Page 58 – Defense Daily

NROL-69 Mission Successfully Launches From Cape Canaveral

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and U.S. Space Force on Monday successfully launched and delivered into orbit a national security payload aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle from Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., the agency said.

The launch of the NROL-69 mission at 1:48 pm EDT was the first NRO mission launch with SpaceX using the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract awarded in August 2020. United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT], was the other awardee for the second phase.

NROL-69 is the first NRO mission launched with SpaceX from the NSSL Phase 2 contract awarded in August 2020.

Following delivery of the NRO payload to orbit, the Falcon 9 reusable booster landed safely to Landing Zone 1 at the Cape.

The NROL-69 million was the fifth NRO launch so far in 2025—about a dozen are planned—and follows closely on the heels of the successful NROL-57 mission last Friday morning from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., also aboard a Falcon 9 rocket (Defense Daily, March 21). NROL-57 is the eighth in NRO’s proliferated architecture.

All-Domain Integration Key Enabler For Golden Dome Missile Defense Shield, Guetlein Says

For the Defense Department and industry achieving the Trump administration’s goal of a comprehensive homeland missile defense system will be ensuring that current and future technologies deployed are networked with each other across all domains, the vice chief of space operations said last week.

Much of what is necessary for Golden Dome for America is in place but these capabilities have not been connected, Gen. Michael Guetlein said at the annual McAleese Conference.

“We are very good at building stovepipe capabilities for the Space Force, for the Air Force, for the Army, for the Navy, for Missile Defense Agency,” he said. “The real magic in Golden Dome is going to be our ability to integrate across all of those organizational boundaries into a seamless capability that is going to require the integration of space with missile defense that we haven’t traditionally done, the integration of missile defense with the air layer, integration of the air layer with the sea layer. That’s going to be our biggest challenge.”

The Space Development Agency, an acquisition arm of the U.S. Space Force focused on developing a new Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, is developing and fielding data transport and missile detection and tracking spacecraft in low Earth orbit that would be an integral part to a future Golden Dome system of systems.

Asked during the event how industry can help, Guetlein said the “kit” that will make up Golden Dome is still being discussed but the network integration will require technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, data orchestration processing, and “reliable” all-domain communications.

Industry can also help by taking advantage of its customer networks to ensure different customers are aware of what the others are doing related to a homeland missile defense system, Guetlein said.

“You may think I know what the Navy up to,” he said. “I will tell you I don’t have any idea what the Navy is up to. But if you said, ‘Hey, you need to call, you know, general or admiral or commander such and such,’ that would be a huge service to us, to get us talking about how to connect these pieces better together.”

HII Nabs Army Award To Develop High-Energy Laser Weapon

HII [HII] will develop and test a prototype high-energy laser (HEL) weapon system to defeat unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) with a goal to transition into production under a contract with an Army office focused on expediting prototyping and fielding critical capabilities sought by combatant commanders.

The value and period-of-performance of the HEL award were not disclosed. The laser work is new for HII’s Mission Technologies segment.

HII said its HEL weapon system will feature an open architecture, be capable of fixed-site defense and integration into Army vehicles, and acquire, track, and destroy Group 1, 2, and three UAS, which includes drones with a maximum gross takeoff weight less than 1,320 pounds. The company said the system would be used in multi-domain operations.

The award was made by the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office with the eventual aim to transition the HEL system to the Army’s Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space, HII said. The system will be field tested and if successful, “is expected to transition into low-rate initial production,” HII said.

As part of the open architecture plans, HII said it will provide data to compete subsystems and key components in support of the Army’s goals for interoperability, affordability, scalability, supply chain resilience, and rapid innovation.

“The weapon system will allow the Army to interchange subsystems and software as the weapon evolves to meet national security demands,” HII said.

Army Awards Lockheed Martin $213 Million For 12 More Sentinel A4 Radars

The Army has awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] $213 million for production of 12 more Sentinel A4 radars, with deliveries to begin in early 2027.

The latest low-rate initial production (LRIP) order arrives as the Sentinel A4 continues through initial operational test and evaluation, with a full-rate production and subsequent contract award expected next year.

Sentinel A4. Photo: Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin’s Sentinel A4 is the Army’s replacement for the Sentinel A3, built by Thales and RTX [RTX], and the first five radars were delivered to the service in late May 2022 (Defense Daily, June 10 2022).

The upgraded version of the Sentinel radar, which provides air surveillance and fire control data, transitions the system to Active Electronically Scanned Array technology and is designed to identify and track multiple threats simultaneously, including cruise missiles, unmanned aerial systems, rotary wing and fixed wing aircraft, and rocket, artillery, and mortar threats.

A total of 10 Sentinel A4 radars have been delivered to date, an Army spokesperson confirmed to Defense Daily.

The Army in the summer of 2023 awarded Lockheed Martin an initial LRIP contract for 19 additional Sentinel A4 radars (Defense Daily, Nov. 7 2023).

David Kenneweg, Lockheed Martin’s director of multi-mission air defense programs, previously told Defense Daily that initial deliveries of those 19 radars will begin in the second half of 2025 and that some will be used for the defense of Guam.

The Missile Defense Agency has noted that the future Guam Defense System will include the Lockheed Martin Aegis combat system, RTX’s Standard Missile (SM)-3 and SM-6 missiles and the Northrop Grumman [NOC] Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) as well as the Sentinel A4 as one of its key sensors (Defense Daily, March 29 2022).

Chandra Marshall, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of radar and sensor systems, has said the Army’s plan is to work on integrating Sentinel A4 into the IBCS architecture in the 2026 timeframe, while Kenneweg adding that Lockheed Martin has already vetted out the radar’s software interface to ensure integration with the future air and missile defense command platform.

GD To Unveil Pandur SHORAD, Eyeing Army’s Interest In Lighter Platform To Protect Troops

General Dynamics Land Systems [GD] next week will unveil a version of the Pandur 6X6 combat vehicle outfitted with a short range air defense (SHORAD) capability, which it sees as a solution to meet the Army’s potential requirement for a lighter platform to protect dismounted maneuver forces.

Ray Moldovan, a U.S. business development manager for GD Land Systems, told

Defense Daily the decision to pursue the Pandur SHORAD concept followed the Army’s release of a Request for Information last year for the fourth increment of its Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (M- SHORAD) effort.

Pandur SHORAD. Photo: General Dynamics Land Systems.

“[That’s] where the Army is looking for a lighter weight solution for lightweight formations,” Moldovan said. “We thought, in terms of design maturity, competence and its high level of survivability, protection and mobility, that [Pandur] seemed like a good fit to address the joint forcible entry mission and lighter formation support in SHORAD-based platform.”

GD Land Systems currently delivers the Army’s M-SHORAD Inc. 1, the Stryker-mounted “SGT Stout” platform designed to take down unmanned aircraft systems, rotary-wing and fixed-wing threats, as well as cruise missiles.

Leonardo DRS supplies the mission equipment package for SGT Stout, which includes the Moog [MOG.A] Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP) turret, the XM914 30mm cannon and M240 machine gun, Stinger and Hellfire missiles and Rada USA’s Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar.

Last May, the Army released an RFI seeking industry’s input on potential solutions for an M-SHORAD Inc. 4 solution that could be integrated on lighter vehicles and ground robots to support dismounted maneuvers (Defense Daily, May 10 2024).

“Candidate solutions to deliver M-SHORAD Increment 4 capability to dismounted maneuver, joint forcible entry (JFE) and light mounted maneuver forces must be supported by current demonstrated company experience,” the Army wrote in the RFI.

Moldovan noted the Pandur SHORAD, set to be shown for the first time at next week’s AUSA Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, will have the same turret and payload package as the SGT Stout and the SHORAD version of its Tracked Robot X-Ton (TRX) robotic vehicle the company brought to the same conference in 2023 (Defense Daily, March 23 2023).

“Just like we did with TRX SHORAD in showing we can integrate this fielded capability on a different platform, we took this approach with Pandur as well,” Moldovan said. “There’s a lot of benefit, I think, to our Army customer in not having to qualify and field these different types of turrets and capabilities onto different platforms. So we have a little bit of commonality there.”

The Pandur 6×6 EVO, built by GD’s European Land Systems business, has a gross vehicle weight of around 40,000 pounds, about 20,000 pounds lighter than a Stryker, which Moldovan said would allow for “increased inter-theater transportability and increased mobility” for light formations.

Moldovan noted the Pandur SHORAD also includes additional space for robotic systems operating stations inside the vehicle.

GD Land Systems is planning to bring both the Pandur SHORAD and TRX SHORAD to Army’s Maneuver and Fires Integrated Experiment (MFIX) at Fort Sill in Oklahoma this July, which will be showcasing the ability to control robotic and uncrewed vehicles from inside the Pandur.

“And that gets after increased combat power without increasing troop count. So there’s a force multiplication factor that we have with this system of systems,” Moldovan said.

The second increment for M-SHORAD is the DE M-SHORAD effort, with RTX [RTX] providing a 50-kilowatt laser and beam director that Kord Technologies integrates on Stryker vehicles.

The Army’s third increment for M-SHORAD is the NGSRI program, with Lockheed Martin [LMT] and RTX working on the Stinger missile replacement effort (Defense Daily, March 28 2023).

Trump Suggests F-47 Will Be Exportable

In announcing Boeing [BA] as the winner of the Air Force’s F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) manned fighter, President Trump said U.S. allies are interested in the sixth-generation aircraft and that they might be able to buy some.

“Our allies are calling constantly,” he said last Friday at the White House. “They want to buy them also, and we’ll certain allies will be selling them. Perhaps toned-down versions.” In his rambling way, the president was saying the U.S. will sell F-47s to “certain allies.”

Having a toned-down export version of the sixth-generation F-47 air superiority would be a hedge in case current allies are not U.S. allies in the future, Trump said.

“We like to tone them down about 10 percent, which probably makes sense because someday maybe they’re not our allies, right?” the president said.

Some NATO allies operate U.S. fighter aircraft, including the fifth-generation F-35 multi-role fighter. The Air Force’s current F-22 air superiority fighter, the fifth-generation F-22, is no longer in production and was never exported. Lockheed Martin [LMT] builds the F-35 and built the F-22, which is still being upgraded.

But NATO allies are concerned that under Trump, and maybe beyond his final four-year term, the U.S. will not defend Europe if Russia attacks it. These concerns have also prompted U.S. allies in Europe to begin to wean themselves off of some advanced defense systems they acquire from the U.S.

Trump has frequently suggested that the U.S. would not come to the aid of NATO if it gets into a war, namely with Russia. The president has threatened new tariffs on European allies, and Canada, which is also a NATO member, while at the same time withholding aid from Ukraine to get that country to agree to a ceasefire with Russia.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 unprovoked but Trump usually parrots Russian President Vladimir Putin’s theme that Ukraine is at fault. In pressing Ukraine to negotiate a ceasefire, Trump has not threatened Russia with any new measures.

The value of the engineering and manufacturing development contract with Boeing was not disclosed. The first aircraft are expected to fly in the next few years.

“We’re given an order for a lot,” Trump said. “We can’t tell you the price, because it would give way to some of the technology and some of the size of the plane. Good sized plane.”

Australia To Buy $125 Million In MK-48 Torpedoes

The Australian defense ministry on Friday announced it agreed to buy $125 million worth of MK-48 heavyweight torpedoes for current and future submarines.

The government said procuring more of these torpedoes, designed to target both submarines and surface vessels, will “deliver a critical boost” to the capabilities of the current Collins-class diesel electric submarines and will be used on its future nuclear-powered submarines, set to be procured starting in the 2030s.

Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia plans to buy three to five Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s before starting to domestically produce the SSN-AUKUS boat in the 2040s.

MK-48 is the result of a joint program between the U.S. and Australian governments, with hardware and software developed in both countries. It is built by Lockheed Martin [LMT] and SAIC [SAIC].

“This boost to our stocks of MK-48 Heavy Weight Torpedoes also demonstrates the Government’s commitment to deliver on priorities in the 2024 National Defence Strategy that contribute to the strategy of denial,” Minister for Defense Industry and Capability Delivery Pat Conroy said in a March 21 statement.

“The continuous joint development of the MK-48 Heavy Weight Torpedo provides the Australian Navy with the latest technology to counter current and future threats. This acquisition is a testament to Australia’s strong, long-standing alliance with the United States,” he continued.

The defense ministry said these torpedoes will be procured as sections assembled and tested at the Torpedo Maintenance Facility in Western Australia. The facility is certified to also assemble, maintain and test the torpedoes for U.S. Navy vessels.

Defense Watch: DPA Importance, Duffey Nom, Shipbuilding Office

$2 Billion. In the last few years, Congress has stepped up investments under the Defense Production Act, which Congress is to reauthorize this year. “In recent years, spurred by the COVID crisis and the war in Ukraine, there’s been fresh understanding of the importance of America’s domestic production capability, from medicine to minerals to munitions,” says Steve Morani, a senior executive service member performing the duties of DoD acquisition chief. “In response, over the past three fiscal years, nearly $2 billion in Defense Production Act funding has been obligated to enhance domestic industrial capacity for microelectronics, castings and forgings, batteries, solid rocket motors, energetics, and more.” Morani’s office is overseeing implementation of DoD’s first National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), released by the Biden administration in January last year. NDIS “focuses on deterrence throughout the Indo-Pacific, and in doing so we are aligning industrial base investments to support priorities laid out by the President [Trump] and [Defense] Secretary [Pete] Hegseth,” Morani says. “America’s ability to deter China will depend in large part on production capacity, as well as innovating new capabilities and warfighting approaches, and right now we don’t have enough of it, at least for crucial weapons and supply chain.”

…Duffey Nomination

. Trump nominated Michael Duffey to be Pentagon acquisition chief on Dec. 22 last year, but, three months later, he has not had a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). Duffey served as the associate director for national security programs in the White House Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a SASC member, has asked for answers from Duffey on his role in freezing $250 million in congressionally approved aid to Ukraine in 2019.

MESA Combat ID. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Boeing, and Northrop Grumman “recently developed” and flight tested at RAAF Williamstown improved combat identification for Northrop Grumman’s Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA), Northrop Grumman says. The advanced radar is carried on Australia’s Boeing-built E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning aircraft. “Rather than simulating performance via a testbed aircraft, an in-service E-7 was utilized to perform these flight tests, reflecting the technical maturity and mission readiness of these capabilities,” Northrop Grumman says. “Flying in a true mission environment with these advanced capabilities for the first time, MESA identified air threats and securely processed key intel faster than ever before.” The U.S. Air Force is buying Wedgetail to help replace its 16 1970s-era Boeing E-3 AWACS planes.

NRO Proliferated Architecture. The National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) NROL-57 mission reached orbit after an early Friday NRO/U.S. Space Force Launch Delta 30 lift-off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launch is the eighth for the agency’s proliferated architecture. “About a dozen” NRO launches are scheduled this year–“approximately half” of which are to advance that proliferated architecture, the agency says.

Navy Training. HII on March 18 announced it won a $147 million contract to support shipboard and shore-based combat training services for the Navy. The five-year task order covers HII providing engineering support for every aspect of training systems under the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Dam Neck Activity (NSWCDD DNA), including hardware, software subsystems and elements. Tasks include integrated training system hardware and software installation, system certification and testing, troubleshooting, repair and lifecycle sustainment.

Oiler Fleet Task. The Navy announced its first-in-class fleet replenishment oiler, the USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205), became the first ship of the class to conduct a fleet task under the U.S. 3rd Fleet by refueling the USS Mustin (DDG-89) off the coast of Southern California on March 15. The Lewis was officially introduced into the fleet as a trained and certified ship on March 10 and is now fleet operational and set to depart on its first deployment later in 2025. This class can carry 162,000 barrels of diesel ship fuel, aviation fuel and dry stores cargo and is set to replace the aging Kaiser-class fleet of replenishment oilers.

Aussie LRASM. The Australian defense ministry announced its AGM-159C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) is ready for operational use following a successful live firing off the coast of California in February. Australia has allocated $561 million to acquire LRASM, which the ministry noted will increase the Royal Australian Air Force’s maritime strike range to over 370 km. The government said testing included validation of weapons preparation and loading, targeting and engagement. It also simulated a long-range maritime strike, supported by Australian E-7A Wedgetail and EA-18G Growler aircraft and a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon. This is part of a larger effort to invest $17.5 billion to $22 billion to enhance the military’s targeting and long-range strike capabilities.

New Hypersonic Facility. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions last week broke ground on a $50 million 68,000-square-foot office, laboratory, integration and test complex that will be used to integrate experimental payloads to increase the cadence of hypersonic flight testing. The Indiana Payload Integration Facility (IPIF) in Crane, Ind., is expected to achieve operational readiness by late 2026. The IPIF will support the Defense Department’s Multi-Service Advanced Capabilities Hypersonic Testbed program, which is aimed at creating an affordable flight-test bed to rapidly increase U.S. capacity to conduct hypersonic flight testing. Kratos in January nabbed a potential $1.5 billion award order for the MACH-TB 2.0 task area, which the company said provides a bridge between ground tests and system level flight tests.

Standardized Cyber Hunting. The Defense Innovation Unit last week said it awarded prototype contracts in February to Omni Federal, Parson Corp.’s Sealing Technologies, and World Wide Technology to deliver deployable Joint Cyber Hunt Kit (JCHK) that U.S. Cyber Command will use to hunt for advanced persistent threats. The rapidly deployable JCHK leverages commercial solutions that standardize cyber incident response kit across coalition and joint forces. DIU described the JCHK as a “mobile ‘security operations center in a box’ that can be transported by a nine-person team, anywhere in the world.” Britain and Australia also worked on the project.

…Hydrogen at the Edge. Prototype hydrogen generation systems have been delivered to two Marine Corps bases for operator testing of power produced at the tactical edge, DIU also said last week. NovaSpark Energy and Zepher Flight Labs in April 2024 were each awarded contracts under the Hydrogen at the Tactical Edge of Contested Logistics (HyTEC) to provide prototypes that produce hydrogen in austere environments. The prototype systems were delivered to units on Marine Corps Base Hawaii and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma to produce power that “will be used to operate fuel cell-powered UAS, small tactical electrical generators, and weather and communications balloons,” David Lorio, DIU HyTEC program manager, said in a statement. DIU, Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office, and the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific are partners on the project.

Startup News. New startup Distributed Spectrum, which is developing software and sensors to “let anyone identify critical radio signals across defense missions,” last week announced an oversubscribed $25 million Series A funding round. Founded several months ago, the small New York City-based company said it closed more than $7 million in Defense Department contracts in 60 days. Distributed Spectrum said its machine learning-based products are being used in Ukraine to help front line forces identify threats.

…New Hivemind Partner. Expanding its roster of partners working with its Hivemind autonomy technology, Shield AI last week said it is working with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) to accelerate development of artificial intelligence pilots for aircraft. KAI will use Hivemind Enterprise “to rapidly verify its independently developed AI pilot technologies through various methods and elevate the to a world-class level,” KAI said. Shield AI’s Hivemind Enterprise includes an autonomy factory, middleware, an autonomy catalog, and mission control for developers to build their own autonomy solutions.

…New Software Security Firm. The venture capital firm Red Cell Partners last week publicly launched Hunted Labs, emerging from stealth with $3 million in pre-seed funding to bring AI-powered products that give organizations “end-to-end visibility into their software supply chains, allowing them to quickly identify, and eliminate, malicious threats,” the company said. Hunted Labs also has a $1.8 million Small Business Innovation Research Direct-to-Phase II contract with the Space Development Agency for the company to continue to develop Entercept, a product to give customers “command and control over their software supply chain,” it said.

Autonomy. Overland AI on March 18 announced its new SPARK offering, a “comprehensive autonomy upfit” that can turn any ground vehicle into an autonomous platform utilizing the company’s OverDrive software stack. “Designed for rapid deployment across existing military fleets, SPARK provides an immediate path to autonomy without the extended procurement timelines typically associated with new autonomous systems,” the company said in a statement. Overland AI said SPARK enables integration of the OverDrive autonomy software on an “ultra-compact compute module that fits in most vehicles.” “Its perception system uses LiDAR and stereo cameras to see through darkness, dust, and storms, while tracking movement via integrated GPS, IMU, and speed encoders. The system’s modular, drive-by-wire design allows for rapid installation with minimal modifications to the host vehicle, preserving manual control capabilities when needed,” Overland AI said.

Australia FMS. The State Department on March 18 said it has approved a potential $165 million foreign military sale with Australia for decoy flares, flare countermeasures, flare countermeasures, chaff cartridges and impulse cartridges. “The proposed sale will improve Australia’s capability to meet current and future threats by protecting and increasing aircraft survivability,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement. The contractors for the pending deal would include Kilgore Flares, Armtec Countermeasures, Alloy Surface Co. and CCI Capco.

Saudi Arabia FMS. The State Department on March 20 then announced a potential $100 million FMS case with Saudi Arabia for 2,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems (APKWS) II all-up rounds. Along with the BAE Systems-supplied APKWS, Saudi Arabia would also receive support equipment, missile software and engineering and logistics support services. “The proposed sale will improve the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s capability to meet current and future threats and give it the ability to precisely engage targets with much less risk of collateral damage than other guided missile systems,” the DSCA said in a statement.

Shipbuilding Office. Ian Bennitt, a special assistant to President Trump and senior director for White House shipbuilding and maritime initiatives, is leading the administration’s new Office of Shipbuilding, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said this week. Wittman, vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters following remarks at this week’s McAleese Conference that Bennitt used to work on the HASC Seapower Subcommittee staff and previously spent time with the Shipbuilding Council of America. Trump, in his recent joint address to Congress, announced the new office and said it will focus on both military and commercial shipbuilding, to include offering tax incentives to help improve domestic capacity.

IBCS Software. Ultra Intelligence & Communications said on March 19 it has received a five-year, $86.8 million Other Transaction Authority agreement from the Army to deliver advanced software prototypes for the Northrop Grumman-built Integrated Battle Command System mission command systems that will be deployed in support of Guam defense operations. “Ultra I&C will integrate its ADSI software platform, providing comprehensive Link-16 interoperability, MIL-STD and tactical data link interfaces and force operations data within the IBCS architecture,” the company said in a statement. “Additionally, the company will deliver seamless Link-16 interoperability capabilities alongside state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and machine learning integration to meet emerging battlefield requirements.”

Wicker/Rogers’ Concern. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee, issued a joint statement on March 19 stating they’re “very concerned” with reports the Trump administration may be considering unilateral changes “on major strategic issues, including significant reductions to U.S. forces stationed abroad, absent coordination with the White House and Congress.” The statement followed an NBC News report on March 19 that Trump was considering withdrawing the U.S. from its role as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and canceling plans to modernize U.S. Forces Japan. “We support President Trump’s efforts to ensure our allies and partners increase their contributions to strengthen our alliance structure, and we support continuing America’s leadership abroad. As such, we will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress,” Wicker and Rogers said.

Antitrust Approvals. New space economy company Redwire Corp. last Friday said it has received all regulatory approvals for its pending $925 million acquisition of Edge Autonomy, which would give it a play in unmanned aircraft systems. U.S, Canadian, Latvian, and United Kingdom regulators all granted their approvals. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025, pending approval by Redwire’s stockholders.

Boeing Edges Lockheed To Win F-47 NGAD Fighter Contract That Air Force Says Offers More Range, Stealth, Sustainability

The Air Force last Friday awarded Boeing [BA] the contract to build the first sixth-generation manned fighter aircraft that it said will have more stealth, range, maneuverability, sustainability, readiness, and adaptability to meet future threats than the fifth-generation air superiority fighter it will replace, the F-22.

The value of the F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform award is classified and comes after nearly five years of flying experimental test planes, President Donald Trump said in announcing the award from the White House.

The engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) award to Boeing is a bit of a surprise as the company’s defense business has been struggling for years with a number of fixed-price development aircraft programs that have resulted in billions of dollars in cost overruns and schedule delays.

Lockheed Martin [LMT], which also vied for the manned NGAD, was thought to be the frontrunner but it too has had trouble developing the F-35 fighter, a multi-role aircraft being acquired by Air Force, Navy, and Marines Corps.

“There will be questions about the company’s bid strategy, the development and production contract type, and the technical complexity of the aircraft,” Roman Schweizer, an aerospace and defense analyst with TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group, wrote in a client note.

The Air Force said the EMD contract covers “maturing, integrating, and testing all aspects of the F-47” and includes “competitively priced options for low-rate initial production.” The Defense Department’s five-year budget plan for fiscal year 2025 has $20 billion for NGAD, which stemmed from the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, kicked off in 2015 by Frank Kendall when he served as former President Obama’s DoD acquisition chief.

Kendall has said that the initiative led to a contract before the end of the Obama administration to investigate needed technologies for a sixth-generation fighter. Before the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) had spearheaded an Air Dominance Initiative–a two-year study, begun in 2013, on a “family of systems” approach that would tie together sensors, weapons and battle management for a future fighter.

Trump and the top Air Force officer said on Friday that risk has already been brought down on the sixth-generation F-47.

“The F-47 will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built,” Trump said in the Oval Office while flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, and Lt. Gen. Dale White, military deputy to the Air Force Acquisition and Technology Office. “An experimental version of the plane has secretly been flying for almost five years, and we’re confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation.”

In addition to the experimental flights, additional risk reduction on the program has been made, Trump said. There will be aircraft flying during his administration, over the “next couple of years,” he said. “It’s ready to go. They’ve already built much of what has to be built in terms of production, including the sheds.”

Allvin in a statement released by the Air Force said X-planes for the program have flown “hundreds of hours, testing cutting-edge concepts, and proving that we can push the envelope of technology with confidence. These experimental aircraft have demonstrated the innovations necessary to mature the F-47’s capabilities, ensuring that when we committed to building this fighter, we knew we were making the right investment for America.”

The NGAD effort has allowed the Air Force to rapidly develop technology and refine “operational concepts” to the point that the aircraft will be fielded “faster than ever before,” Allvin said, echoing Trump’s comments that the F-47 will fly during his administration. The plane’s “unprecedented maturity…at this phase in the program confirms its readiness to dominate the future fight,” he added.

In September 2020, Will Roper, the head of research, development, and acquisition for the Air Force in Trump’s first administration, said that a full-scale demonstrator of the manned NGAD had flown (Defense Daily, Sept. 15, 2020). He credited digital engineering in advancing the program and breaking “a lot of records in the doing.”

A separate Air Force release on Friday said the service had partnered with DARPA on NGAD, noting the program has advanced “stealth, range, and autonomous systems while refining operational concepts.”

Allvin also said the F-47 will cost less than the F-22 and be more adaptable, supportable, and “require significantly less manpower and infrastructure to deploy.” NGAD is designed to be adaptable, he said.

Some of that adaptability appears to be in more government control over aspects of the aircraft, possibly referring to data rights, Allvin suggested.

“The manner in which we put his program together puts more control in the hands of the government, so we can update and adapt at the speed of relevance, at the speed of technology, not at the speed of bureaucracy,” he said at the White House.

There is also an unmanned component to the larger NGAD platform. The Air Force is working with industry on the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, an unmanned jet aircraft with certain autonomous features that would be quarterbacked by the manned NGAD and possibly the other aircraft like the F-35.

General Atomics and Anduril Industries last year were selected by the Air Force for the first CCA increment and their unmanned jets are expected to fly this summer (Defense Daily, March 4). The Air Force has said that the CCA program will contain on-ramps for additional competitors, which would likely include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman [NOC], and others.

Boeing is spending nearly $2 billion to build a new 1.1 million square-foot Phantom Works facility at its military aircraft operations in St. Louis (Defense Daily, June 26, 2026). The F-47, and any CCA’s the company may build, will be built there. Phantom Works is Boeing’s advanced research, development, and prototyping division with the largest site already in St. Louis.

Boeing said last summer the new Phantom Works facility would open in 2026. A company spokesperson said on Friday work is on schedule.

Praising the decision to move forward with the F-47, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said in a statement, “I now look forward to working with President Trump on a massive scale-up of Collaborative Combat Aircraft, supercharging B-21 bomber production, and a broad revitalization of the defense industrial base.”

The Air Force last spring paused the manned NGAD program to reassess affordability and design. Then, late in the Biden administration, then Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall decided to defer a decision on the program to the Trump administration.

GE Aerospace [GE] and RTX’s [RTX] Pratt & Whitney segment are developing engines for manned NGAD, with each recently having received $3.5 billion technology maturation and risk reduction contracts for the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion program (Defense Daily, Jan. 28). The Air Force did not say if an engine supplier for manned NGAD has been selected.

An Air Force official said the names of NGAD subcontractors are classified.

A GE spokesperson said “We’re excited to see this important program advance and look forward to the opportunities it represents to power future fighters.” The spokesperson could not confirm a role on NGAD and referred questions to the Air Force.

The Air Force has 183 Lockheed Martin-built F-22s in its inventory.

Of the NGAD loss, Lockheed Martin said it remains “committed to advancing the state of the art in air dominance” and “will await further discussions with the U.S. Air Force” related to the competition.

Anduril Developing Rocket Motor For Army Long-Range Precision Artillery

Anduril Industries has received multiple contracts worth more than $25 million to develop, build, and qualify a solid rocket motor to power new long-range precision artillery for the Army that the company says will also increase magazine depth for the service.

The 4.75-inch diameter motors will help enable the Army to equip itself with smaller artillery rockets that can squeeze more fires out of the service’s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) that typically carries a single pod capable of launching six Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, or a single ATACMS missile that has a longer range and larger warhead.

The solid rocket motor (SRM) being developed by Anduril “potentially allows for up to 30 guided rockets to be configured in a single HIMARS pod, drastically improving loadout within existing launcher constraints,” Neil Thurgood, a senior vice president in charge of Anduril’s Air and Ground Deterrence Division, wrote March 21 on the company’s blog. “Anduril is one of the first companies developing rocket motors in this form factor to meet the Army’s need for increased volume and affordability.”

Thurgood retired from the Army in 2022 as a Lt. Gen. and his last assignment was as director of the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.

Anduril is also developing SRMs for the Navy, in competition with other companies, as a potential second source to fuel the second stage of the Standard Missile-6. The company entered the SRM business in 2022 with the acquisition of Adranos (Defense Daily

, June 26, 2023).

Anduril has other SRM contracts that it has not disclosed, a company spokesperson said.

The timelines for the Army contracts were not disclosed.

Thurgood said that the company will build and test SRM’s using both its traditional aluminized propellant and its proprietary aluminum-lithium alloy fuel called ALITEC that Adranos claimed can increase range by up to 40 percent while saving money.

“ALITEC enhances rocket motor performance by improving munition range while reducing size, weight, and power demands,” Thurgood wrote. “We anticipate that ALITEC-powered SRMs will achieve ranges comparable to significantly larger rocket motors, providing long-range strike capability in a smaller and more efficient design.”

In January, the Defense Department awarded Anduril $14.3 million in Defense Production Act (DPA) funds to modernize its SRM facilities and manufacturing processes (Defense Daily, Jan. 7). The DPA award is being put toward “single-piece-flow manufacturing,” which includes a “bladeless propellant high-speed mixer, to efficiently and affordably produce and qualify these propulsion systems,” Thurgood said.

Last fall, Anduril partnered with FlackTek to develop the Mega FlackTek mixer to rapidly mix solid propellants using less real estate to boost production in the face of surging demand for SRMs (Defense Daily, Oct. 3, 2024).