While companies like RTX [RTX], Lockheed Martin [LMT], General Dynamics [GD] and Boeing [BA] remain top DoD weapon heavyweights, the Pentagon is taking a step to move beyond the traditional field, as DoD has already for space and aircraft providers.
The U.S. Air Force’s Armament Directorate (AFLCMC/EB) and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) said on June 3 that they have picked four companies to develop prototypes for the rapid fielding and production of advanced weapons–Anduril Industries, Leidos‘ [LDOS] Dynetics subsidiary, Huntsville, Ala.-based small business, Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc. (IS4S) and Zone 5 Technologies.
The latter is a small business, based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and founded in 2011, that focuses on drones and next generation munitions, such as palletized ones for the Air Force.
IS4S CEO Glenn Rolader is an engineer who, before becoming IS4S’ president in 2008, worked at Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] for 21 years, including as the program manager for the autonomous navigation system for the U.S. Army Future Combat Systems (FCS), according to Rolader’s IS4S and LinkedIn bios. DoD canceled FCS in June 2009.
The goal of the USAF/DIU effort is “to identify and prototype commercial and dual-use technology solutions for an enterprise test vehicle [ETV] that demonstrates modularity for subsystem upgrade testing,” the Air Force and DIU said on June 3. “The technology will also serve as a foundation for affordable high-rate production. Initial flight demonstrations will occur within seven months from the agreement award dates, after which one or multiple of the most promising prototypes will continue development toward a production variant capable of rapidly scalable manufacture.”
ETVs are to be munition “swarms,” deployed through different launch methods, that “create an overwhelming dilemma for any defending adversary,” the Air Force and DIU said.
Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said in the Air Force/DIU statement that ETV “presents an opportunity to leverage promising ideas from industry to create and refine affordable designs for test capabilities that can be produced on a relevant timeline.”
“Vendors are incorporating commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components wherever possible to mitigate supply chain bottlenecks and to keep costs low,” the Air Force and DIU said. “Vendors will also leverage modern design for manufacturing approaches, ensuring air vehicles are not over-engineered for their intended mission, minimize use of expensive materials, and enable on-call high-rate production that is not possible with more exquisite counterparts.”
Cassie Johnson, the ETV program manager at AFLCMC/EB, said that “while the Armament Directorate remains committed to our highly-capable legacy products, we have become convinced that widening the aperture to include more non-traditional aerospace companies offers the best chance at accomplishing our cost-per-unit goals, project timeline, and production quantity goals.”