill Vehicle, a move that will delay plans to modernize the current interceptor fleet.

Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord said her office is set to unveil in December "the most transformational acquisition policy change we’ve seen in decades."

Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord said today the United States is working on how it might keep selling weapons to Turkey, despite growing tensions over Ankara's ongoing military operation against Kurdish forces in northern Syria.

The acting director of the Space Development Agency told reporters today his organization is not under immediate pressure due to the lack of a fiscal year 2020 budget, but noted that if the continuing resolution continues into February, early launch plans could face delays.

The Army has picked a winner in the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor program -- a contest between Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to replace the Patriot radar -- but will not identify the company yet because the service is in "active negotiations" to finalize contract terms, according to a senior official.

The Missile Defense Agency is looking into the early 2020s and thinking about how best to structure future contracts to manage the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, contemplating whether to bundle end-to-end development and sustainment of the interceptor fleet into a single deal or break it up into a package of smaller competitive contracts.