The Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has added Emerging Technology as a new portfolio as part of an acquisition effort that quickly acquires commercial technologies for prototyping.
The first solicitation under the Emerging Technology portfolio is Transition of Quantum Sensors (TQS) with a “focus on demonstrating the military utility of quantum sensors to address strategic Joint Force competencies like positioning, navigation, and timing and anomaly detection,” DIU said on Thursday.
The solicitation was released as part of DIU’s Commercial Solutions Opening, an acquisition tool that enables DoD agencies to rapidly acquire capabilities from commercial and non-traditional defense contractors through a competitive evaluation process. Bids that receive awards go to prototype and potentially transition to programs.
Hypersonics is on tap to be another line of effort within the Emerging Technology portfolio and will include the ongoing high- cadence airborne testing capabilities (HyCAT) program. The first HyCAT flight is scheduled for early 2025 and calls for Rocket Lab [RKLB] to launch a suborbital payload developed by Australia’s Hypersonix called DART AE, which is a scramjet-powered hypersonic vehicle capable of flying non-ballistic flight patterns at speeds up to MACH 7.
Other lines of effort that are planned within the Emerging Technology portfolio include advanced materials and propulsion, nanotechnology, photonics, microelectronics, additive manufacturing, and quantum information science.
Emerging Technology will be led by Air Force Lt. Col. Nicholas Estep, who spent five years with the National Reconnaissance Office and has a PhD in Metamaterials and Plasmonics from the Univ. of Texas at Austin. Estep said in a statement that his portfolio will “maintain momentum on the hypersonics front, and to rapidly mature quantum-derived applications with our DoD stakeholders.”
DIU’s other portfolios are Artificial Intelligence, Autonomy, Cyber, Energy, Human Systems, and Space.