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| Friday, March 14, 2025 • 67th Year • Volume 305 • No. 47 | |||||||||||||||
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Boeing Tapped To Advance In Army’s IFPC Inc. 2 Second Interceptor Effort Boeing [BA] has been selected to advance to the next phase of the Army’s effort to develop a second interceptor for its new Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) Inc. 2 defeat system, the company said. The update on Boeing’s participation arrives as the Army plans to finalize awards later this fiscal year for vendors to move into the prototype development phase in 2026, with an interest in IFPC Inc. 2 interceptors capable of taking out supersonic cruise missiles and larger caliber rockets. “We understand warfighter needs and the dynamic environments soldiers operate in, and our goal is to keep them safe with an innovative, affordable offering that leverages our industry-leading missile expertise,” Jim Leary, Boeing’s executive director of business development for precision engagement systems, said in a statement. “Our design offers increased magazine depth with a missile that provides enhanced speed to target, greater range and maneuverability for sustained engagement against an evolving threat.” While a Boeing spokesperson declined to offer specific details on the offering citing the “sensitive” nature of the competition, the company in a statement said its interceptor “will help the Army fill a capability gap between short- and long-range air defenses against rapidly proliferating low-flying, mid-range threats like cruise missiles and militarized drones.” “The goal is to develop a new medium-range interceptor to better protect fixed and forward operating bases against emergent aerial threats,” Boeing added. Boeing, as of right now, has not teamed with any additional vendors for the interceptor solution it’s offering, a company spokesperson confirmed to Defense Daily. Dynetics’ [LDOS] Enduring Shield capability won the IFPC Inc. 2 competition in September 2021, with the Army having said the system is intended to “defeat subsonic cruise missiles, Group 2 and 3 unmanned aircraft systems, rockets, artillery, mortars and other aerial threats,” while utilizing the Sentinel radar as its sensor, with the new Northrop Grumman [NOC]-developed Integrated Battle Command System serving as the fire control component (Defense Daily, Sept. 24 2021). In late November, the Army awarded Dynetics a potential $4.1 billion production contract for IFPC Inc. 2 which could cover procurement of up to 317 new launchers (Defense Daily, Dec. 11 2024). The current interceptor that is part of Dynetics’ Enduring Shield solution for IFPC Inc. 2 is RTX’s [RTX] AIM-9X Sidewinder missile, while the Army has previously expressed interest in pursuing a second interceptor option to defeat supersonic cruise missiles and larger caliber rockets. Brig. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army’s program executive officer for missiles and space, said last summer that for a second interceptor “what [he’s] been communicating is an AIM 120D-like capability in an AIM-9X package, because the key is magazine depth” (Defense Daily, July 31 2024). Boeing said its interceptor offering “leverages a Modular Open Systems Approach design to enable rapid updates as threats evolve.”
BlueHalo Details Successful Live Fire Of Offering For Army’s Next-Gen C-UAS Missile
BlueHalo has completed a live fire demonstration of its offering for the Army’s Next-Generation Counter-Uncrewed Aerial System (C-UAS) Missile (NGCM), conducting three successful missile test flights in January. Jonathan Moneymaker, CEO of BlueHalo, said the test launch of its Freedom Eagle-1 (FE-1) solution for NGCM was a result of increasing internal investments aimed at expediting development of the capability, with the company working toward a planned demo for the Army in the third quarter of this fiscal year. “In light of recent global events, including activities in Europe, the Red Sea and Taiwan, we’re taking a proactive stance–increasing internal investments to advance our FE-1 system and leaning in to meet the demand signal on an expedited timeline,” Moneymaker said in a statement. “Our investments and development progress, including this successful [Controlled Test Vehicle] test launch, underscore BlueHalo’s dedication to addressing evolving threats and ensuring that warfighters have access to critical capabilities sooner rather than later.” The Army last July selected BlueHalo and RTX’s [RTX] Raytheon for the NGCM program, which aims to rapidly develop and field a $200,000 or less unit cost C-UAS missile that is capable of defeating Group 3 drones as well as larger Group 4 and Group 5 UAS (Defense Daily, July 15 2024). BlueHalo has described its FE-1 offering as “a low-cost effector with superior maneuverability to defeat an array of short-range air defense threats,” noting this past August it had completed successful firing of its dual-thrust, solid rocket motor (Defense Daily, Aug. 2 2024). Raytheon in October detailed its approach to the NGCM program and an executive said the company will “pull together a solution” for its NGCM offering based on the Army’s requirements, when asked if it was specifically offering its current Coyote interceptor (Defense Daily, Oct. 9 2024). “Raytheon is absolutely committed to providing a solution based on the Army’s requirements. We are working closely with the Army to develop the requirements to understand what it is they are trying to achieve and we will use our technologies to create the appropriate next-generation counter-UAS missile based on the Army’s requirements for that second effector,” Joe DeAntona, Raytheon’s vice president of requirements and capabilities for land and air defense systems, told reporters. At the live fire demo in January at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, BlueHalo said the FE-1 “successfully and performed its flight as planned” and that data collected was used to evaluate “the missile’s guidance, navigation and control systems and analyze aerodynamic models to drive down significant technical risk associated with the program.” “Going three for three on the first ever launch during the development of a new kinetic missile program is an astounding engineering feat and a testament to our team’s incredible dedication and expertise,” James Batt, BlueHalo’s chief growth officer, said in a statement. “While competitors in the NGCM program remain focused on conceptual presentations, BlueHalo is actively building and testing flight hardware,” Batt added. “Team BlueHalo went from paper design to first flight in 107 days, demonstrating incredible innovation and a commitment to the NGCM program. This success not only indicates our readiness but also significantly reduces the technical and schedule risks associated with the NGCM program.”
Firestorm Labs Selected For STRATFI Funding To Scale IT Modular UAS, 3D Printing Cell
Startup Firestorm Labs has been selected for an Air Force venture funding award to help the company scale its Tempest unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and its additive manufacturing cell that can 3D print and assemble Tempest, and third party UAS and spare parts, the company said this week. The company is negotiating its Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) potentially worth $45 million, $15 million of government funds and $30 million of Firestorm’s, Chad McCoy, a co-founder and chief strategy officer, told Defense Daily on Thursday. The STRATFI contract is still to be negotiated but McCoy said the Air Force had said it wants 140 of the company’s modular Tempest systems, including 100 of Group 2 aircraft in a standard configuration, 20 equipped with pusher propellers, and 20 in a vertical take-off and landing variant. The government will also be acquiring 10 long-range ground control stations, and several xCell expeditionary manufacturing cells that enable distributed additive manufacturing and assembly of the company’s UAS, other UAS, and spare parts. xCell comes in two 20-foot standard steel shipping containers that are climate controlled and can run on generator or base power. Firestorm’s manufacturing platform can work in the Indo-Pacific Command area of operations or the Arctic region, McCoy said. With seven xCells, a user could produce 1,000 Tempest UAS in six months, he said. The STRATFI award is through the Air Force’s AFWERX innovation arm. The company also recently won a $100 million indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity with AFWERX that will transition to the Air Force Program Executive Officer for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, and Special Operations Forces Directorate. The earlier AFWERX contract is to further build out the Tempest UAS, containerized launch tube systems, and xCell. Firestorm’s xCell supports the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment concept for operating from dispersed forward bases, McCoy said. The company’s manufacturing cell supports more than small drones, including larger MQ-9 UAS, the CV-22 manned tiltrotor, and ground vehicles with spare parts production, he said. “We’re building up this library of systems that we can print very quickly,” he said. Firestorm recently used xCell to build multiple quadcopters for a company and is building partnerships with OEMs to be able to do contract manufacturing for them, McCoy said. He also said that Tempest can be built by the company’s network of contract manufacturers. McCoy said that compared to traditional 3D printing systems, xCell enables faster production giving the Defense Department the ability to scale. Firestorm currently has an xCell system at the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 5 event at Fort Irwin, Calif., to print Tempest UAS. The system is “printing aircraft non-stop out there,” McCoy said. Based in San Diego, Firestorm has 58 employees. In another year, the company hopes to have about 100 employees, he said.
SASC Chair Suggests Reconciliation Should Include $175 Billion For Defense
Amid a possible shutdown later in the week, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services on Wednesday pledged his support for the Continuing Resolution (CR) passed by the House but suggested more funding was needed in the proposed reconciliation package. “I would not vote for the CR if there weren’t the prospect of our reconciliation package that begins to give us what we need,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters, including sister publication The Exchange Monitor, outside the Senate floor on Wednesday. “But considering what’s in the CR with the anomalies and its light plus-ups, we’re going to need more than $150 billion.” Wicker added a minimum of $175 billion for defense is needed. The CR, which would fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, narrowly passed the House Tuesday evening. Senators have until 12:01 a.m. Eastern time March 15 to send the bill to President Trump’s desk, or the government runs out of money and shuts down. “Let me say this about the CR,” Wicker said at the beginning of a hearing Wednesday morning in the readiness subcommittee. “We repeatedly say, House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, that we never need to do this again. And, for some reason, something comes up, some group is unwilling to compromise and look at the long picture and we find ourselves in this position.” Wicker also called the bill a “hybrid” CR due to its anomalies and slight plus-up of $6 billion for defense, instead of “clean,” which would imply zero anomalies. He added the “real flaw” with the CR is that it doesn’t provide enough money for defense, “regardless of the anomalies and the tiny plus-ups here and there.” Wicker also said the CR goes against the Armed Services Committee’s effort to give a $25 billion boost in defense spending through the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed in early January. Wicker added he was not included in the final conference report. The Senate needs 60 votes to pass the stopgap funding bill and only has 53 Republicans in the majority. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has staunchly opposed the bill, but Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said on X he would “never vote to shut our government down,” meaning seven more Democrats would need to vote for the bill. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who oversees Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in his state, told the Monitor and other reporters outside the Senate floor, “I’m still reviewing to get a close look at this, but just very disappointed in that House Republicans didn’t even want to chat with anybody to work together.” “House Republicans right now have demonstrated that they don’t care about working with anyone for the good of the American people,” Lujan added. “I don’t know that one vote is going to change that opinion. They’re going to continue marching along those lines.” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) also told reporters that he “had decided” his vote, but wasn’t ready to reveal it yet as he was in discussions with his “colleagues.”
DIU Selects Slew Of Awardees For Quantum Sensing To Address PNT
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) on Wednesday awarded prototype contracts to a number of startups, traditional, and non-traditional defense companies to demonstrate quantum sensing technology for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), and anomaly detection for military needs. The awardees and their subcontractors include mainstay contractors such as Honeywell [HON], Leidos [LDOS], Lockheed Martin [LMT], and Northrop Grumman [NOC], and startups and others that include Alare Technologies, Anduril Industries, AOSense, Beacon Photonics, Freedom Photonics, Frequency Electronics, Inc., Nexus Photonics, Princeton Innotech, Q-CTRL, QuSpin, SubUAS, Twinleaf LLC, Vector Atomic, and White River Technologies. In the first phase of the Transition of Quantum Sensing (TQS) program, there will be 10 field tests of the companies’ different applications over the next year in ground, air, and maritime domains. The solutions are in the areas of quantum inertial sensors, quantum gravimeters, quantum magnetic sensing for navigation and anomaly detection, and components that make up the quantum sensing supply chain. The TQS program launched in the summer of 2024. For the quantum inertial sensors effort, which is focused on technology that allows a platform to help maintain its orientation, position, and location with and without GPS, two use cases are being pursued. One is for dynamic airborne platforms for the Air Force and Space Force, and the other is maritime platforms for the Navy. Air Force Global Strike Command and several combatant commands are also advocating for this type of future PNT capability, DIU said. The Navy is interested in quantum gravimeters, which are useful for land surveying and navigation based on gravity anomalies. “In collaboration with DIU under the TQS effort we are maturing an atomic accelerometer for naval navigation applications,” Tommy Willis, program manager at the Office of Naval Research, said in a statement. “The stability provided by the atomic systems is unique and opens up new operational spaces in the maritime domain.” Lockheed Martin, partnered with AOSense and Q-CTRL, Northrop Grumman, and Vector Atomic received Other Transaction Agreements as primes for the inertial sensing effort. Quantum magnetic sensors that work in ambient temperatures are being sought for use to navigate in GPS-denied environments, and to detect adversarial objects. The sensors measure small variations in the magnetic field. “We want to provide warfighters with options for reliable navigation, regardless of terrain or time of day, using the compact and cost-effective quantum sensors in development with the TQS effort and we believe magnetic anomaly navigation has the potential to become a cornerstone for affordable and robust navigation within the DoD,” Kevin Brink, section chief for navigation at the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate, said in a statement. Anduril, Honeywell, and Leidos received OTA prime awards for magnetic sensing for navigation. Alare and White River received OTA prime awards for magnetic anomaly detection. DoD is funding various components such as advanced materials and microelectronics to bolster the supply of enabling technologies for quantum sensors. The goal is to help foster a “sustainable quantum technology ecosystem ready to integrate into the many DoD systems and platforms where it could give us a competitive edge,” John Burke, principal director of quantum science at the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said in a statement.
Transfer of Four KC-135s to Eielson in the Works, USAF Says
U.S. Air Force plans have called for moving four more KC-135 tankers by the end of September to Eielson AFB, Alaska under the 168th Wing, and a service official said on Wednesday that such plans are in the works. Regarding “contested logistics” in a possible confrontation with China or Russia, Sen. Daniel Sullivan (R-Alaska) said that “the Air Force with its tanker fleet is particularly challenged.” “I think that one [of the four KC-135s] has already been moved to Eielson, but we need three more with over 150 5th gen fighters in Alaska,” he told Air Force Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain, the service’s deputy chief of staff for operations, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) readiness and management support panel, which Sullivan chairs. Such U.S. 5th generation fighters are the Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II. Such fighters “very regularly” intercept overflights by Russian Bear bombers, Sullivan said. Boeing [BA] KC-46 Pegasus tankers are supplementing the service’s Boeing KC-135, which entered service in 1957, as the Air Force looks to the future Next Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS). As the Air Force finishes an Analysis of Alternatives for NGAS–a possibly stealthy tanker–the service is considering runway size, fuel carriage for long-range missions, and the need for tanker stealth (Defense Daily, March 6). “We’re committed to the KC-46 program–89 aircraft on the ramp today,” Spain told the SASC readiness and management support panel on Wednesday. “For the KC-135, we did some re-engining and service life extension in the 1980s and 90s that will keep the platform flying for decades to come, but we are also fully committed to tanker recapitalization post the KC-46 program. Right now, we’re on track to continue to procure 15 KC-46s a year, and we’re continuing to move the tanker recapitalization acquisition strategy forward.” Responding to Sullivan, Spain said that the Air Force is “continuing to move down the path to bringing the remaining three KC-135s to Eielson.” “We have some work to do with the department on some notifications, but beyond that, we’ll be able to move relatively quickly,” Spain said.
Saildrone Becomes Third Defense Startup To Partner With Palantir
Saildrone on Thursday announced a new strategic partnership with Palantir Technologies, the third agreement with a defense startup and fourth overall in recent months. Saildrone said this cooperation will help them rapidly scale autonomous systems for maritime artificial intelligence (AI) solutions by applying Palantir’s tools across both internal operations and to improve the AI power in the USVs themselves. Saildrone has grown increasingly popular to provide maritime domain awareness because it can produce vehicles at a faster rate than regular naval vessels while classified information is not stored on the vessels. The company specifically said it will integrate Palantir’s AI cloud infrastructure “to enable rapid scaling across its entire operational spectrum—from transforming its manufacturing, supply chain, and fleet operations with Warp Speed to enabling AI-powered tasking of autonomous assets in the field.” This makes Saildrone the third defense startup to find a utility for Palantir’s software systems after Anduril Industries and Shield AI announced their own partnerships last year. In December, Palantir confirmed its first cohort of companies working with its Warp Speed OS to improve manufacturing speed, flexibility and security including Anduril, Shield AI, L3Harris [LHX] and Panasonic Energy of North America. In October, L3Harris first announced its strategic partnership with Palantir while Shield AI confirmed its own partnership (Defense Daily, Oct. 18, 2024). In December, Shield AI also announced an expansion of its work with Palantir. At the time, the company said it intended to combine Palantir’s expertise in software with Shield AI’s autonomy knowledge. At the time Palantir also noted Anduril was the first to use the Warp Speed system in production as part of the Arsenal OS suite of tools to power “workflows in support of manufacturing at scale.” Saildrone specializes in operationally deploying autonomous surface vessels (ASV) to provide maritime domain awareness to the U.S. Navy, Department of Homeland Security and American allies. It noted its vehicles use “sophisticated and proprietary edge-computing AI/ML algorithms to monitor activities both above and below the sea surface.” “Leveraging Palantir’s sophisticated manufacturing and AI tools will allow us to streamline manufacturing and radically enhance fleet capabilities,” Richard Jenkins, Saildrone founder and CEO, said in a statement. Palantir and Saildrone officials confirmed this partnership will include Saildrone utilizing the company’s Warp Speed manufacturing operating system. During a presentation at Palantir’s AIPCon event on Thursday, Jenkins added they need to work with Palantir because while his company has amassed “the world’s largest data collections of service-based maritime intelligence data,” which is then used to train their machine learning models, Saildrone had reached a scaling bottleneck. “We need systems that can scale as we grow. Firstly, we’re deploying Warp Speed to our supply chain manufacturing. As we transition from making hundreds to making thousands, old manual processes break. We need sophisticated systems that can correctly order, store and assemble the hundreds of thousands of items that go through our facility on a regular basis. Secondly, we will apply AI to our enormous data set,” Jenkins said. “Even with our sophisticated onboard machinery models that only send back what is absolutely required and important, we still deliver a huge amount of information back to shore, far too much for the human eye to monitor and digest. Using Palantir’s AI solutions to monitor real-time data feeds from the fleet will transform our intelligence products,” he added.
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