Missile Defense

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently closed out a five-year program aimed at modeling a new way to develop and test improved space battle management command-and-control tools, and expects several agencies interested in the program's work may begin testing and experimentation as soon as this summer.

The Pentagon today unveiled a collaborative research project begun in 2019 with Norway to prototype advanced technologies needed for a hypersonic cruise missile, revealing both the specific project with the Scandinavian partner as well as a previously undisclosed, overarching collaborative framework to work with allied nations on advanced technologies.

The Air Force's chief acquisition official confirmed today that a forthcoming report on a proposed Space Force acquisition system does not address whether the new service should have its own acquisition executive -- a recommendation that was included in an earlier draft of the report obtained by Inside Defense.

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-TX) is proposing a $6 billion Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative bill for fiscal year 2021 intended to enhance U.S. military presence in the region and deter China.

The Air Force's short-lived Gray Wolf program -- intended to create a networked cruise missile capability -- is planning up to two captive carriage flights and two launch and missile flight tests with a Northrop Grumman-built truck over the next several months.

At the beginning of the year, before the acceleration of the COVID-19 pandemic radically altered American society, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said one of his goals for 2020 was to position the Pentagon for the "irreversible implementation" of the National Defense Strategy and its new focus on great power competition with China and Russia.

The Defense Department this week laid out the framework for implementing recent legislation meant to help pay contractors unable to work during the coronavirus outbreak.

The Defense Department is exploring a vast new test and training complex that would wrap around half the planet, reaching across the near entirety of the Pacific Ocean to support large-scale experimentation of advanced warfighting concepts, a move recommended by a classified study on the future of U.S. military superiority.

Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has branded a proposal to improve the missile defense of Guam a "homeland defense" need and has notified Congress that a $1.7 billion requirement for Homeland Defense System-Guam is his top unfunded priority.