Page 49 – Defense Daily

Intelsat Wins US Space Force PLEO Task Order for Maritime Connectivity

Intelsat received a task order under the Proliferated Low-Earth Orbit (PLEO) contract vehicle to provide the U.S. Department of Defense with maritime connectivity.

Under the 12-month task order, Intelsat said it will provide satellite bandwidth, equipment, and services to the DoD for global maritime coverage. Intelsat said its work under this order will support global maritime operations for multiple government end users.

PLEO is a U.S. Space Force contract vehicle started in 2023

to allow the government to procure commercial LEO satellite capabilities. Intelsat was named to the contract vehicle in 2023, along with a number of other commercial companies. At the time, the PLEO ceiling was $900 million, but it has since been increased to $13 billion.

Last year, U.S. Space Force officials said that most PLEO task orders up to that point had gone to SpaceX for Starshield, the military version of Starlink, which led to the increase in funding. Viasat received a $3.5 million PLEO task order in February.

“Intelsat is uniquely positioned to offer value-added solutions to the Defense Department through this important program,” commented David Broadbent, president of Intelsat Government Solutions. “Our partnerships with LEO operators, combined with our fleet of more than 55 GEO satellites, global teleports, security operations center and one of the largest terrestrial network in the world, positions Intelsat to provide strong but flexible communications during critical missions.”

Anduril Unveils New Undersea Sensor Network

Anduril on Thursday unveiled its new AI-enabled undersea sensor node network, called Seabed Sentry, ahead of the annual Sea-Air-Space Expo next week.

The company said the new system uses cable-less undersea sensor nodes that are networked together to provide persistent monitoring and real-time communication, for both commercial and military customers, at a fraction of the price otherwise possible.

“We need a network for real-time data exchange to reliably transmit information into action. Seabed Sentry fills connectivity and perception gaps, enabling maritime awareness and kill chains in ways not currently possible without high expense,” the company said in a statement.

The company said its Seabed Sentry units have endurance lasting months to years, a depth rating over 500 meters, a payload capacity greater than half a meter cubed, and a modular reusable design. The company argued this system gives operators more flexibility and capability in the most challenging underwater environments.

The re-deployable sensor nodes can be deployed by its Dive family of large and extra-large autonomous undersea vehicles to form a defense grid over a specific region and are powered by its Lattice AI software platform and can support several payload variations. Andruil argued this will be a “fraction of the cost of legacy options” that use traditional fixed surveillance systems.

The units can be recovered from the seabed, cleaned, recharged and re-used to lower operational costs and minimize any issues linked to production delays.

The company highlighted Seabed Sentry has an open systems architecture for quick integration of first- or third-party sensors and “payloads customized to the commercial or defense missions including seabed survey, marine pattern of life building, port security, critical infrastructure protection, anti-submarine warfare, and anti-surface warfare.”

Andril also noted the system exclusively uses Ultra Maritime’s Sea Spear to enable long range sensing capabilities in remote underwater environments.

The company said its recent investments in production facilities means it can “soon begin producing Seabed Sentry, providing customers with the scalable, affordable technology it urgently needs.”

In January, the Biden administration in its closing weeks announced a partnership between Ultra Maritime and India’s Bharat Dynamics Limited to supply and manufacture sonobuoys for the Indian Navy at U.S. Navy standards (Defense Daily, Jan. 8)

DoD IG Opens Investigation On Hegseth’s Use Of Signal App To Discuss Yemen Strikes

The Pentagon inspector general’s office has opened an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to discuss plans for military strikes in Yemen.

In a memo sent to Hegseth on Thursday, the DoD IG confirms it opened the inquiry in response to a request from the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee to look into the “Signalgate” incident.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a town hall meeting for Department of Defense personnel at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Feb. 7, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Madelyn Keech)

“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business. Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements,” Acting DoD IG Steven Stebbins writes in the memo.

Last month, Jeffery Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, reported that he was added to a group chat on the encrypted but unclassified messaging app as senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Hegseth, were discussing plans for the impending operation against Houthi militants in Yemen.

A subsequent report from The Atlantic disclosed the information shared in the Signal chat included plans for the timing of the attack and details on the weapons to be used.

Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair and ranking member on SASC, then issued a bipartisan call for the DoD IG to conduct an assessment on the details of the incident and whether classified information was shared, DoD’s policies related to officials sharing sensitive and classified information on non-government networks and applications, whether these policies were adhered to in this case and how DoD’s policies in this area potentially differ from those of the White House and Intelligence Community (Defense Daily, March 28).

“I welcome this independent investigation and urge a thorough review of the incident. My top priority is the safety and security of all American servicemembers, and it is critical that sensitive operational information be handled with utmost discretion. I look forward to reviewing the findings of this investigation,” Reed said in a statement on Thursday. “The potentially deadly consequences from Secretary’s Hegseth blunder are chilling. Had the intelligence in his chat messages been obtained by the Houthis or another adversary, it would have allowed them to reposition weapons to target our pilots with dangerously accurate intelligence.”

Reed added that Hegseth “must immediately explain” to SASC “why he texted apparently classified information that could endanger American servicemembers’ lives on a commercial app with unknown recipients.”

“There is no legitimate basis for him to withhold information from the committee that he claims is unclassified and has already been shared with a journalist,” Reed said. “I have grave concerns about Secretary Hegseth’s ability to maintain the trust and confidence of U.S. servicemembers and the Commander-in-Chief.

Stebbins said DoD IG’s investigation will be conducted in Washington, D.C., and from U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

Hegseth is requested to designate two points of contact for investigation within the next five days, one individual who is a government employee with knowledge of the subject and another that is a member of “the Senior Executive Service or a General/Flag Officer who is familiar with the subject and could serve as a point of engagement with DoD Office of Inspector General senior leaders, if necessary,” the letter states.

Army Selects 10 Vendors For Potential $4.2 Billion Aerostat Systems Contract

The Army has selected ten vendors for a new 10-year contracting vehicle, worth up to $4.2 billion, to provide services and modernization of aerostat surveillance systems.

Advanced Technology Systems, Elevated Technologies

, Leidos [LDOS], Mission Solutions Group, QinetiQ, Raytheon [RTX], Skyship Services, TCOM, Thunderbolt Software and Tyonek Technical Services will each compete for task orders under the new deal.

Soldiers of Headquarters, Headquarters Troop, 1st Squadron, 152nd Cavalry, 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Indiana Army National Guard) prepare to moor the 17M Liberty Rapid Initial Aerial Deployment or Aerostat at Camp Liberty, Baghdad. Photo by Staff Sgt. James E. Brown

“This award is instrumental for ongoing and future intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations that support the warfighter,” Lareina Adams, the Army’s project manager for terrestrial sensors, said in a statement on Thursday. “As demand signals continue to increase, aerostat systems will be key in delivering persistent capabilities worldwide.”

Task orders to be awarded under the new aerostat contracting vehicle will cover “hardware procurement and services, to include engineering, logistics, operation, and program management support,” the Army said.

A total of 10 bids were submitted for the work, according to the Pentagon’s March 13 contract announcement.

“This contract contains an option for on-ramping and off-ramping of vendors to address the Army’s emerging needs,” the Army said.

The new contract will go toward supporting the Army’s Persistent Surveillance System–Tethered (PSS-T) on its aerostat platforms.

“PSS-T is a highly persistent and flexible multi-sensor information collection platform that can be integrated with other aerial and unattended ground sensor systems to provide slew-to-cue capability,” the Army writes.

Vendors will also be tasked with providing services for the Army’s current Persistent Surveillance Dissemination System of Systems (PSDS2) architecture as well as supporting “future Elevated Sensing requirements,” according to the announcement.

“PSDS2 networks take existing video and data sensors into a common architecture to support persistent surveillance and rapid dissemination of actionable information for the warfighter,” the Army writes.

Defense Industrial Base Needs Capacity, Surge Ability, Flexibility, And Resilience, Report Says

The U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) remains inadequate to give U.S. forces the edge in, and deter, a major conflict, says a new report by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

To rectify this, the U.S. needs to emphasize capacity, responsiveness, flexibility, and resilience in the DIB, CNAS authors say in the report, From Production Lines to Front Lines: Revitalizing the U.S. Defense Industrial Base for Future Great Power Conflict.

The demands of a great power conflict require a significant expansion of DIB capacity and the need to be responsive, which is to “surge production of key items at decisive moments and rapidly fill critical gaps,” says the report, which was released on April 3. The need for flexibility refers being able to produce a diverse mix of low-cost and more exquisite systems, and resilience covers stronger supply chains and disruptions.

“The distance between the government—which drives planning and procurement—and industry—which is responsible for production—has undermined preparedness for great power conflict,” CNAS defense analysts Becca Wasser and Philip Sheers say in the report.

Among the report’s recommendations is the needs for consistent demand signals, which the U.S. government struggles with amid conflicting priorities of Congress, the military services, and the combatant commands, the authors highlight.

Another suggestion is the creation of an advisory group to identify the priority systems where the Defense Department should increase capacity. As part of this, Congress must appropriate funding to enable increased production, CNAS says.

Flexible contracting and funding mechanisms would also help, including more use of undefinitized contract actions, which allow projects to begin before terms are finalized. CNAS also urges Congress to create various funds, including a Critical Munitions Acquisition Fund, to boost inventories.

First OA-1K Skyraider Delivered to AFSOC

L3Harris Technologies [LHX] and Air Tractor

said on Thursday that they have delivered the first “missionized” OA-1K Skyraider II aircraft for U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) at Hurlburt Field, Fla.

The Skyraider IIs are to perform close air support, precision strike, and armed intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. About 13 months ago, AFSOC reduced its Skyraider II requirement from 75 to 62 of aircraft (Defense Daily, Sept. 5, 2024).

Skyraider II “renews the rugged and versatile nature of the A-1 Skyraider, which was in service from 1946 to the early 1980s,” AFSOC has said.

The design of the Skyraider II “enables it to operate from rugged and remote airfields,” L3Harris said on Thursday.

The aircraft are to replace AFSOC’s U-28A Draco and MC-12W Liberty.

On July 31, 2022, U.S. Special Operations Command awarded L3Harris an up to $3 billion contract for the 75 “Armed Overwatch” aircraft through 2029 (Defense Daily, Aug. 1, 2022).

Hawk vs. Dove: Wicker and Others ‘Reject’ Arguments Against Golden Dome From Kelly and Others

While Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) are pulling for President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense against nuclear adversaries, others are saying it is not cost effective.

“We need to protect the homeland from as many dangers as are out there,” Wicker told sister publication The Exchange Monitor

on Wednesday.

The Golden Dome was originally dubbed “Iron Dome for America,” after Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, in an executive order by Trump in January. The executive order stated that the Dome is intended to defend against hypersonic, cruise and nuclear-armed ballistic missile threats and a “countervalue attack by nuclear adversaries.”

While similar in name to Israel’s defense system, the Golden Dome bears more similarities to former President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative, which was never realized but would have fielded a space-based missile defense system as well.

Fischer, at a webinar for the Washington-based conservative think tank Heritage Foundation on the defense system, gave full support to the Golden Dome, saying, “missile defense works.”

“The world has grown more complex in the last 20 years,” Fischer said. “We cannot allow an adversary to believe they can cripple the United States or that they can deter us from engaging the world to defend ourselves, our interests and our allies.”

She added that “a modern robust missile architecture like the Golden Dome should make our adversaries doubt that such an attack would be successful.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, expressed concerns over the “Golden Dome” in a hearing with Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, Commander of the Strategic Command, in March.

Kelly said that while Cotton was focused on the two nuclear peers, referring to Russia and China, Kelly expressed concern over “the third one,” which he said was North Korea.

“Nuclear deterrence keeps us safe,” Kelly said, but “I think it’s fair to say that most of the time, with our nuclear peers, we’re dealing with rational actors. We hope that’s the case. That’s the thing, that part of nuclear deterrence, that they will act rationally. Not so sure that’s the case with the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea].”

Kelly added that North Korea is “building more nuclear weapons, they’re working on other systems to deliver them, and they can now range into the United States.” His concern, he said, was that building a missile defense system “could accelerate a growing number, our adversaries response to having a missile defense system could be to build more nuclear weapons. And if one or two get through, that is too many.”

In an article March 25, the Washington-based Arms Control Association (ACA) called the Golden Dome “misguided” with “enormous opportunity costs.”

“The fundamental problem with any plan for a national missile defense system against strategic nuclear attack is that cost-exchange ratios favor the offense and U.S. adversaries can always choose to build up or diversify their strategic forces to overwhelm a potential shield,” ACA said, agreeing with Kelly. “The fantasy of a missile shield runs against a core rule of strategic competition: the enemy always gets a vote.”

ACA added that if the second Trump administration wants to “pursue a maximalist vision of a ‘Golden Dome’ to offer a mirage of strategic defense for the homeland,” any stated goal of engaging Russia and China denuclearization talks will be difficult.

“Russia has made clear in previous rounds of nuclear arms control talks that it considers strategic missile defense to be highly destabilizing to the U.S.-Russian nuclear balance of terror,” ACA said.

In response to these dove-ish arguments, Wicker told the Monitor that, “these are the same arguments that have been made for decades and I reject that.”

“The concept of an Iron Dome for America is actually even more vital given the space capabilities of our adversaries are quickly developing,” Wicker said.

Leidos Announces Up to Five Year, $390 Million SIGINT Award

Leidos [LDOS] has won an up to five-year, $390 million National Security Agency (NSA) contract for signals intelligence (SIGINT) “capabilities, analysis and reporting tool modifications, engineering services, lab and testbed management, integration and testing, deployment, training, and sustainment of a subset of NSA systems,” the company said on Thursday.

Roy Stevens, the president of Leidos’ national security sector, said in a statement that “tailored and unique SIGINT solutions for the military and intelligence community are critical to delivering information superiority at speed.”

“This contract will leverage Leidos’ engineering and technical expertise, as we expand our work with the NSA,” he said.

In October 2021, the company announced a five-year, up to $300 million NSA SIGINT modernization award under the agency’s TechSIGINT effort to “develop and deploy new systems using cloud architectures and standardized NSA corporate infrastructures and services.”

“Leidos combines expertise in cyber and IT managed services, as well as radar, sensors and other technologies, to develop SIGINT technologies, with end-users always in mind,” the company said on Thursday. “Those technologies include resilient communications that operate through interruption to keep critical mission data flowing.”

DARPA Selects 18 Firms For First Stage Of Quantum Benchmarking Initiative

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on Thursday announced awards to 18 companies that will flesh out their quantum computing concepts in more detail for the agency to review and determine if they merit moving into the next stage, which will be testing equipment.

The Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) is a moonshot type effort by DARPA to transform the quantum computing space in the next decade to see if any company has an approach that can scale, “meaning its computational value exceeds its cost by the year 2033,” the agency said.

Fifteen of the companies were identified. The other three are still in contract negotiations.

The announced companies are: Alice & Bob, Atlantic Quantum, Atom Computing, Diraq, Hewlett Packard Enterprise [HPE], IBM [IBM], IonQ, Nord Quantique, Oxford Ionics, Photonic Inc., Quantinuum, Quantum Motion, Rigetti Computing, Silicon Quantum Computing Pty. Ltd., and Xanadu.

If selected for the year-long Stage B effort, DARPA will be “testing your equipment” and “independently evaluating if the components and subsystems and algorithms that you’re building are really up to the task,” Joe Altepeter, the QBI program manager, said.

Companies selected for Stage C will undergo “full-size” independent verification and validation for a “real-time, rigorous evaluation of the components, subsystems, and algorithms—everything that goes into building a fault-tolerant quantum computer for real,” he said.

For any company that makes it through the third stage, DARPA will have proven their concept does not work or it is something the U.S. government should get “because it’s going to change the world,” Altepeter said. Along the way, DARPA will try to prove that the concepts will not work, he said, adding that the agency will be “honest brokers.”

He praised the companies for getting through the selection process and subjecting themselves to a difficult road ahead in the QBI.

HII’s Kastner Minimizes Metal Tariff Affect To Shipbuilding, Australian Suppliers Helps Fragile Industrial Base

The president and CEO of HII [HII] this week downplayed how much impact Trump administration aluminum and steel tariffs would have on the shipbuilding supply chain while noting adding Australian suppliers to submarine production under the AUKUS agreement will help bolster a fragile supply chain.

He argued that as a long-term shipbuilder HII is different from other companies because they both order metal parts years in advance and also buy and build in America.

“Ultimately, if tariffs bring more manufacturing into the United States and creates more jobs for manufacturing workers in the United States. I’m happy, because we need to broaden that base. We need to have more workers, more manufacturing workers in the United States,” Chris Kastner told reporters during a media roundtable Wednesday ahead of next week’s Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Md.

Kastner was unwilling to game out the “secondary or tertiary effects of potential tariffs. Tariffs is not a story for us. It just isn’t.”

President Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum in mid-March.

Despite Kastner’s statements trying to minimize the effect from the tariffs, a Navy official last week admitted to a Senate panel that they very well could drive up ship costs.

Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition Brett Seidle told a Senate panel in 2023 about half of the aluminum and a third of its steel for Navy shipbuilding came from Canada and “clearly, tariffs in those areas could drive costs” (Defense Daily, March 27).

During the hearing, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked if it would be easy or hard to go from sourcing 66 percent to 100 percent domestic steel in shipbuilding. When Seidle said he did not have the specific information on that change, Kaine responded, “it’d be hard.”

Separately, Kastner said the utility in adding Australian companies to the submarine industrial base under AUKUS adds needed capacity to a fragile industrial base but will not lower prices.

“So I don’t think there’s an immediate impact. I think having additional capacity in the submarine industrial base is only positive. And so if there are suppliers in Australia that are qualified to produce sub safe equipment and can participate. It’s only positive,”Kastner said.

Last month, the Australian government awarded HII’s Australian subsidiary a $6 million contract to deliver a new submarine supplier qualification pilot to help small and medium Australian companies qualify to enter the U.S. submarine industrial base supply chain (Defense Daily, March 11).

Also, last month HII named VEEM Ltd. as the first company to join the supplier program. VEEM already has decades of experience in precision casting for the Australian Collins-class submarine (Defense Daily, March 19)

“Do I think it’s going to be a significant impact to cost? I don’t, not at this point, but we have a very fragile supply chain right now, so having additional suppliers that can produce this equipment, I think, is only positive,” Kastner continued.

Kastner also said while he could not identify a single weakest link in the Navy shipbuilding supply chain, he cited the general lack of capacity.

“20 years ago, if something broke through the test program, you either had it on your end in inventory, you had it at the supplier inventory, or you had it on another ship that you could pull it from, so you could quickly continue with your test program. Now you may not have it available, and you have to go reorder and get in line.”

Kastner said this significantly decreases efficiency, impacting test sequencing and test programs.

“It’s just a general lack of capacity throughout the entire supply chain as we’re going through a significant increase in demand. So it’s not a specific area, it’s just very broad.”