Page 54 – Defense Daily

Defense Watch: F-47 Contract, Starshield Vs. SDA Layer, Large SRM, Sentinel

F-47 Contract. The Air Force award to Boeing to develop the F-47 manned Next Generation Air Dominance fighter is a cost-plus incentive-fee contract the service said last week, that includes production of “a small number of test aircraft.” The fact that the engineering manufacturing and development (EMD) contract is cost-plus removes some development risk for Boeing, which has incurred billions of dollars in losses on a number of fixed-price development contracts. When Boeing was announced as the winner on March 21 over Lockheed Martin for the F-47, the contract type and value were not disclosed. Boeing will “mature, integrate, and test all aspects of the F-47” under the EMD award, the Air Force said.

Starshield Vs. SDA Layer.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) last week said the Air Force “is considering canceling solicitations” for Space Development Agency’s Tranche 2 and 3 Transport Layers in favor of SpaceX’s Starshield communications satellites. SDA’s Transport Layers are planned to be constellations of spacecraft that speed the transmission of data and communications globally to U.S. military forces. Cramer during a March 27 Senate confirmation hearing with Troy Meink, the nominee to be Air Force secretary, asked if canceling the SDA efforts in favor of Starshield would be a good idea. Meink said he is not familiar with these discussions but highlighted that he is in favor of expanding the space industrial base. Cramer said that SDA’s founding document describes a goal to “’expand our space warfighting capability and foster growth in the U.S. space industrial base,’” adding that canceling the Transport Layer effort would leave eight or more small and mid-size companies out of the bidding process.

New Large SRM. An air-launched Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) used in a flight test last week was fueled by a new large solid rocket motor, the eSR-19, developed by L3Harris Technologies. The eSR-19 powered the first and second stages of the MRBM, which included a hypersonic target vehicle front-end to test upgraded software in of the Aegis Combat System to detect and track the target, and fire a simulated Standard Missile-6 Block IAU against the threat. The eSR-19 is an upgraded version of the SR-19 that powers the second stage of the Minuteman III ICBMs. The Missile Defense Agency and Navy conducted the test.

Missile Factory Down Under. Australia’s Defence Ministry last week said it signed a contract with Kongsberg Defence Australia to establish the first guided weapons production factory in the country. Missile production at the factory in Newcastle, NSW, is expected to begin in 2027. The factory will be the first outside Norway to manufacture and maintain Naval Strike Missiles and Joint Strike Missiles, the ministry said. The factory will supply missiles for the Australian Defence Force and international partners.

Space Force Partner. Commercial remote sensing satellite operator HawkEye 360 is participating in the U.S. Space Force’s Commercial Integration Cell, which allows the service and commercial space companies to share information with each other and coordinate responses to space events. HawkEye builds and operates a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit that detect radio frequency signals. The company said its participation in the CIC will allow it to share information on RF interference, threat intelligence, and other aspects of space situational and domain awareness.

Contested Navigation. Maxar Intelligence, which operates a fleet of electro-optic Earth observation satellites, is offering a 3D vision-based software to provide unmanned aircraft systems the ability to navigate and operate in Global Navigation Satellite System-denied environments. Pinpoint3D uses a drone camera’s full motion video feed and Maxar’s “global 3D terrain data to identify the drone’s aerial position and extract target or 3D target or delivery coordinates on the ground in real time,” Maxar said.

Hydrogen and Automation. The Air Force’s AFWERX innovation arm has awarded ZeroAvia a Small Business Innovation Research contract to study integrating a hydrogen propulsion system into a Cessna Caravan aircraft that would also include autonomous flight systems. The Washington-based company is working with Reliable Robotics on the autonomous technology. ZeroAvia said its study will examine the potential for an 8,000-pound autonomous aircraft with hydro-electric propulsion for reduced engine noise and low thermal signature to reduce detectability, and to increase range and endurance of electric unmanned aircraft systems.

3D-Printed Jet Drone. Cummings Aerospace last week said its 3D-printed Hellhound S3 turbojet suicide drone completed its first flight at an Army test range on Jan. 30 during the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment. The Alabama-based company said the Hellhound S3, which flies faster than 380 miles per hour, is designed to equip Army Infantry Brigade Combat Teams with the same combat power as Armored Brigades. Cummings said the test validated the GPS-guided missile’s ability to operate in a tactically relevant environment. More flights are planned in the coming months to bring the system to a Technology Readiness Level-7 and the company plans to submit Hellhound for the Army’s Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance program.

M109A7 Upgrade. Leonardo DRS said on March 26 it has received a $16.9 million Other Transaction Authority agreement from the Army to modernize the M109A7 Paladin self-propelled howitzer’s electric weapon control system. “The [Paladin Electric Servo Amplifier] is a critical technology to the operation of the M109A7. Under the project award, Leonardo DRS will develop a next-generation prototype with current electrical technology to improve the producibility and maintainability of the line replaceable units and enable the continued operation of the vehicle with no degradation to current capabilities,” the company said in a statement.

Signal Incident. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), leaders of the Armed Services Committee, have issued a bipartisan call for the Pentagon’s Inspector General to look into the Signal chat incident where Trump administration officials reportedly shared sensitive information on military actions in Yemen. The letter references a report from Jeffery Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, who was added to the group chat on the messaging app as officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, were apparently discussing plans for the operation. “If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” Wicker and Reed write in their letter. The SASC leaders specifically ask the DoD IG to provide the committee with an assessment on the details of the Signal chat 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. Wicker and Reed said SASC will work to have a briefing on the DoD IG’s findings “immediately upon completion of the review.”

Sentinel Lessons Learned. Secretary of the Air Force-nominee Troy Meink says that the future LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM by Northrop Grumman is needed for deterrence. “The ground leg of the nuclear triad–Minuteman III and, over time, Sentinel–are foundational to strategic deterrence and defense of the homeland,” he wrote in written answers to SASC before his nomination hearing. “If confirmed, I commit to exploring ways in which the program may be able to regain schedule and reduce cost.” On Jan. 18 last year, the Air Force said that it notified Congress that Sentinel had breached Nunn-McCurdy guidelines, primarily due to construction design changes, and then DoD acquisition chief William LaPlante ordered a root-cause analysis. The latter led last summer to the DoD decision to continue the program, due to its stated importance to strategic deterrence, but also to the rescinding of the Sentinel Milestone B engineering and manufacturing development go ahead from 2020. In response to a question from Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) at his nomination hearing on Thursday, Meink said that he would seek to apply lessons learned from the Nunn-McCurdy breach and would seek to accelerate Sentinel fielding.

…Ultra Heavy Lift. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the SASC ranking member, says that launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, Fla., “have become highly constrained due to the new class of ultra heavy rockets and the amount of standoff distance required”—constraints that Reed says have limited competition. On June 27 last year, Tory Bruno, the CEO of United Launch Alliance—a Boeing/Lockheed Martin partnership—wrote that the SpaceX Starship is a “very, very large rocket, and getting bigger,” that the “quantity of propellant requires an evacuation zone whenever fueled that includes other people’s facilities,” that weekly launches have harmful sound levels, and that Cape Canaveral “isn’t meant for a monopoly.” Meink who has been close in his job at the National Reconnaissance Office to SpaceX and Elon Musk told Reed during his nomination hearing that he would review options to alleviate launch constraints at Cape Canaveral and to spur competition, especially given the increasing number of space launch companies. “Historically, we’ve had very limited access to space launch,” Meink says. “That has grown across many companies in the U.S., but that has also led to some challenges. It’s getting very busy, very crowded, and some of these larger launch vehicles do drive different concerns than maybe we had to address in the past.”

Meink Favors Multiple Competitions Within Programs, Examining Large ‘Heavy Press’-Type Industrial Investment

Secretary of the Air Force-nominee Troy Meink says that he favors multiple competitions over modernization programs’ lifetimes and an examination of direct, “big” investment in industrial capacity akin to the post-WWII Air Force Heavy Press program.

“Capital will always flow toward return on investment, and a clear and consistent demand signal is what industry relies on to determine where that return on investment can be found,” according to Meink’s written answers to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee before his Thursday confirmation hearing. “If confirmed, I will request continued support from Congress to provide stable funding, and I will work within the Air Force to incentivize capital investment in the industrial base.”

“The tools I would use to do this include aggregating demand signals across programs, promoting multiple opportunities for competition throughout the life of programs, and identifying where direct government investment in in key industrial capabilities is needed,” Meink wrote. “In the 1950’s the Air Force Heavy Press Program built huge industrial capacity that our commercial industrial base has now relied on for decades.”

“That type of big, bold investment may be needed again,” according to Meink.

In 1944, U.S. forces’ discovery of a wrecked Messerschmitt 109 revealed that Germany had used large forging and extrusion presses to allow the use of larger and significantly fewer piece parts, as well as the use of lighter, brittle metals, such as magnesium and aluminum, for weapons. The 1918 Versailles Treaty had led to Germany’s loss of lands that produced 48 percent of its iron and a large proportion of the nation’s coal.

In 1946, the U.S. built its first heavy press and then received more presses from Germany as WWII reparations. In 1955, Pittsburgh’s Mesta Machinery, now Alcoa [AA], built a 50,000-ton heavy press in Cleveland at Air Force Plant 47–a factory that the Air Force has used for its aircraft, including the F-15.

In addition to continuous competition and a look at “big” investment in industrial base capacity, Meink has had a favorable view toward using commercial companies for defense.

As the principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, Meink spurred acceleration of the use of fixed price contracts at the agency (Defense Daily, Jan. 16).

Former space acquisition chief Frank Calvelli credited Meink with influencing his thinking on moving toward the increased use of such contracts.

Space Force Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, said last month that the service is going to continue on that commercial path (Defense Daily, Feb. 11).

“We’re really looking to explore risk exposure on our programs,” he said. “There are a couple of programs that we have that I would declare are nearly unbounded risk exposure–they’re sitting in a cost plus environment, there’s really difficult technology, and, basically, this is like future Nunn-McCurdys.”

“We’re gonna look hard at figuring how to get out of that,” Purdy said. “That’s gonna be painful on all sides. We’re gonna have discussions like how do we convert this to fixed price? How do we start breaking this apart. I wanna give a fair warning to industry out there because we’ve already given it to our program managers, and I’ve already started diving on a couple of key programs that are in that shape. That’s a multi [step] evaluation process. We’ve got to look at the requirements. A lot of times that’s one of our key problems.”

Allen Control Systems Nets $30 Million To Speed Deployment Or Robotic Gun Platform

Allen Control Systems (ACS) last week said it raised $30 million in a Series A round to accelerate its engineering growth and deployment of its Bullfrog counter-drone robotic gun system.

The funding round was led by Craft Ventures

with participation from existing investors Inspired Capital and Rally Ventures.

ACS uses computer vision, a type of artificial intelligence technology, and proprietary control systems to give its Bullfrog autonomous weapon station precision accuracy to counter unmanned threats. The Texas-based startup can equip the remote weapon station with various guns, including the M240, M134 and M2 machine guns, and M230 chain gun, to defeat up to Group 3 unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), which are those weighing under 1,320 pounds, according to its website.

Bullfrog has been used in Defense Department experimentations and will participate in the Defense Department’s Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Office counter-UAS demonstration next month.

“High-value targets around the world are at risk from small unmanned systems,” Mike Wior, co-founder and CEO of ACS, said in a statement. “The urgent need for scalable, effective air defense solutions is creating immediate opportunities across the Department of Defense, international allies, and commercial sectors. With this new investment, we will continue to strengthen ACS’ engineering capabilities and radically advance the fielding of our counter-drone technology.”

Canada Examining Alternatives to F-35A

Retired Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Lt. Gen. Yvan Blondin, who commanded the RCAF between 2012 and 2015, is advising Canada to curtail significantly the nation’s buy of Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35A fighters.

Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said this month that he plans to consider alternatives to the F-35A.

Upon becoming head of the RCAF in 2012, Blondin said that the F-35 was Canada’s best choice to replace the country’s Boeing [BA] CF-18 Hornets.

Subsequently, Canada wanted to replace the CF-18s with the F-35, but then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2015 campaign promised not to buy the aircraft, and the government eventually started an open competition.

More than two years ago, Canada finalized a $19 billion deal to buy 88 F-35As to replace the 76 CF-18s for the RCAF (Defense Daily, Jan. 9, 2023). So far, Canada has bought 16 F-35As for delivery next year.

“I/we recommended to Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper the F-35 as the best choice for Canada in 2012,” Blondin wrote in a LinkedIn post this week. “There is no question that the F-35 was the best choice for the decades long Canadian defense concept based on strong NATO and NORAD alliances and like-minded democratic nation coalitions anchored by the United States, where we were comfortable in sharing intelligence, parts, weapons, research, personnel; training together, and fighting together.”

“This reality has been shattered,” Blondin wrote. “The ‘like-mindedness’ of our most critical ally has disappeared…The reality is that, without U.S. consent, no country can hope to operate the F-35 for long. The U.S. controls its operating software, updates, upgrades, maintenance, parts and armament.”

For the Future Fighter Capability Project to replace the CF-18s, Boeing’s Super Hornet, the Gripen E by Sweden’s Saab, Airbus‘ Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault‘s Rafale, and the F-35 were the candidates, but Dassault and Airbus withdrew their offers in 2018 and 2019, respectively, partially over intelligence sharing and interoperability requirements, and Canada dismissed Boeing’s offer in 2021.

“There is time before having to commit to buy the remaining 72 [F-35A] aircraft, and we may find, for example, that 36 F-35 and 150 other fighter aircraft, such as Rafale or Gripen, could be a better strategic, economic and military posture while investing heavily in 6th gen developments,” Blondin wrote.

Officials in other countries, including Denmark and Portugal, are also re-considering whether the F-35 is their best future fighter option (Defense Daily, March 20).

Rocket Lab, Stoke Space Nab Spots On National Security Space Launch Program

Space Systems Command (SSC) on Thursday announced a potential $5.6 billion multiple award contract for its National Security Space Launch (NSSL), with Rocket Lab [RKLB] and Stoke Space Technologies being added to the nation’s portfolio of launch providers for assured access to space.

The NSSL Phase Three Lane One on-ramp in fiscal year 2025 is the first time Rocket Lab and Stoke Space have been included in the program. The companies will provide launch services for national security payloads into their intended orbits. The firm-fixed-price indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract covers four years and two months, taking it through June 2029, and includes an additional five-year ordering period.

SSC said that both companies are receiving a $5 million task order to conduct an initial capabilities assessment “and develop their approach to tailored mission assurance” which is “a tiered approach to the government’s breadth and depth of the launch vehicle baseline understanding and the associated risks to the mission.”

Rocket Lab, based in California, is providing its 13-ton Neutron reusable medium-lift launch vehicle that is designed to deploy payloads up to 13,000 kilograms. The first launch of Neutron is slated for the second half of 2025, Rocket Lab said.

Stoke, based in Washington, will supply its 100 percent reusable Nova rocket. The company says on its website that the Nova fairing can lift 3,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit in reusable mode and up to 7,000 kilograms otherwise. The rocket can also carry 2,500 kilograms to geostationary transfer orbit.

“Once Rocket Lab and Stoke Space complete their first successful launch, they will be eligible to compete for launch services and task orders on Lane 1,” Lt. Col. Douglas Downs, SSC’s material leader for space launch procurement, said in a statement Thursday evening. “We will release Requests for Proposals for additional Lane 1 launch services later this spring, and we also have several more missions we will compete in FY ’26.”

SSC previously said that Phase 3 Lane 1 includes the opportunity for annual on-ramping of emerging launch providers and systems as they become available. On Thursday the command said providers will get another chance to on-ramp to Lane 1 in the first quarter of FY ’26.

Blue Origin, SpaceX, and the Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA] United Launch Alliance joint venture were on-ramped to Lane 1 in 2024.

Kaine Eyes SASC Tightening Minimum Amphib Levels

The ranking member of a Senate panel this week said he may push to modify the Navy’s minimum amphibious warship readiness requirements in the upcoming fiscal year 2026 defense policy bill.

During a March 25 hearing on surface shipbuilding, Senate Armed Services Seapower subcommittee ranking member Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) noted a December Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said the Navy was likely to face difficulties meeting its statutory requirement to maintain at least 31 large deck amphibious ships given ship ages and conditions. However, the provision maintaining 31 amphibious warships allows them to be counted as operational if “temporarily unavailable” (

Defense Daily, Dec. 3, 2024).

The FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act first set a floor for the Navy to maintain at least 31 amphibious ships

Kaine asked testifying witness Shelby Oakley, Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions at GAO, how the Navy interprets that allowance for ships that are temporarily unavailable.

“I think that report pointed out that some of the things that were considered temporarily unavailable, were years at a time unavailable, and counted toward that total,” Oakley said.

Kaine raised the idea that in the next defense authorization bill they could take some of the ambiguity out of that phrasing and be more specific on what can be counted towards operational amphibious ships.

“I think the more specific you can be, and give direction to the Navy would be helpful, because then it leaves it up to their interpretation,” Oakley said.

She added that GAO has had recommendations dating back to a 2020 report that asks the Navy to reconsider how it defines operational availability “because oftentimes those definitions can be based upon a ship just being able to get underway, but not actually being able to do its missions.”

However, she noted the Navy has not taken any action on that recommendation yet.

Trump Metal Tariffs Could Increase Shipbuilding Costs, Navy Official Admits

On Tuesday the Navy’s top acquisition official said the steel and aluminum tariffs President Trump is putting in place could increase shipbuilding costs as significant percentages came from Canada in recent years.

During a Senate Armed Services Seapower subcommittee hearing on March 25, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition Brett Seidle if the steel and aluminum tariffs Trump announced will affect shipbuilding giving costs are already rising faster than the rate of inflation.

“So we’re having those discussions. It’s a little early, from an assessment perspective. Probably about half of our aluminum and a third of our steel in [2023] came from Canada. Clearly, tariffs in those arenas could drive costs,” Seidle said.

“But having said that, the steel plate and bar for our shipbuilding efforts, most of it is domestically sourced, but we are expecting impacts, but we don’t have our hands around yet just what those impacts are,” he continued.

Kaine asked if it “would it be hard or easy to go from 66% domestic to 100% domestic, [snaps fingers] like that?”

Seidle started to respond that he doesn’t have the specific information on that change and Kaine responded, “it’d be hard.”

Earlier this month, Trump imposed an effective increase of 25 percent tariffs on Canadian aluminum, steel and steel derivative products.

Separately, Shelby Oakley, Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions at GAO, underscored the agency’s overall perspective that the Navy’s ship construction programs are based in optimism rather than realism.

“When we’re talking about realism, we don’t just mean that they can’t do what they put on paper under their current budget. We mean that they can’t do what they put on paper at all.”

She argued the Navy programs often have multiple problems: the business cases are not realistic, assure new technology will mature in time, assume a new design will work out, and that a system will get to the right point on time. Then, on top of that, the Navy structures the cost and schedule estimates for a program around those optimistic assumptions.

“And then they don’t arrive, and then that causes cascading delays and problems. And so then the overall top line that’s required increases, instead of putting in the work at the beginning to gain the knowledge that you need to be able to understand, here’s what it’s going to take to get there, both from a cost and schedule perspective, and then putting forth those realistic budget estimates, those realistic schedule estimates that match with that.”

Later in the hearing when Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) argued the Navy has to decide on a point in shipbuilding where change orders have to stop, allowing production to proceed without delay, Oakley said that can only happen if the Navy did enough work on the front end to understand they can build the ship they designed.

“So, our recommendations would focus on doing that upfront work so that you can snap that chalk line and be assured of the ship that you’re building and the timeframes and costs with which you’re going to be able to build it.”

Lockheed Martin To Integrate Google Cloud AI Technology Into Toolkit

Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Google’s [GOOG] Public Sector business said they plan to collaborate on integrating advanced generative artificial intelligence capabilities into a larger AI workspace the aerospace and defense giant maintains to bolster solutions for its customers.

The companies announced their intent to integrate Google Cloud’s technology into Lockheed Martin’s AI Factory ecosystem, which also includes tools supplied by the likes of Facebook parent

Meta Platforms [META] and IBM [IBM]. Lockheed Martin said its ecosystem leverages open-source and proprietary AI models.

Google Cloud calls its platform Vertex AI, which it said “helps organizations train, deploy, and customize large language models securely and at scale,” complementing Lockheed Martin’s AI Factory.

The capabilities that Google Cloud will supply will help Lockheed Martin in areas such as advanced intelligence analysis, real-time decision making, predictive aerospace maintenance, optimized engineering designs, robust supply chains, secure software development, customized workforce training, and accelerated scientific discoveries, the company said.

“Lockheed Martin and Google Cloud share a vision to bring new innovation to the industry with AI,” Jim Kelly, vice president of federal for Google Public Sector, said in a statement. “Our Google Cloud AI technologies will provide Lockheed Martin with a powerful toolset to address some of their most demanding issues faster than ever before.”

Boeing Awarded $240 Million To Deliver Five More MH-47G Block II Chinooks

Boeing [BA] has received a $240 million contract covering delivery of five MH-47G Block II Chinook heavy-lift aircraft for U.S. Army Special Operations Aviation Command (USASOAC), the company said on Thursday.

Deliveries of the remanufactured MH-47G Block II aircraft, upgraded from the Block I configuration, are scheduled to begin in 2027.

MH-47G. Photo: Boeing.

“Supporting the needs of our special operators continues to be critically important,” Heather McBryan, Boeing’s vice president and program manager of cargo programs, said in a statement. “USASOAC has unique and complex mission requirements, so it’s vital we provide the enhanced capabilities of the MH-47G Block II as quickly as possible.”

The MH-47G Block II is the upgraded Special Operations variant of the Chinook platform, with Boeing having now been contracted for 51 of the aircraft.

“With a reinforced airframe, redesigned fuel tanks, state-of-the-art avionics and a design that enables future affordable modernization efforts, the aircraft is well positioned to fly for decades to come,” Boeing said in a statement.

The latest award follows two separate deals Boeing received in 2024 covering a total of four MH-47G Block IIs, to include a $115 million order awarded last June covering two aircraft (Defense Daily, Aug. 2 2024).

Boeing last June also delivered the first CH-47F Block II Chinook to the U.S. Army, as the service works toward a Milestone C decision to move the program into full-rate production this year (Defense Daily, July 1, 2024).

A total of three CH-47F Block IIs have been delivered to the Army to date, a Boeing spokesperson confirmed to Defense Daily.

Block II upgrades for Boeing’s CH-47F Chinook include an improved drivetrain, increased range, a redesigned fuel system and an ability to lift an additional 4,000 pounds.

Japan recently signed a deal to acquire 17 of Boeing’s CH-47 Block II Chinooks Extended Range heavy-lift helicopters, the company said in February. Those aircraft will be co-produced with Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries as the prime contractor (Defense Daily, Feb. 13).

Air Force Secretary Nominee Plans Comprehensive Review Of Modernization And Readiness

If confirmed as secretary of the Air Force, Troy Meink will undertake a review of the service’s modernization and readiness needs and costs, he told a Senate panel on Thursday.

The Air Force is modernizing or assessing modernization needs across its core mission areas, including fighter aircraft, and the bomber and ICBM legs of the nuclear triad, so “One of the first things I plan to do is take a holistic look at all of the modernization and all the readiness bills that we have coming, and then I will put together and advocate for what resources I think are necessary to execute all of those missions,” Meink told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing.

The review will look at the numbers of platforms the Air Force needs and how fast they are needed to support active duty and reserve units, Meink said. The review will include the planned number of fighter aircraft versus overall requirements, and the resources to acquire F-35 fighters, maintain fourth generation fighters like the F-15E, and transition to the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) manned fighter and related unmanned systems, he said.

Meink said his review with Air Force leaders would include the number of B-21s needed. The current program calls for 100 of the stealth bombers, which are in low-rate production by Northrop Grumman [NOC], although U.S. Strategic Command has signaled a need for 145 of the aircraft.

“I understand the B-21 program is currently meeting its goals, we should look carefully at the total numbers of the long-term bomber force, comprised of B-21s and modernized B-52s,” he wrote.
Meink said he has not received a detailed briefing yet on NGAD but said it will be a focus area of his, noting that the unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft and other unmanned systems, and the “integration of those different type of platforms with ISR and other capabilities” will be required to deter aggressors.

The Air Force last week selected Boeing [BA] to develop and build the F-47, which is the manned NGAD (Defense Daily, March 21).

As for fourth generation aircraft, Meink told the committee in written responses to policy questions before the hearing that these fighters will be important “in all but the densest and most advanced threat environments around the world.” The closer the threat gets to China, fifth generation fighters become more important, he wrote.

Still as fourth generation aircraft age and newer fighters are produced, the continual shift to fifth generation fighters will be necessary as threats grow, and to “efficiently and effectively manage readiness and sustainment over the coming decades,” he wrote.

Asked ahead of the hearing about the current size, structure and resourcing of the Air Force, Meink answered that based on “open-source reporting,” the service is smaller and older than it has ever been, highlighting his concern with some fleets having mission capable rates of about 50 percent. Meink will work with Congress to fill any shortfalls, he wrote.

Meink also in his advance answers outlined three significant challenges he would face as Air Force secretary. “First is the need for resilient space architectures,” which includes leveraging commercial industry “as much as possible, buying what we can and only building what we absolutely must,” he wrote.

Currently deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and operates high-end remote sensing satellites and acquires imagery and sensing data from commercial providers, Meink told the panel he expects commercial space companies will continue to play a growing role, adding he will take lessons learned from his NRO role to the Air Force if confirmed.

“Widely proliferated space capabilities that leverage commercial industry deny our adversaries any ‘first-mover’ advantage and thus have a deterrent effect on conflict in the space domain,” he wrote.

The second challenge facing the Air Force is “auditability,” Meink said. Here, Meink said he would rely on his experience at NRO and the use of artificial intelligence to strengthen controls.

Maintaining the Air Force’s technological edge over near-peer adversaries is the third challenge, he cited. This requires shortening acquisition cycles and prioritizing resources against the biggest threats, he wrote.