The HPM systems could be used at fixed sites such as piers or on cutters and small craft that are underway, according to Request for Information (RFI) in the May 6 government business opportunities site Sam.gov.
The Coast Guard’s interest in HPMs follows delivery of a prototype HPM system by Epirus earlier this year for the Navy to test (Defense Daily, April 29). The company’s technology can safely incapacitate outboard engines and defeat swarms of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
The Coast Guard is interested in the directed energy technology for missions such as maritime border security, and countering smuggling and piracy.
Targets of interest mentioned in the Coast Guard’s RFI include at a minimum jet skis and other personal watercraft, outboard engines, UAS and uncrewed surface vessels. Non-lethal refers to minimal or no damage to a vessel or its machinery, and safe to people and marine animals in the target area.
For the Navy testing, Epirus delivered its Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm system. The defense technology startup also recently unveiled tis Leonidas H2O high-energy HPM that was used in the Navy’s Advanced Naval Technology Exercise Coastal Trident test (Defense Daily, April 14).
Epirus has delivered first generation systems for the Army’s Integrated Fires Protection Capability (IFPC)-HPM program, two of which are being used for base protection in the Middle East. Additionally, the Army has deployed and recently tested IFPC-HPM during a live fire exercise in the Philippines (Defense Daily, May 2).
The Missile Defense Agency is moving forward on several initiatives to increasingly prioritize development and integration of multiple directed energy (DE) laser and non-kinetic ways to intercept missiles, the agency director recently told lawmakers.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Heath Collins outlined several initiatives MDA is taking in his written statement for an April 30 hearing of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
“MDA is prioritizing the integration of Directed Energy (DE) systems into the Missile Defense System, which would reduce the burden on kinetic interceptors and augment existing capabilities. In 2024, the Directed Energy Independent Assessment Team recommended MDA reestablish efforts to develop and deploy DE systems,” Collins wrote.
Artist rendering of Lockheed Martin’s HELIOS laser weapons system used on an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. (Image: Lockheed Martin)
MDA had to reestablish efforts because in 2020 DoD decided to move DE funds out of the agency and consolidate them under the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, OUSD(R&E), then led by Michael Griffin (Defense Daily, Feb. 24, 2020).
At the time, then-MDA Director Navy Vice. Adm. Jon Hill told reporters DoD decided on a more consolidated approach for DE weapons, with an assistant director for Directed Energy working under Griffin. Once technology development got to a proper level, MDA would have access to the technology when needed to incorporate into their purview.
Before MDA worked to reestablish direct work on DE systems, two years ago an MDA official was optimistic about the potential to use laser weapons for missile defense.
At the time, MDA Executive Director Laura DeSimone said the agency backed away from DE technology because it needed more time to mature so it could deliver a high enough power level for missile defense targets with small enough size, weight and power requirements (Defense Daily, Aug. 22, 2023).
DeSimone said by 2023 MDA has seen the technology maturation and experimentation happening to such an extent that “we think that finally we’re starting to see some real progress. And so that’s why the increased emphasis,” in recent years at MDA.
Last week, the director of MDA said they have now also started work on a phased, long-range detect and track rapid prototype combined with a kill laser.
Collins noted that theoretically a high energy laser (HEL) can thin out the number of objects in a missile attack with a “nearly unlimited magazine,” and thus lower the cost per intercept/kill.
He argued MDA is now on the path to demonstrate progressively higher High Energy Laser power levels, with incremental off-ramps to military service partners who are on the path to real objective capabilities.
In another effort, Collins said MDA is supporting the joint DoD effort to determine the effectiveness of HEL weapon systems against a “series of dynamic targets.”
Under this work, he said a 2024-2025 “Probability of Weapons Effectiveness Experiment successfully engaged and negated a series of dynamics targets in crossing and head-on profiles.”
Collins did not elaborate on the nature of this experiment, including if it involved true flight tests vs. simulations.
Notably, Collins’ statement said MDA is exploring a “High Energy Laser for Regional Airborne Defense (HELRAD)” project looking to apply state-of-the-art DE systems to future MDA architectures and identify opportunities for future MDA directed energy programs.
Beyond trying to integrate lasers for regular ballistic missile defense, Collins also said the agency is “exploring non-kinetic solutions and payloads” to neutralize maneuvering hypersonic missile threats, on top of its current effort to develop a multi-layered defensive architecture for hypersonic threats.
MDA did not specify how non-energetic solutions or payloads could neutralize a hypersonic weapon. Most current higher energy level DE includes lasers that directly target a threat to destroy, disable or knock it off target and high-power microwaves to disable motors and electronic components of an enemy device, like drone swarms.
The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit has launched a new effort to find new solutions from industry for more safely taking out small drones that it aims to scale rapidly across the joint force as part of the Replicator initiative.
DIU said the Low Collateral Defeat (LCD) initiative is being executed in coordination with U.S Northern Command, the Army-led Joint Counter-small Uncrewed Aerial Systems Office (JCO) and the U.K., with plans to award prototype deals then hold evaluations within 60 days.
Image: Honeywell
“As drones rapidly evolve from slow, easily identifiable commercial systems operating on known frequencies-to faster, custom-built systems, the call for LCD capabilities is a key effort geared toward supporting warfighters with the most effective defeat options. These systems help to minimize risk to friendly forces, civilians, and infrastructure in the homeland and abroad,” DIU said.
The LCD effort aims to accelerate the ability to address UAS threats as such capabilities are being increasingly operated in “densely populated areas, in air space congested by commercial and recreational air traffic, and in an electromagnetic environment dominated by lawful users.”
“To meet the evolving challenges in countering UAS, the Department of Defense must identify and employ Low Collateral Defeat capabilities to protect high value assets from a range of threats including negligent, or uninformed drone operators – to the malicious use of numerous platforms, capable of higher speeds, and utilizing rapidly evolving communications domestically,” DIU writes in the new solicitation.
DIU Director Doug Beck previewed the LCD effort last week, noting plans to use a commercial solutions opening and that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will also be part of the initiative (Defense Daily, May 1).
The solicitation states DIU is seeking solutions to defeat Group 1 and 2 drones in situations where friendly forces or civilians are nearby, adding that LCD measures are “specifically tailored to avoid harming innocent bystanders, structures, and other non-targeted assets, and are designed with precision and control requirements with high accuracy and extremely low probability of collateral damage.
“North America faces a variety of non-traditional threats, and key among these is the use of small uncrewed aircraft systems operating near installations and critical infrastructure – addressing these threats is a top priority and essential task,” Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said in a statement.
The Pentagon this past September confirmed that the second iteration of its Replicator rapid fielding initiative would focus on counter-drone technology, outlining an 18-24 month timeline for quickly scaling up new capabilities (Defense Daily, Sept. 30, 2024).
“This project is a key step in our joint solutions approach to address the growing threats and challenges of all-domain drone warfare,” Army Maj. Gen. David Stewart, JCO director, said in a statement. “We are focused on accelerating capability development, while introducing novel operating concepts.”
DIU’s solicitation notes that any follow-on production contract for LCD may be awarded without further competition and that such a future deal “will be available for use by one or more organizations in DoD and, as a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the prototype [agreements].”
The planned evaluations within 60 days for those awarded prototype agreements will include utilizing government-provided sensors “to provide tracks and identification of targets to their solution in order to demonstrate the solution’s ability to complete the kill chain and defeat targets,” according to the solicitation.
Solutions proposed for the LCD effort must be scalable to “many locations” and have ability to integrate with existing radars, detectors, jammers and command and controls capabilities across the military services, with DIU interested in kinetic solutions as well as electronic attack and capture or entanglement capabilities for taking out small drones.
Industry is asked to detail how their LCD solutions limit impacts to high value assets and surrounding civilian populations, the range of their defeat system and details on precision, accuracy and reliability.
DIU said it prefers LCD solutions that minimize the cost per defeat, can reduce operator burden, have ability affect multiple small drones in a single engagement, are capable of operating in a range of environments, do not require precision fire control-quality track data “to avoid using high cost external sensors for cueing,” are able to operate on unclassified or classified networks as well as in GPS-denied environments.
Since this is a bilateral effort with the U.K., DIU notes that solutions will be assessed by both U.S. and U.K. government officials “with the aim of identifying potential vendors for suitability toward U.S. and UK defense applications.”
DIU has also announced a separate C-UAS “sensing event” in coordination with NORTHCOM to find solutions for scalable, cost-effective UAS detection, identification and tracking, with plans to test capabilities and award up to $1 million.
“DoD needs more options for low cost cUAS sensors that can augment our more exquisite capabilities to provide earlier warnings and indicators,” Matthew Way, DIU’s lead for C-UAS, said in the announcement. “We understand there may be trade-offs in detection range and accuracy to drive down costs versus positively enabling a distributed sensing concept.”
Up to 10 finalists will be selected to participate in the sensing event, DIU said, which will begin with an evaluation at NORTHCOM’s Falcon Peak exercise in September.
“The top performing vendors at Falcon Peak will compete for the remaining prize funding,” DIU said.
The U.S. Air Force F-47 future manned fighter by Boeing [BA] should take lessons learned from the Air Force/Navy/Marine Corps program for the Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] F-35, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel (HAC-D), said on Tuesday.
“I was pleased…that the Air Force will be moving forward with the F-47, which was unfortunately delayed at the direction of the former [Air Force] Secretary [Frank Kendall],” Calvert said at the start of a HAC-D hearing on the Air Force and U.S. Space Force’s fiscal 2026 budget. “This [F-47] craft, I think, will be critical in the future of air superiority. Given the priority of this program, I expect that it will be appropriately resourced in the president’s budget submission.”
“The [F-47] program also needs to be rigorously managed to ensure that it remains on time and on budget,” he said. “We can’t have another repeat of the F-35 program.”
In March, the Air Force chose Boeing over Lockheed Martin for the stealthy F-47, which may result in an addition of up to 3,000 workers at Boeing’s St. Louis sites, which now employ about 17,000 (Defense Daily, March 21). The F-47 award was important for Boeing St. Louis, as there were discussions about a possible loss of 2,000 workers there, if the company lost the competition.
The F-47’s open architecture may spur future competitions.
A week before leaving office at the end of the Biden administration, Kendall said that a manned Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter would require more than $20 billion extra in research and development and deferred that decision to the Trump administration, as Kendall appeared to favor less costly options to manned NGAD, including long-range strike and de-scoping the NGAD program to comprise just unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft controlled by manned fighters, such as the F-35 (Defense Daily, Jan. 13).
At Tuesday’s HAC-D hearing, Calvert referenced testimony given before HAC-D in the 1970s by the late Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy, on the risk of short tenures for managers of highly technical programs. Calvert suggested eight-year or longer program manager tenures–akin to that for Navy nuclear propulsion. Calvert said one option would be to tie such years of service to the meeting of milestones to hold program managers accountable for performance and to incentivize system delivery on time and budget.
“Whatever rationale there is to rotating personnel in and out of these [programs] frequently results in depriving the warfighter of the program that we’re trying to fund,” Calvert said. “We certainly saw that on the F-35…It didn’t quite work out the way we expected it to.”
Calvert advised that longer program manager tenure tied to meeting milestones may be key to holding highly technical programs, like F-47 and Golden Dome, on cost and schedule.
At the hearing, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin agreed with the need for the sustainment of program technical expertise and added that “there is a role for operational relevance to be fed into this.”
“When we look at the F-47, I believe we partially cracked the code on this, not only in ensuring that we have more stability in the program, but we had operators in there from the beginning, and, when you do that, then you understand the operational impact of potential acquisition or technical decisions you might make,” Allvin testified. “So I think there’s a blending there, and, associated with that, rather than just say the acquisition professionals will stay there 10, 15, 20 years, we have to understand how to promote and advance them in an agile way, and maybe it’s not the same as our operational expertise. But I wouldn’t yield only to having the technical expertise be preeminent without the operational impact and the operator in the technical mix from the beginning.”
Calvert then said that, while he was not advocating a 30-year program manager tenure, such as Rickover’s for the nuclear Navy, “certainly what we’re doing with some of these highly technical programs has not worked, and so we need to determine what we may need to do in the future.”
Space Systems Command (SSC) on Tuesday said it has awarded SciTec, Inc. a $259 million contract to deliver a ground-processing capability that supports the Space Force’s legacy and new missile warning and tracking satellites.
The current Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE) framework includes hardware and software that host overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) mission applications. The Space Force’s OPIR constellations include legacy Space-Based Infrared System satellites, the next-generation OPIR geosynchronous, polar, and medium Earth orbit spacecraft, and low Earth orbit constellations.
Under the FORGE Enterprise OPIR Solutions (EOS), SciTec will “continue the development and delivery of the FORGE framework, serving as the foundation for developing, managing, and hosting mission data processing applications,” SSC said. “This cyber-resilient, modular, and scalable framework enables the ingestion of large volumes of data, efficient upgrades, and real-time wideband processing.”
SciTec in March 2023 won a $46 million task order from SSC to continue developing the legacy SBIRS Sensors Specific Processing under the FORGE effort.
The competitive FORGE EOS Other Transaction Authority prototype agreement was awarded through the SSC Space Enterprise Consortium.
“EOS expands the aperture for industry innovation and will take the FORGE framework to the next level,” Lt. Col. Daniel Groller, SSC FORGE materiel leader, said in a statement. “By delivering a scalable, cyber-secure, and modular ground processing capability designed to meet the demands of an evolving OPIR enterprise, we ensure our warfighters have faster, more reliable access to critical missile warning and tracking data for modern warfare.”
Leidos [LDOS] on Tuesday reported strong first quarter results driven by top and bottom-line increases across its operating segments.
Net income rose 29 percent to $365 million, $2.77 earnings per share (EPS), from $283 million ($2.07 EPS) a year ago. Excluding costs related to acquisitions, integration, and restructuring, and amortization of acquired intangible assets, adjusted earnings of $2.97 EPS beat consensus estimates by 47 cents per share.
Sales increased 7 percent to $4.2 billion versus $4 billion a year ago.
At the operating level, income was higher at all four operating segments, led by the Health and Civil on higher volume in managed health services and net write ups, and Defense Systems on increased scope and improved execution on fixed-price development programs.
Sales at the defense segment were up on space sensing and hypersonic work.
Leidos’ security products business, part of the Commercial and International segment, also enjoyed a strong showing.
Leidos CEO Tom Bell on an earnings call detailed the company’s NorthStar 2030 strategy, which he first mentioned in February. The strategy consists of five growth pillars that consist of space and maritime solutions, energy infrastructure, digital modernization and cyber solutions, mission software, and managed health services.
“These growth pillars have been carefully chosen, as our analysis shows clearly that they are areas where customer needs and spending will continue to grow robustly,” Bell said.
The company also disclosed that on March 10 it agreed to acquire a company that develops offensive and defensive cyber platforms for the Defense Department—including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—and intelligence community. The $300 million deal is expected to close during the second quarter. Leidos did not disclose the name of the company.
The acquisition is the first for Leidos in nearly three years and the first under Bell’s leadership. He highlighted that cyber is a core competency of Leidos and that the deal fits within the growth pillars.
“Our pending acquisition brings additional exquisite cyber capabilities to strengthen our cyber growth pillar,” he said. “Their expertise in vulnerability research, reverse engineering, exploit development, and the converging cyber electronic warfare markets are squarely in line with our cyber strategy.”
The acquisition will also strengthen the company’s position in pursuing the $15 billion in cyber opportunities in its bid and proposal pipeline, he added.
Even though first quarter results were ahead of the company’s plans, the outlook for 2025 was unchanged. Chris Cage, the company’s chief financial officer, said the guidance is conservative as it ensures it has “capacity” amid emerging opportunities coming from the Trump administration.
Orders in the quarter were light at $2.1 billion, which Bell attributed to the typical slowdown when a new presidential administration enters office, while backlog still rose 11 percent to $46.3 billion from $41.7 billion a year ago. Free cash flow was $36.3 million.
Bollinger Shipyards and Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) have formed a strategic alliance to offer a solution to the Coast Guard’s emerging medium polar icebreaker program, the Arctic Security Cutter (ASC).
United Shipbuilding Alliance builds on Bollinger’s work designing and beginning construction of the Coast Guard’s first new heavy polar icebreaker in half a century, the Polar Security Cutter (PSC), and the company’s work designing and building patrol cutters for the service.
ECO has built four commercial icebreakers, including a used one that the Coast Guard recently purchased to help close a gap in the service’s polar icebreaking missions (Defense Daily, Nov. 26, 2024). The company also brings a bevy of experience in designing and building vessels serving the oil and gas industry, related supply, and specialty vessels.
The Louisiana-based companies said they have 144 years of combined experience building vessels for government and commercial customers, and together have 33 operational shipyard and fabrication facilities.
The Coast Guard in April issued a Request for Information for the ASC seeking feedback from domestic and global shipbuilders (Defense Daily, April 18). The service said it wants delivery of the ship within three years of contract award. A reconciliation bill wending its way through Congress would fully fund the ASC program.
“If the mission demands speed, efficiency, and innovation, the answer is clear, let American industry lead,” Bollinger President and CEO Ben Bordelon said in a statement. “The formation of the United Shipbuilding Alliance comes at a pivotal moment and answers President Trump’s call to action in making American Shipbuilding Great Again…Through his leadership, he has reignited demand, sparked competition, and challenged American industry to rise to the occasion with urgency and creativity.”
Media outlets in Finland recently reported that the Coast Guard is negotiating a deal for medium icebreakers with a Finnish shipyard, although the service has denied this. Finland is a leading designer and producer of polar icebreakers whereas the last polar icebreaking vessel built in the U.S. shipyard was the medium Healy by the former Avondale Shipyard, which has been turned into a logistics port.
Bollinger’s work on the PSC comes via its acquisition in 2022 of struggling shipbuilder VT Halter. Bollinger said VT Halter lost more than $750 million during its tenure with the program. The first of three PSCs was originally scheduled for delivery in 2024 but that date has been delayed six years due to a number of factors, including the fact that it has been decades since a U.S. shipbuilder has designed and built a polar icebreaker.
Bollinger and Edison Chouest are betting the U.S. maritime industry can play in the ASC.
“The creation of the United Shipbuilding Alliance represents a significant evolution in America’s capacity to rapidly urgent Arctic operational requirements,” ECO President and CEO Gary Chouest said in a statement. “Our collaboration underscores a dedicated commitment to ensuring America retains a decisive edge in maritime capabilities and enhancing national security within the increasingly strategic Arctic region.”
The Healy, the Coast Guard’s lone medium icebreaker, was delivered in 1999. The Polar Star, the service’s only heavy icebreaker, was delivered in 1976.
A dozen satellite companies are to benefit from the latest U.S. Space Force (USSF) 10-year contract worth up to $237 million as the USSF looks to boost spacecraft procurement. The USSF has established an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract that aims to leverage commercial solutions to reduce costs and streamline processes for the USSF Space Systems Command’s (SSC) Department of Defense (DOD) Space Test Program (STP) with the aim of driving innovation. The USSF announced the new contract awards on May 1.
The aim is to procure full lifecycle solutions for Science & Technology experiments through a Space Test Experiments Platform (STEP) 2.0 contract that has been awarded to these 12 companies. The first STEP 2.0 Delivery Order is scheduled to begin in January 2026. SSC manages a $15.6 billion space acquisition budget for the Department of Defense.
The 12 satellite companies to be a part of this contract are: Axient; Blue Canyon Technologies; General Atomics; Lockheed Martin [LMT]; Loft Orbital Federal; Lynk Global; Orbit Systems; Spire Global; Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems; Utah State University Space Dynamics Lab and York Space Systems.
“The DoD Space Test Program will gain measurable value from leveraging industry insights and capabilities to provide proven spacecraft to host the DoD’s next generation of space technologies,” USSF Lt. Col. Brian Shimek, SSC Director of the DoD Space Test Program, said in a statement.
Earnings rose at BWX Technologies [BWXT] in the first quarter, which the company partly attributed to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s intent to award it a sole source contract for an advanced uranium enrichment project.
“We had another quarter of strong commercial backlog growth and see robust opportunities for growth in our government markets, highlighted by our recent land purchase to support the National Nuclear Security Administration’s [NNSA] domestic uranium enrichment program,” Rex Geveden, CEO of BWXT, said in the company’s earnings statement.
NNSA announced in a sole-source intention notice on databases FedConnect and sam.gov April 9 that BWXT would likely be awarded a sole source contract for a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Pilot Plant. The notice said the company would design, license, construct and operate a uranium enrichment pilot plant facility to demonstrate “production readiness” of DUECE technology to establish a supply of low-enriched uranium, before transitioning to highly enriched uranium production in the future to support naval nuclear propulsion fuel production.
For this purpose, BWXT acquired 97 acres of land in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Geveden called this a “unique value proposition in energy security” in a conference call with investors.
Net earnings for the first quarter ended March 31 were $75.5 million, or $0.82 a share, up 10% from $68.5 million, or $0.75 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Quarterly revenue was $682.3 million, up 13% year-over-year from $604 million in 2024.
Quarterly segment operating income for the government operations segment, which handles government contracting for the NNSA and other DoE sites, was $97.7 million, up from $85.7 million a year ago. Segment revenue was $555.3 million, up from $487.1 million in the year-ago period.
BWXT has a virtual monopoly on the naval-nuclear reactors used in U.S. naval warships and submarines, including the Virginia-class submarines that will be sold to Australia as part of the trilateral AUKUS deal among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.
When an investor asked about President Trump’s announcement for an Office of Shipbuilding in the executive branch and how that would affect BWXT, Geveden said, “it’s too early to tell,” but “I like the White House’s posture” on “nuclear shipbuilding specifically.” He also said that Australia’s $500 million down payment toward the $3 billion promised to the U.S. for AUKUS has “started to trickle through” into the company’s capital.
The company also mentioned a win of some Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program contracts worth $2.1 billion total to manufacture naval nuclear reactor components and procure materials for Columbia and Virginia-class submarines.
After his recent reelection victory, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said he received a positive phone call from President Trump, according to an Australian publication Monday.
“We talked about AUKUS and tariffs and will continue to engage,” Albanese said, adding the two leaders would have a “face-to-face” meetup at “some time in the future.”
“It was very warm,” Albanese said. “I thank him for reaching out in such a positive way as well.”
Albanese, a member of the Australian Labor party, did not further elaborate on the call, though he had criticized what he called “unjustified” steel and aluminum tariffs that Trump levied on the country before his April 2 “Liberation Day.”
In a joint address to Congress, Trump announced a plan to establish a new White House Office of Shipbuilding to bolster domestic shipbuilding. As of early April, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee, told sister publication TheExchange Monitor he had not been consulted on the Office, “but I’ve affirmatively outreached to everybody.”
Kaine also said he was unsure whether the Office of Shipbuilding would include AUKUS, the trilateral agreement among Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. by which the U.S. plans to sell Australia three to five used and new Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s.
The United Kingdom, the other party in AUKUS, had launched a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS in early April to examine “whether the partnership is on track” and consider the “impact of geopolitical shifts” since the agreement was launched in 2021. So far, there have not been updates to this inquiry.
Aside from skepticism from the United Kingdom, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in February that Trump was familiar with and supportive of AUKUS, and Kaine told the Monitor “I know the administration is very pro-AUKUS so I’ve not picked up on skepticism.”
