Satellite operator Globalstar has a new Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army to assess the company’s devices for low probability of intercept and detection communications.
Globalstar said the primary focus of the CRADA is to assess its ultra low size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) devices, which have built-in support for satellite connectivity and are designed to operate in environments where traditional communications are limited or unavailable.
“The dynamic nature of the OTA [over-the-air] messaging structure enables our devices to function with inherent low-probability-of-intercept (LPI) and low-probability-of-detection (LPD) capabilities,” the company explained. This has implications for covert sensing, unmanned systems, congested logistics tracking, and tagging/tracking/locating applications.
“This collaboration reflects our growing engagement with defense and federal partners,” said Globalstar CEO Paul E. Jacobs. “We’re proud to bring our decades of satellite expertise and emerging terrestrial innovation to support the Army’s evaluation of next-generation satellite capabilities.”
The House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday adopted measures to its version of the next defense policy bill directing the Air Force and Navy to provide more detailed information on their respective F-47 and F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter programs and blocking the use of funds to cancel the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning aircraft effort.
HASC is set to work through hundreds of amendments during its marathon markup of the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which was still ongoing as of Defense Daily
’s deadline, with much of the debate centered on the potential acceptance of a Qatari-donated 747-8 airliner that President Trump wants to use as Air Force One and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s involvement in the “Signalgate” incident.
Artist rendering of F-47 NGAD. (Image: U.S. Air Force)
“[This NDAA] is a strong bill that will help reform acquisition systems, revitalize the defense industrial base and build the ready, capable and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and other adversaries,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the HASC chair, said in his remarks to open the markup.
HASC unveiled its NDAA proposal last week which supports an $848 billion topline for the Pentagon, largely adhering to the Trump administration’s FY ‘26 discretionary spending request, and which features a bipartisan acquisition reform proposal from Rogers and Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) as its key areas of focus (Defense Daily, July 11).
“This bill represents the most comprehensive and effective swing in acquisition reform that I’ve seen in my almost 29 years here on the committee,” Smith said.
During the markup, the panel adopted a package of bipartisan amendments to the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee portion of the bill that included the provisions related to F-47, F/A-XX and E-7A.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) proposed the F-47 amendment, which would require the Air Force secretary to submit a report to the congressional defense committees by March 2027 offering greater detail into plans for the F-47 program.
The Air Force selected Boeing to build the future F-47 fighter aircraft, which will replace the F-22, with the service having requested $900 million in the reconciliation bill and another nearly $2.6 billion in its FY ‘26 budget request to continue development efforts (Defense Daily, March 21).
The required report would cover a description of the F-47’s system requirements, employment concepts and projected costs, schedule and funding requirements for FYs 2028 through 2034 as well as details on the acquisition strategy for the F-47 program of record, “including consideration of implementing a middle tier acquisition pathway or major capability acquisition pathway.”
Bacon’s amendment also seeks specifics on the Air Force’s proposed fielding strategy for the F-47, to include “estimated force structure requirements, strategic basing considerations, an estimate of military construction requirements, an estimate of personnel training requirements and an integrated total force fielding concept, including an analysis of Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve operational integration and associations.”
In a budget request document, the Air Force said it plans to examine strategic choices on F-47 development by the end of January 2026 (Defense Daily, June 27).
For the Navy’s F/A-XX, an amendment adopted from Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-Md.) cites concern from HASC over the lack of commitment for the platform in the Navy’s FY ‘26 budget request and directs a briefing on the plans for the program.
“The committee is also deeply concerned about public reports that the Department of Defense does not intend to obligate or expend $750 million that Congress provided in the Reconciliation Bill for F/A-XX. Further, the committee is concerned that the Navy had to place funding for this critical program on their Unfunded Priorities List submitted to Congress,” Elfreth writes in her amendment.
“Given that the U.S. fights as a joint force, failure to fund this program will lead to a significant mismatch in state-of-the-art integrated battlespace capabilities from the maritime domain, allowing an adversary to concentrate their efforts in the direction of land-based and forward-deployed expeditionary forces,” Elfreth added.
The Navy’s FY ‘26 budget requests only $74 million for the F/A-XX program in the budget “to complete the design of that aircraft,” with a senior defense official previously explaining that the funding level keeps options open while maintaining minimal development funding to allow industry to prioritize the Air Force’s F-47 fighter program (Defense Daily, June 27).
The service’s unfunded priorities list recently submitted to Congress included $1.397 billion dedicated to the “Air Wing of the Future,” stating it will allow the service to award the sixth-generation fighter contract to industry (Defense Daily, July 9).
Elfreth’s amendment directs the deputy secretary of defense to brief HASC by December on plans to obligate authorized F/A-XX funds and to provide details on the planned timeline for when the Navy will award an engineering and manufacturing development contract to move the program forward.
“The committee is also deeply concerned that F/A-XX prime- and subcontractors have invested significant capital resources toward the design and development of this new aircraft and its mission systems. Failure to adequately fund this program in FY26 and through the Future Years Defense Plan could have detrimental consequences on the level of future resources investment from industry partners toward this key capability,” Elfreth writes.
After rebuking plans to end the Boeing E-7A prototyping effort and authorizing $800 million to continue the effort in its NDAA proposal, HASC also adopted a measure from Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) blocking the use of funds to cancel the program.
The provision follows a similar move to the House Appropriations Committee, which added an increase and adopted a measure to protect funds for the E-7A program in its FY ‘26 defense spending bill (Defense Daily, June 13).
Meanwhile, HASC is set to vote later this evening on a proposal from Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) that would block the use of funds to retrofit the Qatari-donated 747 jet for use as Air Force One as well as several measures related to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to discuss plans for military strikes in Yemen.
“We’re being asked by the administration to overlook a unilateral decision without Congress’ approval, with no appropriation that has been lawfully given to the administration, to approve a third Air Force One aircraft, which supposedly is going to be delivered before the two planes that have been underway for retrofit since the first Trump administration,” Courtney said of his proposal.
Bacon joined Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) in offering a bipartisan amendment that would condemn the sharing of sensitive national defense information, after having expressed opposition to a similar measure that would fence off some Office of the Secretary of Defense funds until a DoD Inspector General’s review of the Signalgate incident has concluded.
“It strips out what I think are consequences that would hobble the OSD but yet it let’s us state the truth that what was done by the secretary [of defense] was not right,” Bacon said. “When you [have] responsibility, you take responsibility when you make a mistake and you own up to it.”
The U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii plans to replace eight 105mm and six 155mm howitzers with 16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers by Lockheed Martin [LMT].
The 25th Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., are part of the Army’s “Transformation in Contact” initiative.
“We are integrating long-range precision fires that increase the ability to increase our operational reach,” Army Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, the commander of the 25th Infantry Division, told reporters on Tuesday. “It also provides us a platform that we can better protect ourselves with because we can shoot and then rapidly move to an area that affords us better protection.”
The 25th Infantry Division will still retain one battalion of cannons–two batteries of eight 105mm howitzers each–and on battery of 155mm howitzers.
The division incorporated HIMARS during Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) training last October and in training in the Philippines over the last two years, “but now this [HIMARS] capability will be organic” to the 25th Infantry Division, Evans said on Tuesday.
Long-range precision fires are part of the Army’s $4.3 billion unfunded priorities list for fiscal 2026, and 25th Infantry Division leaders are thinking about such fires in conjunction with drone, counter-drone and electronic warfare (Defense Daily, July 9).
“We are also transforming our intelligence, information, and electronic warfare battalion into a multi-domain fires battalion that increases their capability to see and sense farther than previously, ” Evans said. “All of that will be organic to the division artillery and supporting the division to be able to set conditions for the joint force.”
The Army Transformation Initiative details cuts to programs such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, Humvee, AH-64D Apache, the M10 Booker and Gray Eagle UAS in what the service has said is an effort to boost readiness and fund programs more relevant to a China scenario and others involving high technology adversaries.
This fall, the JPMRC exercise is to prove out the 25th Infantry Division’s HIMARS formation and “will validate our second mobile brigade, which is our 3rd Brigade–the employment of Infantry Squad Vehicles; increased drones on the battlefield to include short-range reconnaissance that can reach out 2-3 kilometers all the way to long-range reconnaissance drones which will allow us to see and sense up to 40 kilometers,” Evans said.
Anduril Industries in May successfully completed flight tests of the munitions variant of its Barracuda-100 autonomous air vehicle under an Army testbed program aimed at proving out multiple ranges, missile maneuverability, and autonomous terminal guidance using a government-developed seeker.
The High-Speed Maneuverable Missile (HSSM) program is developing technology for “a compact, fast, maneuverable missile capable from short range engagements to long range, non-line-of sight attack beyond 120 kilometers in degraded and contested environments,” the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center said on Tuesday.
The government-developed imaging missile seeker used in the flight testing is the Precision Target Acquisition Software target acquisition and track suite that the Army said enables autonomous capabilities from “boost to impact.” The tests “successfully demonstrated the capability’s speed, maneuverability, extended range, and terminal guidance engagement,” it said.
More fight testing is ahead, the Army said. The HSSM program combines multiple Army science and technology efforts around rocket motor boost and turbojet propulsion, secure datalink for use in electronically contested environments, GPS denied navigation, multi-effects warhead, and autonomous engagement.
Anduril in 2024 introduced its family of Barracuda low-cost, expendable, multi-mission autonomous air vehicles that also come in cruise missile variants (Defense Daily
, Sept. 12, 2024). In addition to the Barracuda-100 and 100M, the company offers the Barracuda-250 and 500, each providing more range and payload capacity.
At the time of the Barracuda announcement, Anduril said the 100M can carry a 35-pound payload, travel at speeds up to 500 knots, and be launched from aircraft rails and a C-130 cargo plane, providing 85 nautical miles of range. A surface-launched version has a range of 60 nautical miles, the company said.
Auriga Space has raised $4.6 million in a seed round and garnered $1.4 million in additional U.S. government funding to accelerate the development of an electromagnetic launch platform for “lab-scale and recoverable hypersonic testing,” and eventually frequent launches into orbit.
The seed round was led by the Netherlands OTB Ventures
and the Small Business Innovation Research Contracts were awarded by the U.S. Air Force AFWERX and U.S. SpaceWERX innovation units. The Los Angeles-based company, which was founded in 2022 and now has 20 employees, previously raised $5 million in venture funding.
“As the world accelerates efforts in space exploration, satellite technology, and next-generation defense systems like Golden Dome, the development of our Prometheus accelerator marks a major step toward truly on-demand, routine access to space,” Winnie Lai, founder and CEO of Auriga, said in a statement. “By commercializing Prometheus and offering hypersonic test services, we’re not only supporting the advancement of critical national defense capabilities, but we’re also building and validating the technologies that will power our future orbital launch systems.”
Last summer the company announced receipt of a $1.25 million Direct-to-Phase II SBIR award from the Air Force Research Laboratory for technical studies of Prometheus.
Prometheus is one step along the company’s roadmap, which will be followed by Thor, an outdoor full-scale hypersonic testing facility, and then Zeus, which is being designed for “on-demand and daily dedicated launches to orbit,” Auriga said.
Participants in the seed round included Trucks Venture Capital and Seraphim Space.
The House Armed Services Committee Tuesday approved fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions to, among other things, create a new Rapid Capabilities Program within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The provision within the committee’s Strategic Forces subcommittee segment of the markup is meant to “to enhance our ability to respond to growing nuclear threats from China and Russia,” Subcommittee Chair Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) said. House Armed Services’ nuclear policy bill for fiscal 2026 would authorize $25.4 billion to the NNSA. The House Armed Services bill would also codify NNSA plans for plutonium pit production at two locations: Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The House Committee’s NDAA bill would also support the Golden Dome, a proposed U.S. anti-missile system proposed by President Trump. The system would be akin to one employed by Israel but much more comprehensive.
There was skepticism expressed about the case for and implementation of the Golden Dome by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Strategic Forces subcommittee.
It appears to reflect the Trump administration’s drift toward a philosophy “that we would try to defeat, not deter, a large-scale nuclear attack,” Moulton said. The White House has not offered a “rationale” or a plan for the Golden Dome, he said.
“And yet, we are throwing upwards of $25 billion in taxpayer money to the wind or, more accurately, into space,” Moulton said. “That is dangerous and, I dare say, dumb.”
On the whole, however, the bill is good and “largely bipartisan,” Moulton said.
The full committee adopted by unanimous consent a large bloc of amendments from Strategic Forces. One such bloc backs NNSA plans for modernization of the Office of Secure Transportation; improving warhead assembly and disassembly practices at the Pantex Plant in Texas; and a report on adequacy of the NNSA workforce.
The NNSA administrator would be required to brief House Armed Services by Feb. 1, 2026 on the workforce’s ability to carry out the NNSA mission, according to the amendment.
Late in the hours-long markup, the committee voted down a proposed amendment by Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) that would have negated current timetables for producing 80 plutonium pits per year. NNSA is not going to reach 80 pits per year by 2030 or, for that matter, 2035. Republicans who spoke against the measure said the California Democrat unsuccessfully proposed a similar measure last year.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily contributed to this report.
Austal USA on Friday delivered the 19th and last Independence
-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the future USS Pierre (LCS-38), to the U.S. Navy.
Austal built them and delivered this one at its Mobile, Ala., shipyard. This followed acceptance trials that concluded last month, which tested the ship’s major systems and equipment to demonstrate mission readiness (Defense Daily, June 20).
A Navy statement boasted LCS-38’s acceptance trial achieved the highest measured quality score of any LCS over the past 15 years. The next step for LCS-38 will be its pre-commissioning unit starting preparations to introduce the ship to the fleet.
The future USS Pierre (LCS-38) conducts sea trials in Mobile, Ala., in June 2025. Pierre is the 19th and final Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). (Photo: Austal USA)
“The delivery of the future USS Pierre will be one of our most memorable milestone achievements as it marks the conclusion of Austal USA’s Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship program,” Austal USA President Michelle Kruger said in a statement. “Our shipbuilding team has poured years of dedication, innovation, and manufacturing excellence into this ship and the results are evident.”
“The delivery of the final Independence-variant LCS marks the end of a chapter, but not the story. The LCS program, for all its complexities, has pushed the boundaries of naval design and operational concepts. The LCS represents a bold vision for a more agile and adaptable Navy. We are seeing the Fleet operating these ships with the advanced mission packages they were designed for and they are continuing to evolve those operational concepts as more unmanned technologies come online,” Capt. Matthew Lehmann, program manager of the LCS Program Office, added.
The company noted the ships’ utility with near-shore operations, with the USS Oakland (LCS-24) recently having served as a mothership for unmanned surface vessels while its flight decks supported drones during an 18-month deployment to the U.S. 7th Fleet.
The company said it was proud to deliver this final LCS, which will “close a significant chapter in naval shipbuilding history while continuing to partner with the U.S. Navy.”
LCS-38 is due to be homeported in San Diego, with its sister ships of the class.
“The legacy of Pierre and her sister Littoral Combat Ships is the vibrant shipbuilding industrial base that we now have in the mid-tier yards that are now constructing the Navy’s next-generation warships,” Melissa Kirkendall, acting program executive officer for Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC), said.
Separately, the Navy has already deployed mine countermeasures mission packages to sister ships USS Tulsa (LCS-16), Canberra (LCS-30) and Santa Barbara (LCS-32). The Independence-variant is focused on hosting the MCM mission packages to help succeed the aging and retiring Avenger-class MCM ships by using several unmanned systems.
Austal noted LCS-30 is serving a rotational deployment in Bahrain as part of the U.S. 5th Fleet and will later be joined by LCS- 32 and LCS-16.
Beyond the LCS work, Austal USA has nine other U.S. Navy vessels and one U.S. Coast Guard cutter under construction, with construction on a second cutter set to start by early August.
The House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) proposed policy bill would direct the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System Office (JCO) to report to the deputy secretary of defense while keeping the Army as the office’s executive agent.
The JCO currently reports to the Army acquisition executive but there is growing interest in Congress to increase its profile as concerns increase about the need to improve the defenses of forward deployed forces and military bases and facilities.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, in its version of the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), would remove the Army as executive agent of the JCO and transfer it to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, arguing that the JCO lacks a joint service focus due to being solely staffed by the Army (Defense Daily, July 11).
The HASC recommendation is to elevate the JCO within DoD’s reporting structure, a committee aide told Defense Daily on Tuesday, which is when the committee released its version of the FY ’26 NDAA.
The JCO stood up in 2020 to align counter-drone efforts across DoD, although it remains focused on assessing and recommending land-based system with the Navy conducting ship-based evaluations. The JCO concerns itself with Groups 1, 2, and 3 unmanned aircraft systems, which weigh up to 20 pounds, 55 pounds, and less than 1,320 pounds, respectively, including payloads.
Language in the HASC bill says the JCO director would be a general or flag officer of one of the services, or a member of the senior executive service. So far, only Army generals have led the office.
The bill also says that the JCO would be the “primary” entity within DoD “for the validation and approval of counter-sUAS systems for procurement and use by the department.”
Another section of the HASC bill directs the secretary of defense to examine whether the Defense Innovation Unit should remain responsible for vetting small drones and their components for meeting certain requirements for inclusion on the Blue UAS Cleared List and Blue UAS Framework. The assessment should also assess whether another DoD organization take responsibility for the Blue UAS efforts.
The assessment would examine whether DIU has the resources to scale the Blue UAS initiatives or whether one or more DoD entities would be more effective.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week directed the Defense Contract Management Agency to work with DIU to help scale the Blue UAS efforts (Defense Daily, July 10).
The House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) fiscal 2026 defense bill would require the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to establish a Title 10 requirement for the tactical, surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking (TacSRT) program and would mandate that the Department of the Air Force fund TacSRT as a “program of record.”
Until now, TacSRT has been a pilot program using commercial data analytics for the benefit of the combatant commands (COCOMs). The Department of the Air Force did not budget for TacSRT in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025, but Congress funded the program at $40 million in both fiscal 2024 and 2025.
In April, an SSC official said that COCOM demand for TacSRT has been high and that COCOMs had POMed money on their own for the program, which the official said has aided U.S. efforts to share space data with allies (Defense Daily, Apr. 11).
SSC is collaborating with the Defense Innovation Unit to develop a multi-orbit Hybrid Space Architecture of commercial and government systems. Yet, the HASC bill said that the Department of the Air Force needs to step up funding for hybrid terminals on aircraft.
The department’s investment in commercial space “has resulted in the development of multi-orbit software-defined radios and antennas capable of providing resilient communications through
access to at least two frequency bands and satellites in three different orbital planes,” HASC said.
“These advancements have the potential to transform long-range communications across the Air Force fleet,” according to the bill. “However, the committee is concerned that the necessary funding to implement these systems on aircraft has not been adequately addressed in the president’s Budget Request. The committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to submit a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services not later than December 30, 2025, on the Air Force plan to install resilient Hybrid SATCOM terminals on Air Force platforms and include the timeline for developing requirements, programing funding and installation milestones.”
In May, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and Space Force signed a memorandum of agreement on their respective TacSRT roles (Defense Daily, May 21).
A combat support agency, NGA maintains an extensive collection of tactical imagery from commercial vendors through the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery (GEGD) trove to respond to COCOM requests. Maxar Intelligence supports GEGD for NGA.
The U.S. Air Force plan to field a limited number of RTX [RTX] Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missiles (HACM) by 2028 has led to a stated concern by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) that the service needs to accelerate its HACM production ramp.
“The committee notes that industry has been working since 2019 to develop, produce, and integrate high-speed technologies into air-breathing hypersonic weapons, to ultimately produce the next generation of tactical missile systems,” according to language in the HASC tactical air and land forces panel’s mark-up of its part of the fiscal 2026 defense authorization bill.
“The committee is concerned the Air Force continues working towards program maturity but does not currently have a clear path forward to meaningful production,” HASC TAL said. “This
potentially jeopardizes fielding the weapon in tactically relevant quantities and puts the nascent hypersonics industrial base at risk. The committee recognizes that the current HACM program intends to only deliver a quantity of approximately 12 initial HACM missiles through 2028 but does not have a clear path to establishing sustained production.”
“The committee believes the Air Force must field tactically relevant quantities of offensive HACM systems within the decade to offset near-peer adversary advantage in hypersonic weapons,” according to the language, which directs the secretary of the Air Force to submit a report by March 6 to congressional defense authorizers that “outlines a plan to transition the HACM
program to production to ensure that tactically relevant quantities of missiles begin delivery not later than the beginning of fiscal year 2030.”
The Air Force has said that it would flight test HACM this year, and the service requests nearly $803 million for HACM in fiscal 2026, an increase from the $466 million in the year-long fiscal 2025 continuing resolution enacted in March (Defense Daily, June 27).
“To prepare for a future production program that meets warfighter desired quantities in relatively short timelines, the [HACM] program will begin making targeted investments in manufacturing capacity enhancements,” the Air Force said in its fiscal 2026 research and development request. “These investments will ensure the industrial base can handle a ramp to full rate production that supports warfighter needs. Investments must begin in advance of a future production program to prevent significant delays in delivering assets to the field. The program will also make improvements to improve the operational suitability of the weapon.”
When the Air Force awarded RTX–then Raytheon Technologies–a more than $985 million contract for HACM in September 2022, the service said that it planned “to deliver a HACM capability with operational utility by fiscal year 2027.”
Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] propulsion systems and control (PS&C) business in Elkton, Md., expects to build 440 solid rocket motors (SRMs) annually by 2027–up from the current 90–as part of a $100 million company investment at the Elkton site to boost production of solid rocket motors and hypersonic air-breathing engines (Defense Daily, June 2).
RTX and Northrop Grumman are teaming to build HACM’s scramjet engine, and HACM is PS&C’s largest program for the Air Force.
Northrop Grumman has conducted hypersonic wind tunnel testing at the company’s applied science site in Ronkonkoma on New York’s Long Island.
