Nuclear Command and Control. U.S. Air Force Gen. Thomas Bussiere, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), says that “we are in the beginning steps” of AFGSC’s nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) modernization effort. “We have multiple systems that are decades old,” he says. U.S. Strategic Command in 2019 established the NC3 Enterprise Center at Offutt AFB, Neb. to improve NC3 situation monitoring, decision making, force direction, force management and planning. One major NC3 modernization program is the Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC), which is to replace the Boeing E-4B National Airborne Operations Center, possibly with a commercial derivative aircraft. Known as the “doomsday plane,” the E-4B is a militarized version of the Boeing 747-200 plane. The Air Force fiscal 2024 budget requests $889 million for SAOC engineering and manufacturing development (EMD), which is to include two to four modified EMD planes. Bussiere says that AFGSC is reviewing the SAOC proposals.
…NC3 Awardees.
U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) last week said that it awarded competitive prototype demonstrations to a Lockheed Martin-led team and a Raytheon Technologies-led team on May 1 for the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications (ESS) framework for the ground segment, known as Ground Resilient Integration & Framework for Operational NC3 (GRIFFON). ESS is to provide satellite communications for NC3. “ESS is the first DoD hybrid space program that is leveraging alternate acquisition pathways for each of its segments,” SSC said. “The ESS Space Segment is leveraging a Middle-Tier Acquisition down-select rapid prototyping contract for the ESS payload and spacecraft bus, with Boeing and Northrop Grumman in a side-by-side competition until Fiscal Year ‘25. The GRIFFON segment is leveraging a series of software acquisition pathway contracts for subsets of mission capability in agile software sprints.” Lockheed Martin’s ESS ground segment team includes Stratagem, Integrity-Communications-Solutions, Infinity and BAE Systems, while Raytheon’s team includes Dell, Seed Innovations, Infinity, Kratos, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Communications, Parsons, Polaris Alpha, Quantum Research, Koverse, Caliola Engineering, Kythera, Northstrat Inc., Optimal, RKF Engineering and Ascension Engineering.
Air Force Combat Capability. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall says that the service’s analysis of the future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) “shows that they’re very cost effective” and that “by augmenting crewed aircraft with relatively inexpensive CCAs, you get a net combat capability, which is much more significant than if you tried to do it with all fully crewed aircraft.” The Air Force is working off of a concept to build 1,000 CCAs to be employed by the F-35 fighter and the Next Generation Air Dominance manned fighter.
SecDefs on Noms Block. Seven former U.S. secretaries of defense, from both Republican and Democratic administrations, have sent a letter to Senate leadership urging an end to Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) block of nearly 200 pending military nominations in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a statement in support of the letter, reiterating the former senior defense officials’ views on the national security impact of Tuberville’s ongoing block on nominees. “The longer this partisan stranglehold on military promotions wears on, the more harm it does. Secretaries of defense from both parties came together with a clear message: This irresponsible gambit ‘is harming military readiness and risks damaging U.S. national security,’” Reed said. “This blockade is a profound attack on the professionalism of our military. It needs to end. These officers earned their military promotions based on their merits. They do not deserve to be prevented from promotions and positions they deserve because of policy issues that are beyond their control.” The letter was signed by former Secretaries of Defense William J. Perry, William Cohen, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis and Mark Esper.
HASC NDAA Mark. The House Armed Services Committee will conduct its full committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act on Tuesday, May 23, the panel’s leadership has announced. HASC’s marathon markup sessions often extend beyond midnight as the committee considers hundreds of amendments to the annual defense policy bill. HASC’s subcommittees will conduct their individual markups on Thursday, May 11 and Friday, May 12.
PEOs To Testify. A House Oversight Committee panel plans to have two Navy program executive officers testify on U.S. shipbuilding capacity on May 11. According to a May 4 announcement, Rear Adm. Thomas Anderson, Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Ships and Rear Adm. Casey Moton, PEO for Unmanned and Small Combatants, will testify before the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs. The panel said it will examine overall American shipbuilding capacity and unspecified projects that have costs billions of dollars but “failed to perform their intended mission.” Subcommittee Chairman Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) said that “according to senior leadership within the Navy, China currently has a massive advantage on the United States operationally when it comes to shipbuilding. Given the astronomical amount of U.S. taxpayer funding put towards this effort, that is unacceptable.”
Zero Trust. The Pentagon’s chief information officer has expressed confidence in his goal to implement a Zero Trust network security approach across the department by 2027. “Zero Trust is not going to be unobtanium in the department. We’re going to make this happen by 2027 for all of our networks. [And that’s] preventing lateral movement through microsegmentation, fine-grained access, endpoint management in a way we’ve not done and assuming an adversary is already on our network and then proceeding at pace. We cannot fail on this,” DoD CIO John Sherman said on May 3 during a discussion at the AFCEA TechNet conference in Baltimore. “Here very shortly, we’re going to want to see the milestones from the services and others on the roadmap to 2027.” DoD released its Zero Trust strategy last fall which detailed the department’s aim to move to a security approach that assumes adversaries are already on networks and takes advanced measures to validate network access.
Space Training. U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said that virtual reality is an area “ripe for exploitation” when it comes to training Space Force operators. “There’s a lot of very promising technologies associated with how you could do virtually augmented reality training so that operators can experience something that day-to-day they don’t get to experience in space,” he said at a May 2 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “Sometimes the orbital mechanics are hard to visualize, but you can use these tools to help you understand proximity between spacecraft, proximity of how solar arrays are turned.” Space Force is exploring these technologies with commercial industry, he said.
SSN-798. The Navy planned to christen the future USS Massachusetts (SSN-798), a new Virginia-class attack submarine, during a ceremony on May 6 at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding’s shipyard in Virginia on May 6. The principal speaker at the event will be Under Secretary of the Navy Erik Raven. SSN-798 is the ninth vessel named after the state.
…LCS-23. The Navy also planned to commission the future USS Cooperstown (LCS-23), the 12th Independence-variant littoral combat ship during a ceremony on May 6 in New York City. The principal speaker will be Joe Torre, the baseball executive, former 12 season manager of the New York Yankees and hall of famer. The ship is named after the village of Cooperstown, N.Y., home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The Navy said the ship’s name is meant to honor 70 members of the Hall of Fame who served in the U.S. armed forces during conflicts from the Civil War to the Korean War. The Independence-variant LCS was built by Austal USA in Mobile Ala.
New Blood. Tom Bell took the helm at Leidos last Wednesday, succeeding the company’s long-time chief Roger Krone, who is remaining with the company as an advisor until July. Leidos announced in late February that Bell would become the company’s next CEO. Bell previously was senior vice president of global sales and marketing for Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security segment and before that was president of Rolls-Royce Defense Aerospace. Robert Shapard, who has been a member of Leidos’ board since 2013, assumed the role of independent chairman on April 28. Krone was also the company’s chairman.
…Results. On Tuesday, May 2, Krone presided over his last earnings call with the company, which reported a 6 percent increase in sales to $3 billion and a 7 percent decline in net income to $164 million, $1.17 earnings per share, in the first quarter. Sales growth was led by the Civil and Health segments and earnings fell on increased competition in the Health segment, higher research and development investments in the security business line within Civil, and higher interest expense. Orders totaled $3 billion and backlog stood at $35.1 billion, down 3 percent from a year ago. Leidos maintained its guidance for 2023.
LM Ventures Investment. Artificial intelligence technology company Primordial Labs last week emerged from stealth mode and said it has closed a seed round of fundraising led by Squadra Ventures with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures. The amount of funding raised wasn’t disclosed. Primordial Labs also introduced Anura, a tactical AI-based human-machine interface that allows warfighters to control unmanned aircraft systems with their voices. “These warfighters need an AI teammate that reduces training requirements, lightens their mental workload, and works with their existing systems,” says Lee Ritholtz, CEO of Primordial Labs. “Anura turns individual operators from pilots into tactical battle managers.” The company says Anura integrates with the Android Tactical Assault Kit and has deployed on Teledyne FLIRs Black Hornet nano-drone and Teal Drones Golden Eagle UAS.
Formidable Shield 2023. U.S. 6th Fleet and Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO plan to start the Formidable Shield 2023 exercise on May 8 in the North Atlantic Ocean and High North regions. This biennial exercise will last from May 8 to 26, involving 13 NATO allied and partner countries, over 20 ships and 35 aircraft, eight ground units and about 4,000 personnel. The exercise seeks to demonstrate allied interoperability during a live-fire joint and combined integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) environment. It will specifically include National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. Allied and partner forces will conduct live-fire events against subsonic, supersonic and ballistic targets. A multinational Commander, Task Group IAMD will be embarked aboard the Spanish Álvaro de Bazán-class frigate ESPS Blas de Lezo (F 103), which will serve as the flagship.
Littoral Facility. The Navy conducted a groundbreaking facility for the future Littoral Innovation and Prototyping Facility at Naval Support Activity Panama City, Fla. on April 21. The facility aims to improve the Navy’s ability to “accelerate delivery of warfighting capability and sustainment to our core mission areas across multiple domains, from the seabed to space,” Capt. David Back, Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division’s (NSWC PCD) commanding officer, said in a statement. “This new facility will be the cornerstone of our mission and solidify NSWC PCD’s reputation as the nation’s premier center of excellence in mine warfare and expeditionary maneuver warfare,” he added. The building will include a 54,475 square-foot laboratory, high bays with an overhead crane, loading dock, large tank room and elevator. The facility will conduct research, development, test and evaluation in mine, special, expeditionary, subsea and seabed warfare operations. Construction is set to be finished in 2026.
Viken Wins. Viken Detection, a developer and manufacturer of scanning equipment used by border security and law enforcement personnel, last week said it prevailed in three patent claims asserted by competitor Rapiscan Systems and its AS&E business unit, which are part of OSI Systems. Viken said that three panels of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board unanimously found invalid Rapiscan’s claims. ‘Rapiscan/AS&E’s anticompetitive tactics to suppress Viken’s technology have failed,” Jim Ryan, Viken’s CEO, said. “Let’s not waste any more time and, instead, give officers the best technology to find fentanyl and other drugs that poison and kill Americans every day.” Viken says one patent remains in litigation. The company is also seeking up to $250 million in potential damages related to two previous lawsuits filed by Rapiscan/AS&E where Viken also won.