Missile Defense

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 25-2 Wednesday evening to approve its version of the fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill, including billions of dollars in new U.S. military investments focused on deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord told lawmakers today the Defense Department will need to spend low, "double-digit" billions reimbursing contractors disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but she asserted DOD does not have the resources to so do without supplemental funding.

The Pentagon is readying a final solicitation for the initial batch of satellites slated to be a springboard for a prototype, proliferated low-earth-orbit constellation, a project intended to usher in both a new age of space technology as well as pivot toward integration with multidomain systems and operational concepts.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office highlights risk in the Air Force's plan to launch the first geosynchronous satellite in the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared System constellation by late 2025, calling the plan "highly aggressive and high risk."

The Pentagon will accelerate plans for a new space-based missile defense architecture if Congress increases funding in fiscal year 2021 for the Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program, which could allow the U.S. military to put the "kernel" of a totally new network on orbit by FY-22, according to a senior Defense Department official.

The Pentagon will accelerate plans for a new space-based missile defense architecture if Congress increases funding in fiscal year 2021 for the Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program, which could allow the U.S. military to put the "kernel" of a totally new network on orbit by FY-22, according to a senior Defense Department official.

The Government Accountability Office says it is encouraged by the progress the Pentagon has made managing cost growth and schedule delays in its $185 billion portfolio of major acquisition programs, but warns that many programs are proceeding without "fundamental knowledge" or oversight.

The Defense Department has sent Congress a detailed spending plan for the $10.5 billion it has been provided to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Missile Defense Agency is planning a four-part upgrade of the Long Range Discrimination Radar that will be operational in 2023, a major software upgrade slated to be sole-sourced to Lockheed Martin but for which the government is soliciting feedback from industry on potential alternative vendors who might improve the sensor's ability to detect and track objects in space.