Page 15 – Defense Daily

Geosynchronous Orbit Awareness System to Leverage Commercial Parts and Construction

The U.S. Space Force found that reducing requirements on a geosynchronous orbit awareness system would reduce construction time by one-third and cost by more than one-half, a service official said on Wednesday.

The service began looking at inserting commercial features in the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) last year, and a commercial line is progressing, Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Department of the Air Force’s acting space acquisition chief, told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces panel.

Space Force operators would be “accomplishing the same GSSAP mission” and “using the same GSSAP system with the same ground systems and data they do now, but these would be using faster, cheaper commercial build times and less expensive parts in order to bring that together faster,” Purdy testified in response to a question from Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), the panel’s chairman.

Five of six Northrop Grumman [NOC]-built GSSAP satellites are still in operation. Four launched between 2014 and 2016, and two in January, 2022.

After Space Force’s Space Systems Command received responses to a Request for Information last fall about the unclassified commercial geosynchronous space situational awareness need, Purdy signed an Acquisition Decision Memorandum to reflect the level of interest–what Purdy said has “been an ability that the international market’s been clamoring to provide” (Defense Daily, March 11).

GSSAP satellites maneuver to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations to monitor and inspect other satellites.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), the ranking member of HASC’s strategic forces panel, said that he is concerned by cultural resistance to the use of commercial space within DoD/the intelligence community and by a possible “slash” by the National Reconnaissance Office, at the “direction of OMB” [Office of Management and Budget], to NRO’s commercial funding lines in the upcoming full fiscal 2026 budget.

“More broadly, DoD’s flat top line for FY 26 undoubtedly means the Space Force will be taking a cut,” Moulton said. “This mistake is especially stark when considering the billions [of dollars] thrown after Golden Dome with no plan or forethought.”

Following Army’s Planned Cut, Mingus Says Marines Can ‘Absolutely’ Still Buy JLTV A2s

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – While the Army no longer plans to buy new Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV), a senior official confirmed Wednesday the Marine Corps can still purchase the platform under the current contract in place with AM General

“We will do no future procurement buys for the JLTV for the Army. But the Marine Corps, [international] partners…they can continue to do that. But for us, inside of our armor, heavy and Stryker formations, we bought enough [JLTVs] already or the ones that are coming off [the production line] to serve those formations,” Gen. James Mingus, the Army vice chief of staff, told reporters following remarks at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference here.

AM General’s JLTV A2 on display at the 2023 AUSA conference in Washington, D.C. Photo: Matthew Beinart.

The Army on May 1 detailed its new Army Transformation Initiative (ATI) which includes cutting “obsolete” programs such as the JLTV as well as Humvees, the M10 Booker combat vehicle, the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter and Gray Eagle drones and ending development of the Improved Turbine Engine Program, the Future Tactical UAS and the Robotic Combat Vehicle (Defense Daily, May 1).

The JLTV cancellation is a major pivot for the Army after the service awarded AM General a potential 10-year, multi-billion dollar deal just over two years ago to build the new JLTV A2 and take over as prime contractor from Oshkosh Defense [OSK]. AM General has said it remained on track to support the Army’s plan to begin fielding the JLTV A2 in mid-2026 (Defense Daily, Feb. 9 2023).

The Army in May 2023 placed an initial delivery order with AM General covering 271 JLTV A2s for the Army and 206 vehicles for the Marine Corps (Defense Daily, May 25 2023).

Mingus noted to reporters the JLTV A2 deal with AM General is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract with vehicles bought in tranches, which will allow the Marine Corps to “absolutely” still purchase the platform even if the Army no longer places orders.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, raised a concern at a hearing last week on whether the Army had coordinated its JLTV cancellation decision with the Marine Corps.

“Where you might see this as a money savings [decision], the Marines might need them and we might see the Marines’ cost per vehicle shoot through the roof,” McCollum said.

AM General has said it plans to continue both the JLTV A2 and Humvee production lines for now to fulfill remaining contract obligations, noting it still has multi-year contracts in place with a “backlog of deliveries” for both vehicles through 2027 (Defense Daily, May 12).

Army’s 101st Airborne Division Will Be First To Get FLRAA, Potentially By Late ‘28

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell in Kentucky will be the first division to receive the new Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) and those deliveries could potentially begin in late 2028 or early 2029, senior leaders said Wednesday.

Gen. James Mingus, the Army vice chief of staff, first confirmed the initial fielding plans to the 101st in remarks at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference here, and said the decision was “based on their mission profile and theater demands.”

U.S. Army Experimental Test Pilot Maj. Wesley Paulsen and Bell Aircraft pilot Mr. Paul Ryan approach the Bell V-280 Valor at the Bell Flight Research Center in Arlington, Texas, in preparation for flights of the aircraft that has since been selected for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program. (Photo Credit: JAY MILLER)

“And as an 82nd [Airborne Division] guy myself, you know I wasn’t in the room when that decision was being made,” Mingus said. “But seriously, this decision makes sense, the 101st is a formation built to deploy rapidly and operate in austere conditions.”

“The 101st flies into real world contested environments, across wide terrain, often without the luxury of fixed support infrastructure. They need speed, endurance and flexibility,” Mingus added.

Bell’s [TXT] V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft was named the winner of the FLRAA competition in December 2022, beating out a Sikorsky [LMT] and Boeing [BA] team’s Defiant X coaxial rigid rotor helicopter offering for the program to find a platform that will eventually replace a sizeable portion of the Black Hawk fleet (Defense Daily, Dec. 5, 2022).

The Army’s initial FLRAA deal to Bell is worth up to $1.3 billion but could total $7 billion if all options are picked up.

Last August, the Army approved the Milestone B decision to move FLRAA into the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase, to include picking up the next contract option that will cover the build of six prototype aircraft (Defense Daily, Aug. 2 2024).

“FLRAA is not a replacement in the conventional sense. It’s a leap ahead technology and capability. It’s the first full expression of what vertical lift should be in the next era of warfare,” Mingus said. “It delivers operational reach that alters how we close with the enemy. It brings the right combination of speed, payload, and survivability we’ve never had in one aircraft.”

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Gen. Randy George, the service’s chief of staff, told lawmakers last week the Army wants to accelerate the FLRAA program and speed up its timeline by two years (Defense Daily, May 7).

Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, the Army aviation branch chief, said the service is “in the throes” of working with Bell on how to accomplish the acceleration, noting the Army expects the first FLRAA prototype to likely fly in 2027 and could look to begin fielding to the 101st by late 2028 or early 2029.

“Part of the Army Transformation Initiative is the Army said, hey, we’re all in on FLRAA. We’re going to work with the Bell Textron team to accelerate this. So we are in the throes of the negotiation right now to figure out how we’re going to field the first Engineering Manufacturing and Design [phase] aircraft and then, on the heels of that, continue right into low-rate production so we get some aircraft out in the hands of aviation warfighters in the 101st to get this thing off and running,” Gill said.

Coast Guard Pulled National Security Cutter From Planned Pacific Patrol To Support Border Surge

To help it meet President Trump’s directive for the U.S. government to achieve operational control of the southern border, the acting Coast Guard Commandant said he changed plans for one of the service’s National Security Cutters (NSCs) to support operations in the Indo-Pacific in favor of border security duties.

The change in plans was done in consultation with U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, Adm. Kevin Lunday told a House panel on Wednesday. Lunday described the deployment as temporary and said “there’s been no change to our permanent presence in the Indo-Pacific.”

The Coast Guard operates a mix of cutters in the central and western Pacific regions, sometimes in support of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command for freedom of navigation operations, but also working with island nations to help them with capacity building and maritime governance, and conducting its routine missions such as drug interdiction and fisheries patrols.

Lunday told the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee that he also redirected the NSC Calhoun from a schedule port visit in Iceland in support of the international Arctic Coast Guard Forum to the southern border operations. The planned Iceland visit “wasn’t an operational meeting,” he pointed out.

“Our highest priority is achieving full operational control of the border, and that includes our ports and waterways,” Lunday said in his opening remarks. “As the Coast Guard has done throughout our history, we adjusted our operational posture to focus on the top needs and priorities, while continuing to conduct our other missions with excellence.”

Overall, the Coast Guard tripled its forward deployed air and surface assets to the southern border and maritime approaches, he said. The service has also interdicted more cocaine at sea by mid-February than it had in all of fiscal year 2024.

The clampdown on illegal activity along the southern border is forcing drug and alien smugglers to use more sea routes and Lunday said there has been an increase in illegal activity accessing the San Diego area and even further north toward Los Angeles. All of this requires increase presence and capabilities, he said.

“And so, we do need increased and sustained top-line funding to be able to generate and sustain the assets, ships, cutters, boats and aircraft and sensors necessary to enable us to protect that maritime approach to the U.S. border, off of California, off of Texas and the Gulf of America, and then off of Florida and U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico,” Lunday said.

Lunday stressed that current Coast Guard operations are “not sustainable” given the service’s “severe readiness crisis that has been decades in the making.”

The Coast Guard stands to benefit from a Republican reconciliation bill that the House hopes to vote on soon that would give the service about $22 billion over the next five years for recapitalization and maintenance needs (Defense Daily, April 30). The Trump administration still has to provide its fiscal year 2026 budget request to Congress, which is separate from the reconciliation bill.

Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, predicted that his panel would mark up the Department of Homeland Security’s FY ’26 budget request the second week of June. He also expects the bill to go to the House floor the same week.

It’s unclear when the administration will deliver the FY ’26 request to Congress. Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), the ranking member on the subcommittee, said the budget is expected the first week of June.

In other matters, Lunday said the Coast Guard’s recently purchased commercial icebreaker will conduct its first operation beginning June 1 and will sail into the Gulf of Alaska and then “above the Arctic Circle.”

Lunday was also asked about the service’s aging H-60 helicopter fleet and replied that the service needs to purchase new aircraft hulls rather than extending the service life on existing hulls that will age out too quickly.

Underwood also noted that last Friday the Coast Guard delivered a $50 million addition to its FY ’25 spending plans for a new command and control aircraft that the service operates for DHS and service leadership. The missionized long-range Gulfstream V military aircraft provides secure, reliable, on-demand communication and would replace an older version of the same plane which “is approaching obsolescence and the end of its service life,” Lunday said. “The avionics are increasingly obsolete, the communications are increasingly unreliable, and it’s in need of recapitalization like much of the rest of the fleet.”

Lunday did not answer a question from Underwood whether senior DHS officials or political appointees in the administration asked for the new aircraft.

MDA Issues Wide-Ranging Opportunity To Take In ‘Unique And Innovative’ White Papers

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) last week issued a new solicitation as part of its Golden Dome efforts that give industry an ongoing five-year opportunity to present new missile defense ideas to the government on several key topics.

According to a May 9 solicitation, called MDA Advanced Capability Concepts, the agency is seeking white papers to provide “innovative concepts, technological innovations, prototype demonstrations, and scientific breakthroughs that will significantly enhance the robustness and effectiveness of all Missile Defense System elements.”

Advanced Capability Concepts is an outgrowth of the

Multiple Authority Announcement vehicle unveiled in March that aims to let DoD quickly pursue non-traditional acquisition to further the Trump Administration’s Golden Dome initiative (Defense Daily, March 31).

Two Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. on March 25, 2019, in the first salvo test of an ICBM target. The GBIs successfully intercepted a target launched from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll. (Photo: Missile Defense Agency) — Two Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on March 25, 2019, in the first salvo test of an ICBM target. The GBIs successfully intercepted a target launched from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll. (Photo: Missile Defense Agency)

This latest notice entails a two-step process, with those passing the initial phase then receiving a request for information or documentation to proceed with negotiations towards an award.

The government wants white papers from the topic areas found in the Multiple Authority Announcement, including rapid development and transition of cost efficient kinetic and hypersonic defense solutions; technologies to enhance command and control battle management; scalable multi-domain integrated non-kinetic and electronic warfare; disruptive technologies that rapidly field advanced capabilities like AI, directed energy, hypersonic defense, resilient networking and cybersecurity; space-based sensors, interceptors and effectors; digital revolution with advanced analytics and computational intelligence to enhance all aspects of missile defense; single event effects test methodologies and technologies like using lasers, modeling, X-rays, protons and automated test software to improve testing speed.

The last area covers efforts that involve working directly with foreign companies, universities or other entities, for more international missile defense system cooperation.

Interested offerors can submit white papers any time from May 9, 2025 to May 8, 2030.

Notably, the notice said MDA anticipates making multiple selections and plans to use a mix of both Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and non-FAR award types, like Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) or OT-like agreements.

MDA said the white papers in step one should recommend an award type the government should consider for their effort.

“Should the white paper submission be selected for Step-Two, the Government and offeror will further negotiate the best award type for the effort. Other award types may be considered and some award types may be prioritized as mandated by law or policy.”

The agency said the white papers will be evaluated against technical achievement, research capabilities and program management, with technical achievement the most important, ranked as the equivalent of research capabilities and program management combined.

Golden Dome Industry Summit Set For June

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) rescheduled its upcoming Golden Dome for America industry summit for June 11 in Huntsville, Ala.

An MDA notice from March originally announced

the summit focused on next-generation missile defense in line with the White House Golden Dome initiative would occur on April 29 at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. (Defense Daily, March 31).

The original notice said the summit aimed to “equip non-traditional and industry partners with the knowledge and understanding of MDA’s and Space Force’s role in Golden Dome for America, empowering them to take concrete actions that support and align with government requirements.”

However, by early April the agency updated the notice that it was being pushed back to a different location due to “overwhelming response from industry” (Defense Daily, April 11).

The rescheduled unclassified summit will not be held at the Von Braun Center in downtown Huntsville.

The summit does not expect to plan one-on-one sessions or panels and the agency still says non-traditional contractors are “highly encouraged” to attend because MDA is “extremely interested” in different thinking to help shape future missile defense.

Reed Looks to Prevent Golden Dome ‘Slush Fund,’ Design of Detection/Comms Systems Crucial

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said on Tuesday that despite rumblings about the future U.S. Golden Dome missile shield being under construction, the program is still in its early stages and that he will try to prevent the $25 billion for the program in the $113 billion DoD reconciliation bill from becoming a “slush fund.”

Golden Dome is “conceptual at the moment, frankly,” Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a Defense Writers Group breakfast. “I suspect that the DoD money in the reconciliation, which is highly unusual, about $113 billion, I think there will be a category called ‘Golden Dome,’ but that’s just potentially a slush fund. They have to identify the technologies. They have to go ahead and design an integrated plan. In my view, from what I’ve heard, unclassified, it’s more of a warning system than a firing system, although it [Golden Dome] will develop firing units to complement it. But the key now is to identify hypersonics as soon as they launch so we can engage them, but that’s still a work in progress.”

A Jan. 27 executive order from President Trump directed the development of the U.S. missile defense shield, to include space-based interceptors–a project analysts have estimated could cost trillions of dollars.

A group of five Democratic senators and 37 Democratic representatives on May 1 asked Acting DoD Inspector General Steven Stebbins to investigate the lawmakers’ conflict of interest concerns related to top Trump adviser, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, and SpaceX’s position as a front-runner for Golden Dome contracts (Defense Daily, May 1).

“Every time I read about it [Golden Dome], there’s a paragraph about Elon Musk’s participation with Starlink as the communication link; etc.,” he said. “We have to be very careful of this because this is essentially a kill chain from observation to execution, and we typically don’t have non-military contractors in the middle of something like that. We have to think very seriously about how do we legally do this. Do we lease with the right to retain [data rights] or the right to prevent it from being leased to any other entity–these types of communications systems and weapons systems, and they’re doing that right now. Space Force is very much involved in that and trying to think out how do we put together a communications system and link it to the firing system.”

“The biggest part of Golden Dome, while I’m not the expert, is really the detection and communications systems,” Reed said. “The firing systems, if we can identify the target early, the easier part–and it’s not easy–will be to get the kill vehicle developed.”

Despite B-52 Cost Breach, W80-4 Will ‘Stay the Course,’ Sandia Director Says

The W80-4 warhead will stay on schedule, despite the cost breach of its delivery vehicle the B-52 bomber, Sandia National Laboratories director Laura McGill said during an online press conference Wednesday.

“It is really critical that we deliver that system on time,” McGill said while answering a question by sister publication The Exchange Monitor

on how last week’s announcement of a B-52 Nunn-McCurdy breach would affect schedules for the W80-4. A Nunn-McCurdy breach means a project is 15% over the baseline cost.

Boeing’s [BA] B-52H will be the first aircraft to carry the RTX [RTX] Long Range Standoff (LRSO) Missile, which eventually will fly aboard the B-21 Raider bomber that Northrop Grumman [NOC] is building. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) is refurbishing the W80-4 warhead, through a life extension program, to tip the LRSO.

McGill said the cost breach, along with engine upgrades and modernization of the aircraft, “may affect our ability to conduct some of our final flight testing, but I will say that we expect we’ll be able to continue our work in collaboration with Raytheon that’s delivering the long-range standoff weapon that the W80-4 goes into.”

McGill added, “the program is on track at this point, and we expect that we will be prepared to meet the first production unit, as well as being very prepared to scale up to full production under the current baseline schedule.”

According to NNSA’s stockpile stewardship and management plan (SSMP) for fiscal 2025, which was released in early October, the W80-4 program would complete its final design reviews by fiscal year 2025, which began Oct. 1. The SSMP also said the first production unit of the W80-4 would be complete in fiscal 2027.

James Peery, the previous Sandia director, told the Monitor in January that the W80-4 had its first flight test on the LRSO earlier that month. Peery added it was the first flight test for the W80-4, and that there was a flight test the week before that was also successful. The test was without any special nuclear materials, and that the test was “nominal,” he said.

Peery also said at a conference in January that he was “pretty excited right now” that the laboratory and the NNSA had worked with the Air Force on testing the warhead on the missile.

Prototype CCA Range to Be Greater Than F-35A and F-22

The range of the U.S. Air Force’s prototype autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) is to be at least 700 nautical miles–greater than the 590 nautical mile range of the Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter by Lockheed Martin [LMT] and the 670 nautical mile range of the service’s F-35A Lightning II, also by Lockheed Martin.

A Tuesday graphic released by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin listed the “700 plus” nautical mile range for the two CCA prototypes–the General Atomics YFQ-42A Gambit and Anduril Industries‘ YFQ-44A Fury. The graphic also details other desired features of CCA and the Boeing [BA] F-47.

The DoD reconciliation bill would accelerate both with $678 million for CCA and $400 million for F-47 (Defense Daily, Apr. 28).

Allvin’s Tuesday graphic lists “operational dates” for F-47 and CCA as “2025-2029.”

In a Wednesday email, the Air Force said that the F-47 would fly before the end of the Trump administration.

Beale AFB, Calif.–the home of the U-2 surveillance plane–is to house the Aircraft Readiness Unit for CCAs to allow them to deploy quickly.

The service has said that the two CCA prototypes have begun ground testing of their propulsion, avionics, autonomy and ground control (Defense Daily, May 1).

In April last year, the Air Force narrowed the CCA Increment 1 field to General Atomics and Anduril Industries. While the service had said it planned to conduct flight tests this summer, now the service has revised that timing to this year.

The service plans on an Increment 1 downselect in fiscal 2026 and the start of Increment 2 development that year.

During the Biden administration, former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall established a planning goal of 1,000 CCAs. Allvin’s Tuesday graphic lists “1,000 plus” as the CCA planning number, while listing CCA speed as “classified” and “stealth” as another desired attribute.

“The CCA program’s ambitions of fielding over 1,000 aircraft on a relatively short timeline will surely stress the industrial base, contracting arrangements, and related aspects of the acquisition enterprise,” according to a new Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) report on CCA. “According to some industry experts, establishing the necessary supply chain will require the Air Force to make significant investments, including tapping the commercial market and nontraditional defense firms to buy jet engines, additive manufacturing, thermoplastics, and other inputs.”

“DoD’s longstanding shortcomings at accessing commercial markets, including with software technology, pose a formidable obstacle to CCA development,” the CSBA study said. “It remains to be seen whether the Air Force can erect contracting processes that allow quick-turn improvements to CCAs in response to real-world military crises.”

For the F-47, Allvin’s graphic lists “Mach 2 plus” as the desired speed, 1,000 nautical miles “plus” as the aircraft’s range and “185 plus” as the target number–roughly the same as the number of F-22s fielded.

The Air Force has “a lot of the [F-47] preparations done in terms of planning and thinking through the process of what do they really want,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), told the Defense Writers Group on Tuesday.

“I would be very pleased, but very surprised if they could deliver within two to three years,” he said. “We’re all, I think, in favor of the F-47, but I would be surprised if it rolled out operationally within two years.”

Does Ukraine point to the use of long-range CCAs as a critical component in future conflict?

“This is the new form of warfare, push back the zone that Chinese missiles, for example, can reach so you can bring up your aircraft and your forces close enough where they can be deployed and recovered,” Reed said.

Varda Space Capsule Successfully Lands On Earth In Hypersonic Reentry Test

Varda Space Industries on Tuesday said its W-3 capsule successfully landed in South Australia following two months on orbit in a test of an inertial measurement technology in the high-hypersonic reentry environment.

Varda partnered with the U.S. Air Force on the mission under the Prometheus program, in which the two are collaborating on to rapidly conduct technology experiments in the extreme reentry environment. The W-3 reentered Earth’s atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 25 before deploying a parachute for landing at the Kooniba Test Range at 19:07 PDT.

The advanced inertial measurement unit was developed by the Air Force and Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated

. The IMU was designed to operate at the high reentry speeds but this was the first test in that environment.

The W-3 capsule was launched on March 14 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., as part of the Transporter-13 rideshare mission. The 120-kilogram reentry vehicle was integrated with Rocket Lab’s [RKLB] medium delta-V Pioneer spacecraft platform that delivered the capsule back to Earth. Pioneer provides power, communications, propulsion, and attitude control.

Launch of the W-3 mission came 15 days after the successful reentry and landing of Varda’s W-2 mission under the Prometheus program that carried Varda’s pharmaceutical reactor, a thermal protection system developed with NASA, and a spectrometer from the Air Force Research Laboratory. Rocket Lab’s Pioneer satellite bus also supported the W-2 mission.

“Varda’s reentry capsule represents a game changing opportunity for both government and commercial partners to test and validate cutting-edge hypersonic and reentry components and technologies,” David McFarland, vice president of Hypersonic and Reentry Test at Varda, said in a statement. “The W-3 mission will provide unprecedented data to advance next-generation space and defense capabilities and continue to provide hypersonic environments to the reentry test community.”