Missile Defense

The Defense Department today released a new strategy for "Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority" that seeks to share access with "commercial partners," though the relationship between the Pentagon and telecommunications companies has been marked by tension in the past.

About 1,800 of General Dynamics' roughly 100,000 employees have come down with COVID-19 and about 1,500 are "fully recovered and back to work," according to the company's chief executive.

The Defense Department is preparing to launch a study to examine how it pays defense contractors, a topic that has drawn controversy and political backlash in the past.

The Space and Missile Systems Center plans to leverage existing Air Force cloud services and integration efforts as it works to establish a cloud-based ecosystem to enable greater use of digital and model-based systems engineering -- a plan it expects will allow the Space Force to move more quickly toward greater adoption of digital engineering practices and increase commonality and collaboration between the two services.

Boeing, prime contractor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, has warned government auditors that if the Missile Defense Agency breaks the current contract used to manage the homeland defense system into smaller projects as the Defense Department is currenting considering, then the company could lose "irreplaceable" personnel with experience and expertise on the program.

As the Air Force Research Laboratory and U.S. Transportation Command work with industry to better understand how the Defense Department might leverage a future commercial space cargo transport capability, one of the primary imperatives has been to ensure DOD is the first customer in line when companies begin to offer it.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said today the Pentagon has made some internal reforms to ease the path of U.S. weapons to foreign buyers.

Lockheed Martin is drafting plans for a sea-based variant of its most advanced Patriot interceptor -- the Missile Segment Enhanced -- in response to the Missile Defense Agency's request for ideas on ways to defeat a hypersonic weapon during the terminal phase.

The Defense Department will issue a new policy as part of its Adaptive Acquisition Framework focused on cybersecurity to help program managers understand the processes and practices needed throughout the acquisition process, according to senior DOD officials.