May 9, 2023 | International, Naval
L3Harris, BigBear.ai partner on autonomy for surface vessels
The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are betting big on uncrewed technologies — whether that's in the air, on the water or beneath the waves.
November 24, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Pentagon expected to increase Space Force funding in coming years
WASHINGTON — U.S. Space Force leadership is confident the new service's budget will increase in the coming years as the Pentagon continues to prioritize spending on space systems, according to the head of the Space Force's main acquisitions body.
“If you thought space was going to be a priority in a kind of one-and-done way, that's not clearly what's been happening, right?” Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, said during the virtual 6th annual Schriever Space Futures Forum. “So three years in a row budgets have gone to the Hill with foundational changes to the space budget.”
That's despite the fact that space systems and their supporting equipment are very expensive.
“ Everybody knows the space enterprise is a really expensive one, even with the reductions in cost that we've seen over the past couple decades. Launch services, space vehicles, ground segments — everybody knows they ain't cheap, right?” Thompson said.
The real shift in prioritizing spending on space came with the fiscal 2019 budget request, with the Pentagon declaring space a war-fighting domain.
“I think we made some real progress. As we acknowledged space as a war-fighting domain, we had some really strong shifts in the budget,” Thompson said.
For fiscal 2021, the Department of the Air Force requested $15.4 billion for the new Space Force. That's $800 million more than the $14.6 billion the department requested for that same enterprise in fiscal 2020, according to the Air Force's own calculations.
“The '21 [Program Objective Memorandum] was another landmark event. It was not only the first POM approved by the Chief of Space Operations ... but during the cycle the Deputy's Management Action Group, [or DMAG] ... the folks that advise the secretary of defense on investment, continued to label space as one of the big strategic areas that DoD needs to address,” Thompson explained.
And while the fiscal 2022 request has not been finalized or released yet, Thompson said it will include a marked increase in spending on space.
“We plused up the space portfolio significantly to address users' needs,” he explained. “I can't give you the exact dollars and obviously it's all pre-decisional. But the DMAG and many other DoD leaders are clearly sending a message that across the [Future Years Defense Program], the importance of the space enterprise is growing and needs to grow further.”
Even further out, Thompson noted the fiscal 2023 request will continue the military's trend of prioritizing space in the budget.
“For the '23 POM, which many of you know we're already working, we're trying to take an unprecedented enterprise approach to where we take the force design that we need along with the operational requirements associated with it, and we pair that up with the acquisition programs that are required to deliver the war-fighting capability that Gen. [John] Raymond and our combatant command, Gen. [John] Dickinson, are absolutely demanding,” Thompson said.
He added that the Space Force's funding strategy will balance innovation, international and commercial partnerships, and the need to rapidly provide capabilities to troops. Thompson pointed to the Space Force's recently released planning guidance as shaping that strategy.
Thompson credited the Space Force's flexibility to maneuver within budget discussions to the service's lean staff, something that's been one of Raymond's top priorities in establishing the new branch of the armed services.
“That collaboration, as many of you know, within the Department of the Air Force or in any large service, is really, really hard because so much of the budget is set,” he explained. “We as a service, though, have a little bit more trade space. The chief of space operations has a smaller, more nimble team. There's not as many spoons banging on highchairs demanding something that they've always been given. And so determining where to spend the next space dollar is really, really exciting, and it's a team effort between operators, acquirers and the entire small, nimble team that is Space Force.”
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October 2, 2020 | International, C4ISR
Future Defense Task Force: Scrap obsolete weapons and boost AI
Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― A bipartisan congressional panel is recommending that the Pentagon must “identify, replace, and retire costly and ineffective legacy weapons platforms,” and prioritize artificial intelligence, supply chain resiliency and cyberwarfare in order to compete with China and Russia. The House's Future of Defense Task Force's 87-page report issued Tuesday echoed the accepted wisdom that the Pentagon must expand investments in modern technologies and streamline its cumbersome acquisition practices or risk losing its technological edge against competitors. The task force is co-chaired by House Armed Services Committee members Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Jim Banks, R-Ind., who both signaled they'll champion elements of the report in future defense authorization legislation. While lawmakers are broadly in favor, efforts to retire specific platforms often meet resistance on Capitol Hill. On weapons systems, the task force offered some practical steps to this end. Congress, it said, should commission the RAND Corporation, or similar entity, and the Government Accountability Office to study legacy platforms within the Defense Department and determine their relevance and resiliency to emerging threats over the next 50 years. Then a panel should be convened, comprising Congress, the Department of Defense, and representatives from the industrial base, to make recommendations on which platforms should be retired, replaced or recapitalized, the report reads. Investments in science and technology research need to be prioritized nationally, and at the Pentagon level such investments should meet 3.4 percent of the overall defense budget, as recommended by the Defense Science Board. Funding ought to be expanded at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, national and defense research laboratories and partnering universities, the report says. The report recommended that each of the military services ought to spend at least one percent of their overall budgets on the integration of new technologies. The Pentagon must, the report says, scale up efforts to leverage private sector innovation, which is leading the government. The report calls for a tenfold increase in spending for Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX, Army Futures Command and others ― and more collaborative opportunities like Hacking for Defense. The report calls for a Manhattan Project for artificial intelligence, saying DoD must go further than its increased investment in AI and Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to assist with the transition and deployment of AI capabilities. “Using the Manhattan Project as a model, the United States must undertake and win the artificial intelligence race by leading in the invention and deployment of AI while establishing the standards for its public and private use,” the report's authors wrote. (The Manhattan project is the U.S.-led World War II-era research and development effort that produced the first nuclear weapons.) The report calls for every major defense acquisition program to evaluate at least one AI or autonomous alternative prior to funding. Plus, all new major weapons purchases ought to be “AI-ready and nest with existing and planned joint all-domain command and control networks,” it says. Warning the country's supply chain is one of its “greatest national security and economic vulnerabilities,” the report calls for a national supply chain intelligence center under the Office of Director of National Intelligence and the elimination of single points of failure within DoD's supply chain. The task force, launched last October, includes several lawmakers with practical national security experience: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., a former Air Force officer who studied technology and policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; as well as Reps. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., who have served in senior Pentagon policy jobs. HASC members Reps. Susan Davis, D-Calif., Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., and Paul Mitchell, R-Mich., also served on the task force. In a statement, Moulton said the bipartisan plan could be used, no matter the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential and congressional elections. “America needs a plan to confront the dual threats of Russia's aggression and China's rise. This is it,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/29/future-defense-task-force-scrap-obsolete-weapons-and-boost-ai/
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June 2, 2021 | International, Aerospace
Updates on the UK's RPAS modernisation plan discussed at the UAV Technology 2021 Conference
SMi Group reports: Senior representatives from the British Army, DE&S UK MoD, and the Royal Air Force will be speaking at the UAV Technology conference