September 19, 2022 | International, Aerospace
L3Harris and Embraer to Develop New Agile Tanker via KC-390 to Support Air Force Operational Imperatives
L3Harris and Embraer to Develop New Agile Tanker.
February 11, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump's defense budget request for fiscal 2021 includes major investments in research and development portfolios as well as “crucial” technologies as part of what the Pentagon is branding an “irreversible implementation” of the National Defense Strategy.
However, the budget also features overall cuts to the Army and Navy top lines, as well as the divestment of legacy platforms from the Air Force.
The president is requesting $705 billion for the Defense Department, including $69 billion in overseas contingency operations, or OCO, wartime funds. Total national security spending, including for the National Nuclear Security Administration and other outside agencies, is $740 billion, as set by a congressional budget agreement last year.
Although not included in the budget documents, total top-line projections over the Future Years Defense Program, or FYDP, are $722 billion in FY22, $737 billion in FY23, $753 billion in FY24 and $768 billion in FY25, according to a senior defense official.
Service budget top lines are $178 billion for the Army, a drop by $462 million from FY20 enacted levels; $207 billion for the Navy, down $1.9 billion from FY20; and $207 billion for the Air Force, up $1.7 billion from FY20. The budget also requests $113 billion for defensewide efforts, which includes the so-called fourth estate agencies, down $6.5 billion from FY20. Overall procurement funding sits at $136.9 billion.
The OCO request of $69 billion is down dramatically from last year's $164 billion, and it comes in three flavors:
Projection for OCO funding falls $20 billion in FY22 and FY23, and then to $10 billion for FY24 and FY25, as “certain OCO costs” are absorbed by the base budget, according to the White House's summary tables. There's no nondefense discretionary OCO proposed for FY21 or the out years.
“This is a budget that makes difficult choices but they are actually choices that support the National Defense Strategy,” a senior defense official said on condition of anonymity ahead the budget rollout.
“We can't have the best of everything in all areas,” the official added. “The low-hanging fruit is gone.”
Among the tough choices: retiring 17 B-1 bombers, 44 A-10 planes, 24 Global Hawk drones, as well as 16 KC-10 and 13 KC-135 tankers from the Air Force.
“When you look at these aircraft, they disproportionately take too much of the readiness account. That's where we've got to go,” the official said. “Those are really the tough choices we had to make. Because we can now take the additional manpower, the [spare parts], all those things we need to make those other aircraft more operationally available and have more flight hours available in the mission we need them to do.”
Congress usually revises presidential budget submissions substantially before passing them into law. A prime target for lawmakers this year will be the Trump administration's favoritism for defense spending over nondefense, which contradicts the rough parity between two that's characterized bipartisan budget deals in recent years.
Congress will also likely upend the administration's FY21 proposal to cut the nondefense base budget by 5.1 percent while adding 0.08 percent to the base defense budget. There are slim odds for Trump's proposal extending budget caps — set to expire next year — through 2025, wherein defense would increase by roughly 2 percent each year as nondefense discretionary decreases 2 percent each year.
‘Irreversible'
Budget documents were branded with the phrase “irreversible implementation of the National Defense Strategy,” a notable signal in an election year that, should Trump not be reelected, could result in major changes to the national budget and American strategy come January.
The branding in support of the NDS can be found throughout the document, even at lower levels. For instance, the Pentagon's security cooperation account has been rebranded the “NDS Implementation (NDS-I) account.”
Missing from the budget request are funds for Trump's border wall with Mexico. However, CNN reported this weekend that “billions” of defense dollars will be going toward the wall effort, with an announcement expected later this week.
Key defense spending accounts break down like this:
The department is requesting $106.6 billion to fund research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) efforts, an increase of $2 billion over the FY20 enacted figures — something another senior defense official called the “largest [RDT&E] request in over 70 years.” Funding for that came from savings from the defensewide review, which found $5.7 billion in money to reprogram in FY21, as well as the retirement of older platforms.
Four “crucial” technologies are now bunched together under a new acronym — ACE, which stands for advanced capability enablers: hypersonics at $3.2 billion, microelectronics/5G at $1.5 billion, autonomy at $1.7 billion, and artificial intelligence at $800 million.
However, for the second straight year, science and technology funding for early technology development (the Pentagon's 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 accounts) is requested at $14.1 billion; that includes $3.5 billion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Congress plussed that funding to $16.1 billion in FY20 enacted levels, meaning the request here is $2 billion less than what the Pentagon received this current year.
Cyber activates total $9.8 billion, including $5.4 billion for cybersecurity-focused projects. The rest of the funding goes toward supporting defensive cyber operations.
September 19, 2022 | International, Aerospace
L3Harris and Embraer to Develop New Agile Tanker.
August 18, 2024 | International, Land
The purchase price agreed for Loc Performance, which will become due upon closing, is based on an enterprise value of USD 950 million.
December 21, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — The U.S. military recently came within inches of successfully retrieving three unmanned air vehicles in flight with a C-130 aircraft, bringing the Gremlins program tantalizingly close to a significant milestone. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's emerging technology arm, wants to demonstrate the ability to launch and recover four cheap, reusable unmanned aerial vehicles — the Gremlins — within 30 minutes in flight. The program uses X-61A Gremlins Air Vehicle (GAV) developed by Dynetics, a Leidos subsidiary. The GAVs are built to dock with a C-130 aircraft via an extension, similar to an airborne refueling operation. Dynetics secured a 21-month, $38.6 million award for the third phase of the Gremlins effort in 2018. While GAVs are relatively small, they have a range of more than 600 miles and can be equipped with a variety of sensors and technologies for different missions. The ability to distribute and collect GAVs from the air could keep them beyond the range of adversary defenses, according to DARPA, expanding the potential impact of unmanned aerial vehicles on the battlefield. Once recovered, GAVs are expected to be mission ready within 24 hours. In the latest demonstration Oct. 28, DARPA made nine attempts to collect the GAVs with a docking mechanism extended from the C-130 aircraft. While none of the attempts was successful, with each GAV eventually parachuting to the ground, DARPA insisted the effort validated all autonomous formation flying positions and safety features. “All of our systems looked good during the ground tests, but the flight test is where you truly find how things work,” said Scott Wierzbanowski, program manager for DARPA's Gremlins effort, in a Dec. 10 statement. “We came within inches of connection on each attempt but, ultimately, it just wasn't close enough to engage the recovery system.” Given the GAVs' performance and the data collected over the nine attempts, Wierzbanowski said success is imminent. “We made great strides in learning and responding to technological challenges between each of the three test flight deployments to date,” he said. “We were so close this time that I am confident that multiple airborne recoveries will be made in the next deployment. However, as with all flight testing, there are always real-world uncertainties and challenges that have to be overcome.” The next attempt will take place in spring 2021. While the Gremlins effort is ongoing, the U.S. Army has made strides in its own effort to retrieve small drones midair. During a recent demonstration, the Army was able to snag air-launched effects (ALE) — effectively small drones — from the air using the flying launch and recovery system (FLAReS). FLAReS uses a hook to catch the ALEs by the wing in flight, saving them from the wear and tear of a belly landing on the ground. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/12/18/the-military-is-this-close-to-nabbing-gremlins-from-mid-air/