The contract period runs May 1, 2024, through April 30, 2029, with an option to extend it to April 30, 2034.

“This contract will accelerate innovation and continue leading the development of the Command and Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system,” Lockheed said in a statement. “Under the new C2BMC-Next scope, the system will be upgraded with the latest 21st Century Security technology for faster, multi-domain coordinated responses to emerging threats.”

The C2BMC system connects a wide variety of systems and radars that together form a global missile defense architecture that protects the homeland as well as U.S. and allied forces worldwide from long-range missile attacks.

Work under the new C2BMC Next contract includes bringing in allies and partners, according to the company.

“Part of C2BMC-Next will be enhancing global integration, exploring possibilities of linking this decades-long proven, operationally-fielded system with allied nations for the first time,” the American firm’s statement noted.

“With C2BMC’s already well-established lines of reliable communication — operating 24/7, 365 days a year in more than 30 locations across the world — the ability to securely collaborate with other countries, across multiple domains, from any location in near real-time will be a game changer for the defense industry,” according to Erika Marshall, Lockheed’s vice president for C4ISR, which stands for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

The effort under the contract will also include providing C2BMC with technology “that will provide greater Space Domain Awareness,” according to the company’s statement. “Through the connection of sensors, and diffusion of data at a level that hasn’t been done before, this enhancement will allow operators to see a complete view of the battlespace around the world.”

Lockheed has been the prime contractor for C2BMC since 2002. The system, first fielded in 2004, has gone through numerous upgrades, which are spiraled in to adapt to threats. C2BMC was designed to focus from a strategic level down to an operational level.

Recent upgrades since 2021 gave the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, system a single, composite, real-time picture of threats by tying into and fusing data from a broader set of sensors to include satellites as well as ground- and ship-based radars, according to the company.

The GMD system is a U.S.-based capability designed to defend the homeland against intercontinental ballistic missile threats, particularly from North Korea and Iran. The system is made up of interceptors buried in the ground at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

MDA also linked C2BMC to the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System, which provides threat pictures down to the tactical level, as part of recent upgrades. IBCS, which reached full-rate production in 2023, is the command-and-control system for the Army’s air and missile defense architecture.

More enhancements included giving C2BMC the capability to pass data back-and-forth with IBCS and other sensors, including space sensors.

The recent upgrades and upcoming development work done under the contract over the next several years will help the system support the Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative. JADC2 is the Pentagon’s warfighting strategy focused on building an overarching network to fight advanced adversaries like China and Russia. This would require high-bandwidth, resilient communications as well as the ability to share massive amounts of data to help commanders rapidly make decisions.

Lockheed will perform the majority of its work under the new contract in Huntsville, Alabama, and Colorado Springs, Colorado.

John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, told reporters that while reducing the classification levels of highly-secretive programs takes time, the process should be easier under the updated policy, which Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed out in January.

“You have to be able to use your systems,” Plumb said during an April 10 briefing at Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “And to be able to use your systems, they have to be able to at least talk to each other. . . . Otherwise you just have a bunch of stovepipes. So, I think there is a military necessity of doing this, which I think is going to drive implementation.”

Details on the policy changes are slim as it is itself classified. However, officials have said the rewrite is focused on eliminating out-of-date rules around what information can be shared about certain programs than it is on lifting the veil of highly secret efforts.

Implementing the policy involves changing a security designation called the special access program which, along with the unclassified designation, is one of two labels the Space Force attaches to a program when it is first started. The SAP label restricts information sharing and makes it hard to integrate across platforms, among the military services and with international partners.

The SAP policy is part of a larger effort in the Pentagon to reconsider long-held practices for how it shares information about classified programs. That could mean talking publicly about threats or new capabilities, or changing a program’s classification level — without removing it altogether — so defense agencies can share information with allies.

The issue has presented a particular challenge in the space domain, where many programs are highly secretive. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, told reporters April 9 the constraints are keeping space officials from having crucial conversations with international allies and commercial partners.

“Today, we struggle to have all the conversations we want to have with our allies and partners,” he said during a briefing at Space Symposium. “This new policy that Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks signed is enormously important for us.”

During a speech at the conference and later with reporters, Whiting emphasized the need for the military’s acquisition organizations to work quickly to implement the guidance.

“We’ve updated a policy that was 20 years old, but now we’ve got to go do the hard work,” he said. “we believe it’s part of our job to help and encourage those organizations that have to implement to make sure they’re doing that.”

The office estimated an 18-ship LSM program would cost between $6.2 billion and $7.8 billion in 2024 inflation-adjusted dollars, or $340 million to $430 million per ship. This is three times more than the Navy’s comparable estimate of $2.6 billion total, or $150 million per ship.

The CBO, in a report released April 11, noted the program would cost between $11.9 billion and $15 billion in 2024 dollars if the service ultimately buys 35 ships, as the Marine Corps has pushed for.

The report outlined the challenges in predicting the cost of the program, given remaining questions about what the platform will look like and how it will be used, and cited inconsistencies over time between how the Navy and Marine Corps each talk about the future of this program.

For example, the Marine Corps originally proposed LSM in its Force Design 2030 modernization plan in spring 2020, calling for a vessel that would be built to commercial standards to keep costs low and to help it blend in with commercial shipping.

The Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, however, have pushed for higher standards for safety and survivability, leading to a back-and-forth over design, cost and quantity.

“A central issue that remains unclear is the LSM’s concept of operations. Specifically, do Navy and Marine Corps leaders expect the ships to deploy and resupply their marines only before a war has started, such as when a crisis is building? Or would the ships also redeploy and resupply marine units during a conflict, when those ships would be potentially vulnerable to detection and attack by opposing military forces?” the report asked.

“A ship that is not expected to face enemy fire in a conflict could be built to a lesser survivability standard, with fewer defensive systems than a ship that would sail in contested waters during a conflict. Recent experiments by the Marine Corps suggest that the naval services are still determining what the capabilities of the LSM will be,” it continued.

The answers to these questions will directly affect cost.

The CBO created a cost estimate based on a hybrid military-commercial ship design, as Navy and Marine Corps leaders have indicated they’ll pursue.

Using strictly military standards associated with traditional amphibious warships would add $2 billion to $3 billion to the cost of an 18-ship program, and $5 billion to $6 billion to the price of a 35-ship program, the report noted.

The use of commercial standards would lower the cost estimate by $4 billion to $8 billion for an 18-ship program, and by $5 billion to $10 billion for a 35-ship program, the report added.

Additionally, the CBO report noted uncertainty over how many ships the Navy will ultimately buy. The service has discussed buying 18, while the Marine Corps insists it needs 35.

“The total cost of the program — as opposed to the average cost of individual ships — will largely be determined by the number of LSMs the Navy ultimately buys,” the report noted.

The cost will also depend on how many shipyards the Navy puts on contract to build LSMs and at what annual rate. This might look different if the services hurried to get as many out as quickly as possible, versus if they stick to the current plan of buying one or two per year for the first five years.

The Navy originally planned to begin buying LSMs in fiscal 2023, but that was pushed back to fiscal 2025 for budgetary reasons. The Navy has awarded contracts to five companies to help refine the requirements for the ship type, and in January the service released a request for proposals to industry for the contract to design and build the first LSMs.

The vessels will have a draft of 12 feet, be 200-400 feet long, be able to transit 3,500 nautical miles at a speed of 14 knots, beach themselves to load and unload vehicles and supplies, have a crew of 70 sailors, and embark 50 Marines, among other specifications.

The White House on Wednesday, during Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s state visit at the White House, floated Japan’s entry into the second pillar of the pact in a joint statement. While the first pillar would see the U.S. and Britain help Australia develop its own nuclear-powered submarine fleet, the second aims to jumpstart cooperation on emerging defense technologies.

During a joint address to Congress on Thursday, Kishida highlighted U.S.-Japanese cooperation on some of the key technologies the agreement seeks to enhance.

“Just yesterday, President [Joe] Biden and I demonstrated our commitment to leading the world on the development of the next generation of emerging technologies, such as AI, quantum, semiconductors, biotechnology and clean energy,” he told U.S. lawmakers.

Biden and Kishida announced a slew of new defense cooperation agreements between their two countries in a joint statement Wednesday. And while the statement opens up a door for Japan to join AUKUS Pillar II, Kishida did not formally commit to joining.

“For Japan, to have a direct cooperation with AUKUS, nothing has been decided at this moment,” Kishida said at a press conference with Biden at the White House.

Australian Minister for Defense Industry Patrick Conroy and British Vice Adm. Martin Connell, the U.K. Royal Navy Second Sea Lord, both spoke favorably about Japan possibly joining the agreement during the Sea Air Space defense conference in Washington on Monday.

Vice Adm. Rob Gaucher, who command U.S. submarine forces in the Atlantic, said during the conference “we already share a ton of technology with Japan and they’re a great partner in the Pacific,” pointing to Tokyo’s unmanned capabilities.

‘Getting the basics of AUKUS right’

AUKUS is still in its nascent stages, and the three participating countries are seeking consensus on overhauling their export control regimes, which critics say inhibit the information and technology sharing crucial to deepening collaboration among their respective defense industries.

“The Biden administration has to get the basics of AUKUS right before it expands the pact to other partners,” Sen. James Risch, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in statement Wednesday, noting the State Department still needs to submit a certification to give Australia and Britain broad exemptions to U.S. export control laws.

“Without this certification, cooperation on advanced technologies under AUKUS — the very types of military capabilities needed to counter China — will remain stymied by regulations and bureaucracy,” he added. “Rather than take credit for things it has not yet done, the Biden administration should certify our two closest allies and deliver tangible defense capabilities now. Adding more partners delays capabilities and fails to deter China.”

The fiscal 2024 defense policy bill, which Congress passed in December, would give Australia and Britain a carveout in Washington’s International Traffic in Arms Regulation, or ITAR. Canada is currently the only country to enjoy a blanket ITAR exemption.

But to receive this, the State Department must certify Canberra and London have passed comparable export control laws of their own so U.S. technology does not fall into the hands of adversaries like China.

Australia’s parliament is considering legislation to enhance its export control laws, but some Australian defense firms fear stricter regulations will inhibit their ability to do business with non-AUKUS countries, like Japan.

For his part, Kishida did not directly mention AUKUS in his address to Congress, which largely centered on urging lawmakers to continue supporting Ukraine and playing a leading role in the Indo-Pacific.

“As we meet here today, I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be,” said Kishida. “As I often say, Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow.”

This effort will include finalizing a vision for what role the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel will play, with the range and payload capacity to do much more than the small drones currently conducting surveillance missions in the Middle East and Latin America, he said during a panel discussion at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference

The service is continuing down a path to incorporate unmanned technologies into routine fleet operations. One year into operating a hybrid manned-unmanned fleet, U.S. 4th Fleet is using unmanned surface vessels to map patterns of behavior and common trafficking routes in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in a keynote speech at the event.

Rear Adm. James Aiken, the 4th Fleet commander, said during a panel discussion that these operations are beneficial.

“We’re putting unmanned vessels in the hands of operators, and so we see what the challenges are, being at sea for six, eight, nine months now with some of the unmanned surface vessels. And it really has challenged us” to reconsider where and how they employ these vessels, he explained.

Smith said during the same panel that learning by using basic unmanned systems — or the “minimum viable product,” as he put it — is important. But at some point, he added, “we need to get beyond surveillance” and begin using these sea drones for more warfare-focused operations.

To that end, he said, the Navy will conduct an analysis of alternatives this year to determine what payloads can equip the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel. He added that this would go beyond surveillance and instead incorporate that information-gathering capability into the detect-identify-track-engage kill chain.

Also speaking at the conference, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said unmanned systems are not only tools for sailors but also “players on the field.”

Asked by Defense News about the move beyond experiments and into routine operations with this hybrid fleet, Franchetti said she doesn’t want to squash the momentum of experimentation just yet, as sailors are collaborating with industry to find new uses for unmanned systems.

“The most important thing,” she explained” “is to cohere [lessons from experimentation] together into a concept of operations that can apply broadly across our Navy, and I’m really focused on getting to that point. But right now, I really like the fleets having this creative spirit unleashed and being able to get all their ideas out there, so then we can think about how would we elevate that into a concept of operations that we can train to, that we can resource to and that we can continue to use.”

“I’m confident that the future of our Navy is going to be a mix of conventionally manned platforms with unmanned and autonomous platforms all teamed together, so these are all the building blocks that we need to take right now to be able to get there,” she added.

Even though 4th Fleet and 5th Fleet are focused on maritime domain awareness in support of counter-trafficking missions — whereas 7th Fleet focuses on using unmanned systems in support of sea denial and sea control missions — the CNO said there would have to be some sort of common concept of operations across the whole service.

“But you always need to have tailored concepts below it because each theater is different. The geostrategic environment is different. The adversaries are different. The partners are different. And so everything will need to be tailored to that,” Franchetti said. “But I think having a common understanding of the who, what, why we employ unmanned — I think that will be very important for our Navy going forward.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — This week, U.S. Navy leadership and some of the world’s largest defense contractors flocked to the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center south of the nation’s capital for the 2024 Sea-Air-Space defense conference.

Hosted by the Navy League, it’s the service’s largest annual trade show. Reporters with C4ISRNET, Defense News, and Military Times were on the ground, reporting on the latest remarks and industry insights.

From an eclipse that yanked attendees to the waterfront to a surprise appearance by Lance Cpl. Chesty XVI, here’s what you may have missed:

• As the Navy, Coast Guard and Maritime Administration press shipbuilders to increase production, the services are also considering other ideas to get ships in the water faster. What that means for the future.
• Creating a new robotics warfare specialist rating signified a critical step in achieving a “truly hybrid” fleet, according to the Navy’s top civilian. Learn more.
• Northrop Grumman said it finished building its prototype of the Manta Ray underwater drone, devised for assignments that demand long hours and extended ranges while minimizing human involvement. Interested?
• The Marine Corps plans to deploy its powerful new heavy-lift helicopter for the first time in 2026 — the year after it previously had anticipated. All the details here.
• The Navy recently wrapped a review of its shipbuilding programs. It found several shortfalls, including schedule slips attributed to a lack of workers and a brittle supply chain. For both issues, 3D printing could be the answer. How so?
• Shield AI in the next year plans to have its Hivemind digital pilot working aboard three additional types of aircraft, bringing the total to nine. Click me!
• A space-focused program spreading hundreds of small satellites in low orbit aims to bring clearer communications and faster data transfer to military units in the field. Why you should care.

The next Sea-Air-Space conference is scheduled for April 2025.

For the long-range plan to be carried out, the first step is executing the FYDP plan through fiscal 2029, per the president’s budget request, which provides plenty of insight into the expectation for ship construction timelines and statuses.

These ship-by-ship details provide insight into recent performance, the changing of expectations and the difficult road ahead for the long-range plan.

The plan outlines an ambitious increase in the number of active battle force ships to meet the goal of an eventual 381 ships (plus 134 unmanned vessels). It shows increasing deliveries effectively across all ship categories through the late 2030s in a baseline plan, and provides an alternative with fewer procurements, but both begin with the assumption that FY25-FY29 FYDP expectations will be met.

Navy leaders recently executed a 45-day review of shipbuilding performance, which highlighted several delays to big-ticket programs. Our analysis of some of these major programs, including the outcome of the 45-day review, shows that the steadily increasing construction spans, paired with an outlook of increasing demand on shipbuilders, will not aid improvement.

Submarines

The Columbia-class submarine is the highest-priority shipbuilding program, and building it according to plan is required for the Navy to stay at the threshold of 10 ballistic missile submarines. Columbia construction has been historically prioritized to the detriment of the Virginia class so that Columbia can use more attention and resources from the shared shipbuilder (ideally to shield Columbia from delays).

According to the recent shipbuilding review, the first boat, SSBN-826, is now 12 to 14 months behind schedule.

While the second boat is not yet officially delayed, it is hard to imagine the construction spans dropping from what is now nearly 100 months for the first boat down into the 70s for SSBN-827 and all subsequent units. Given the second boat is only scheduled to begin construction in FY24, it is too early to see the extent to which SSBN-826 issues will impact SSBN-827 and beyond. One would expect delays for SSBN-827 and onward, especially considering the two boats being built in FY24 are planned to grow to six by FY28.

The Virginia-class program has experienced large delays over recent years as production has ramped up. But for what it’s worth, the Navy has begun incorporating more realistic expectations in its plans.

Since 2019, the months required to build each ship has risen from 68 months per boat to 85 months for the four most recently delivered boats, and is planned to be 95 months on average for all boats currently under construction.

This increase in construction months has been in line with a ramp-up in production as the number of ships being built has risen from 12 in 2019 to 15 in 2024, and is expected to climb to 18 by the end of the decade. Per the FYDP, planned boats are expected to remain around 95 months on average, which appears to be reasonable given recent history.

With the higher-priority Columbia program now officially experiencing delays — which may become more severe — and with Virginia construction ramping up to 18 boats at a time, maintaining the same level of efficiency will be a victory in itself.

Destroyers

Procurement of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is planned to continue until FY32, when procurement for the next-generation destroyer DDG(X) should begin.

Between those boats recently delivered and those that have already begun construction, the average actual or planned construction is roughly 70 months per boat and has been trending upward.

The nuance is that the performance is largely unique to the shipyards. DDG-51s are split between General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works and HII. Those ships under construction or completed by HII average 62 months per boat, while those by General Dynamics average over 75 months per boat.

This disparity in performance is also reflected in the Navy’s forecast, where HII is expected to drive improvement to the program with constructions spans eventually dipping below 50 months, while General Dynamics boats are never expected to break 70.

Whether the issues at Bath Iron Works are due to the beleaguered DDG-1000 program still being wrapped up there or other causes, naval planning is clearly not expecting much to change in terms of DDG-51 construction, besides allocating fewer boats to build going forward.

Meanwhile, HII will be expected to improve construction time by a double-digit percentage while taking on the lion’s share of the work, going from six ships under construction in 2024 to at least nine by the end of the decade.

Aircraft carriers

CVN-79 and CVN-80 are each delayed by more than two years compared to original delivery plans, while CVN-81 is still on schedule. This is largely attributed to CVN-81 being procured in a two-carrier contract, which allowed for procurement efforts to be spread over a much longer period since contract signing.

This gives CVN-81 a longer planned construction span and means less work has been completed, even though construction has technically been ongoing for a few years.

It is still yet to be known if CVN-81 will really be built to schedule, given the keel laying is still a few years away.

Frigates

It’s early days for the Constellation-class guided-missile frigates, but the program is already looking at delivery delays.

Coming out of the recent shipbuilding review, it has been reported that the lead ship, FFG-62, is now expected to be delivered 36 months late. This puts the total construction time for the boat at more than seven years, nearing double the original estimate of four years.

Issues have been attributed to shipbuilder Marinette Marine now managing three programs, including the Littoral Combat Ship program and the Saudi Multi-Mission Surface Combatant. The Navy has stated that it’s taking steps to improve the process.

Given the second ship was only slated to begin the construction process in December 2023, it’s too soon to identify the extent to which these issues will continue — not only for the lead ship, but spread to the next ships beginning construction.

According to the latest plans, the shipbuilder is expected to go from potentially three ships underway in 2024 to more than 10 of the class under construction by 2028, while simultaneously bringing construction spans back down to planned levels. Assuming some level of delay continues for even just the first few hulls, the profile of small surface combatant deliveries and fleet size outlined in the 30-year plan has the potential to shift.

The problems plaguing U.S. shipbuilding have been attributed to multiple factors, from the cutting down of the industrial base in the 1990s to the impacts of COVID-19 on the supply chain in recent years.

Whichever issues can be argued for recent performance on these specific programs, construction performance has not been trending in the right direction, and much of the plan for the upcoming years looks ambitious given where things stand.

For industry to execute the plans in the FYDP, and therefore follow the path that provides the Navy with the capability it needs, major improvements will have to be made.

The shipbuilding community has its work cut out for it.

Theo Egan is a co-founder of Tamarack Defense, a data analytics and advisory firm.

The investments by state-owned Eurenco over the next two years will double propellant production, Macron said during his visit, timed to the kickoff of new production capacity construction. The company will also resume production of the explosive powder used to make propellant charges, after France shut down powder production in 2007 and switched to imports.

The site of the shuttered powder production had become a wasteland. The investment in Bergerac “is, for me, the image of this industrial reconquest and military sovereignty that we want for ourselves and for Europe,” Macron said. The site started production of artillery powder during the First World War.

The target is for the Bergerac site to produce 1,200 metric tons of explosive powder a year, equivalent to 500,000 modular propellant charges, the Armed Forces Ministry said in February.

France has concluded that if it wants to accelerate artillery shell production and secure supply, it needs to control the entire process, including powder, the president said. Currently, French shell production relies on powder manufactured in Sweden.

Eurenco will increase the workforce in Bergerac to 450 in the next 18 to 24 months, after already growing the number of employees to 250 from 200 previously, according to Macron.

The company was awarded about €76 million in subsidies as part of the European Commission’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production to increase production capacity in France and Sweden. Eurenco says it will boost powder production tenfold, double production capacity for modular charges by 2026, and double its ammunition and explosives loading production by 2025.

France needs to increase propellant production both to aid Ukraine as well as for its own defense, Macron said. He said the Caesar 155mm howitzers supplied to Ukraine by France and Denmark rely on propellant to be effective.

Macron added that the world has changed with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and said that won’t end even if the war ends tomorrow.

“There’s been a massive rearmament in Russia in recent times, and because you can see military spending and orders increasing all over Europe, and geopolitics changing all over the world,” Macron said. “We’ve set off for a long-term geopolitical and geostrategic shift, in which the defense industry will play a growing role.”

The Ball Aerospace-built satellite lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base April 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft is part of the Weather Satellite Follow-on Microwave program, or WSF-M.

The launch is a first step toward modernizing the Space Force’s 60-year-old weather constellation, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The legacy satellites’ sensors can measure things like moisture in the atmosphere, cloud cover and precipitation — data that the military uses to plan its missions. The last DMSP satellite launched in 2014.

The WSF-M satellite, which can detect wind speeds and tropical storm intensity and determine snow and soil depth, meets a portion of those requirements. A second WSF-M spacecraft will launch in 2028. The remaining capabilities will come through satellites developed through the Electro-Optical Weather System, with the first slated to launch in 2025 and the second in 2027.

The Pentagon has been trying for more than 20 years to develop a replacement for DMSP. In the ‘90s it kicked off the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. The effort was canceled after repeated cost and schedule breaches. Lawmakers canceled a second attempt, the Defense Weather Satellite System, in 2012 due to mismanagement.

The Mitchell Institute, a DC-based aerospace think tank, said in a November 2023 report that while those efforts were well-intentioned, their missteps have put the military at risk. In that time, the capability of the DMSP satellites in orbit has depleted, and the two remaining spacecraft are on track to run out of fuel in 2026.

“These back-to-back failed mission modernization efforts weakened an already obsolescing national security weather enterprise, burning through time and resources while doing little to produce the operational capabilities necessary to meet demand,” the report states.

The plan to split the DMSP requirements into two programs came in 2018, but the four-satellite mix is not the service’s final strategy for long-term weather coverage. The satellites, each designed to last at least three years, will serve as an interim capability as the Space Force determines how much of the mission can be met by commercially available weather capabilities.

Col. Rob Davis, Space Systems Command’s program executive officer for space sensing, told C4ISRNET the service plans to host an industry day later this month to hear ideas from companies about how their systems and sensors might meet Space Force requirements.

“There’s a lot of interest out there,” Davis said in an April 10 interview at Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “I’ve met with several companies this week that are developing commercial weather capabilities.”

Over the next year, the Space Force will weigh those options as part of a study that will inform its new space weather architecture.

The Mitchell Institute report recommends the service pursue a disaggregated architecture comprised of smaller, less expensive satellites as well as government-owned systems.

“Space Force recognizes that it can augment some of its space-based sensing capabilities with commercial services,” the report states. “While this is an important family of systems capability, it is not a substitute for a DMSP replacement system, nor does it provide the necessary organic space-based environmental monitoring capabilities DOD requires.”

The Charles de Gaulle, with an escort including a French air-defense frigate, a multimission frigate and a nuclear attack submarine, will start a deployment in the Mediterranean on April 22, according to Rear Adm. Jacques Mallard, commander of the French carrier strike group. Vessels from the United States, Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal will complete the escort.

While French aircraft and individual vessels have previously operated under NATO direction, the carrier strike group has until now remained under national command, according to Mallard.

Sailing under alliance command for part of the envisioned tour is meant to “show that we’re an ally who’s doing what everyone else is doing, but also to understand how the chain of command works,” Mallard said in a press briefing on April 11. “It’s a first, but it’s a logical continuation of what’s been going on until now.”

The goal is to “reinforce the defensive and deterrent posture of the alliance” as well as support operations that favor regional stability, with a focus on the central and eastern Mediterranean, according to a presentation by Mallard. The entire deployment might last around six weeks, according to the Armed Forces Ministry.

The admiral said cooperation with allies has been “fundamental” over the past 10 years, as the French carrier strike group integrated around 30 different ships from 12 nations during operations, with NATO procedures and exercises key to creating interoperability.

The Charles de Gaulle will carry some 18 Rafale jets during the upcoming mission, about two-thirds of its maximum contingent, as well as two E-2C Hawkeye airborne early-warning aircraft and two Dauphin helicopters. The French escort frigates will each carry a helicopter in either a surface- or submarine-warfare role.

During the mission, dubbed Akila, all ships and aircraft will report to Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO, a command located in Oeiras, Portugal, near Lisbon for a period of about two weeks, Mallard said.

The admiral declined to identify the ships that will escort the Charles de Gaulle, other than the supply ship Jacques Chevalier. He said the French Navy has started to conceal the identity of its warships, which creates a degree of confusion for adversaries.

“We’re starting to get into the habit of not revealing the names, which is why the hull numbers and names have disappeared from our ships,” Mallard said. “It’s quite effective, and it’s sown doubt on several occasions when our vessels have come across other vessels that didn’t know exactly what to call them. We try to maintain a level of ambiguity.”

The strike group may cooperate with the Standing NATO Maritime Group operating in the Mediterranean, which has been under French command since April 5, as well as participate in the NATO’s air-defense mission over Poland and defensive mission in Romania, according to the rear admiral.

The carrier group will also participate in the Mare Aperto exercise in Italy as part of one of two forces confronting each other in what Mallard called a “symmetric” scenario. The admiral declined to provide details on the deployment timetable. “The more details we give you, the more we reveal part of our intentions.”

Mallard said a deployment of the carrier strike group to the Red Sea is not on the agenda, but is among the options being studied.

He declined to confirm reports that the Charles de Gaulle might head to the Indo-Pacific following its mission in the Mediterranean. He said the strike group’s missions are prepared at “a very high level,” with an eye on being useful to French policy and regional stability.

“The Indo-Pacific is one of the many theaters where the carrier strike group could have an impact,” Mallard said. “So we’re looking at many things, in particular far-away deployments, but for the time being, nothing tangible, nor any announcement to make.”

The Charles de Gaulle has a crew of about 1,200, including around 80 staff, as well as the embarked air group. The carrier in January set off from its home port of Toulon for sea trails, after being taken out of action for maintenance in May last year for work on the carrier’s steam catapults, water-purification plant and medical facilities, among other things.

The nuclear-powered carrier replaced the conventionally-powered Clemenceau in 2001, and France expects to continue operating the vessel until 2038, when the Charles de Gaulle is set to be replaced by a future nuclear-powered carrier known for now by its French acronym PANG.

France plans to start work on the future carrier either late next year or early 2026, with Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu last year estimating the cost of the next-generation vessel at €10 billion. Sea trials are expected in 2036 or 2037, and France included an initial €5 billion for construction of the carrier in its 2024-2030 military budget law.

But for one U.S. Navy commander, there’s another more-promising application.

“For unmanned systems, I think electronic warfare- and cyber-related mission areas are the ‘killer app,’ if you will,” Rear Adm. Doug Small said April 10 at the Sea-Air-Space defense conference here. “That is the growth imperative.”

Small is the leader of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, what he calls the service’s “Geek Squad.” He’s also the head of Project Overmatch, which seeks to digitally link sailors, Marines and their vessels over vast distances. Little has been shared about the project since its inception in 2020, with officials attributing the secrecy to Russian and Chinese monitoring.

Outfitting unmanned vehicles or vessels with jammers, spoofers and other gear capable of wreaking electronic havoc is “absolutely critical,” according to Small. EW represents a battle over the electromagnetic spectrum, which militaries for decades have relied upon to communicate, identify friend from foe, and guide weapons to their targets.

“These smaller vehicles, commercial vehicles, have the capability to provide effects,” he said. “And if we architect it correctly, and make sure that, again, we can bring those AI-enabled autonomous behaviors to those vehicles, there are any number of missions that we can accomplish.”

The Navy is investing in unmanned systems — on the water, as well as above and below it — to augment existing and near-future firepower. A service strategy known as the Navigation Plan at one point included an outline of a fleet comprising roughly 373 manned ships and 150 uncrewed vessels.

Defense News previously reported the Navy was realizing its manned-unmanned teams in three phases: experimentation from fiscal 2024 to 2028; deployment in fiscal 2029 through 2033; and full-fledged operations in the years thereafter.

“One of the key things is establishing and expanding this naval operational architecture throughout the Navy, to include unmanned systems. Part of our role is extending that connectivity to these unmanned systems,” Small said. “Our North Star is a hybrid fleet.”

Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday last year said unmanned vessels with the ability to confuse adversary electronics, spy on distant activities and coordinate the flow of fighting would play an increasingly important role in the service’s mission.

Work to realize such a concept, he said at the time, is underway.

Information warfare becoming a critical submarine capability: Aeschbach

“Think about medium unmanned vessels that have [command-and-control] capabilities, that have [EW] capabilities, that can, perhaps, even have cyber capabilities,” Gilday said. “That kind of work is happening now.”

The defense industry is taking the hint, too. Northrop Grumman plans to participate in two events this year to demonstrate autonomy and EW kits it is developing for unmanned surface vessels under its Project Scion initiative.

The project leans on tech in other domains, such as aerial drones, ground robotics and smart buoys, to quickly produce equipment that can turn platforms into “true combat-and-surveillance systems for our customers,” a Northrop business development manager told C4ISRNET in February.

The announcement freezes the assets of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems held within China. It also bars the companies’ management from entering the country.

Filings show General Dynamics operates a half-dozen Gulfstream and jet aviation services operations in China, which remains heavily reliant on foreign aerospace technology even as it attempts to build its own presence in the field.

The company also helps make the Abrams tank being purchased by Taiwan to replace outdated armor intended to deter or resist an invasion from China.

General Atomics produces the Predator and Reaper drones used by the U.S. military. Chinese authorities did not go into details on the company’s alleged involvement with supplying arms to Taiwan.

Beijing has long threatened such sanctions, but has rarely issued them as its economy reels from the COVID-19 pandemic, high unemployment and a sharp decline in foreign investment.

“The continued U.S. arms sales to China’s Taiwan region seriously violate the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, interfere in China’s internal affairs, and undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It insists that the mainland and the island to which Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces fled amid civil war in 1949 remain part of a single Chinese nation.

Sanctions were leveled under Beijing’s recently enacted Law of the People’s Republic of China on Countering Foreign Sanctions, aimed at retaliating against U.S. financial and travel restrictions on Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses in mainland China and Hong Kong.

General Dynamics’ fully owned entities are registered in Hong Kong, the southern Chinese semi-autonomous city over which Beijing has steadily been increasing its political and economic control to the point that it faces no vocal opposition and has seen its critics silenced, imprisoned or forced into exile.

The two companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China has threatened action against foreign companies and governments that aid Taiwan’s defense and the U.S. military presence in the region, leading to commercial boycotts and diplomatic standoffs.

China banned American firms Lockheed Martin and Raytheon from the Chinese market in retaliation for the use of one of their planes and a missile to shoot down a suspected spy balloon that flew over the continental United States last year. Similar balloons have frequently been discovered floating over Taiwan and into the Pacific Ocean.

Despite their lack of formal diplomatic ties — a concession Washington made to Beijing when they established relations in 1979 — the U.S. remains Taiwan’s most important source of diplomatic support and supplier of military hardware from fighter jets to air defense systems.

Taiwan has also been investing heavily in its own defense industry, producing sophisticated missiles and submarines.

China had 14 warplanes and six naval vessels operating around Taiwan on Wednesday and Thursday, with six of the aircraft crossing into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone — a tactic to test Taiwan’s defenses, wear down its capabilities and intimidate the population.

So far, that has had little effect, with the vast majority of the island’s 23 million people opposing political unification with China.

True Anomaly, a spacecraft and software company based in Colorado, received $30 million to provide one of its Jackal space vehicles for the mission, slated to launch in 2025. Under the terms of the deal — known as an Emergent Need Small Business Innovation Research award — the firm will match the government investment, providing another $30 million to pay for risk-reduction activities.

“The goal of Victus Haze is to apply state-of-the-art, commercial products to provide highly capable solutions for future TacRS operations,” True Anomaly said in an April 11 press release. “The multi-vehicle demonstration will enable the development of TacRS tactics, techniques, and procedures, and prepare the Space Force and U.S. Space Command to deploy available response options necessary to deter adversary aggression on orbit.”

Rocket Lab’s contract, which came through the Defense Innovation Unit, is worth $32 million.

Victus Haze is the service’s third responsive space mission. Its latest demonstration, Victus Nox, occurred last September when Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket launched a Millennium Space Systems satellite within just 27 hours of receiving initial launch orders.

As part of that effort, Millennium, a Boeing subsidiary, delivered its spacecraft in a matter of months — a process that can take years on traditional acquisition timelines. Once in orbit, the satellite was operational within 37 hours and completed its activation phase in 58 hours.

Victus Haze is focused on threat response and requires satellites that can maneuver from real-time hazards. The mission will pursue similar delivery and operations timelines as Victus Nox, but its goal is to push the Space Force to an operational responsive space capability by 2026.

The service hasn’t released a detailed timeline for Victus Haze, but True Anomaly said the satellite providers are targeting delivery in the fall of 2025. Once they hand off the satellites, they’ll be on standby until the Space Force makes its launch request.

The True Anomaly spacecraft will lift off either from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Rocket Lab’s vehicle will lift off either from Mahia, New Zealand, where the company has a launch pad, or Wallops Island in Virginia. The company will launch its satellite on its Electron rocket.

True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers told C4ISRNET the company’s arrangement with the Space Force — through which it funds risk-reduction and the service buys the resulting product — is similar to a Strategic Funding Increase award, which the Defense Department uses to help start-up companies bridge the gap between development and production.

“We’re funding the risk-reduction, they’re basically buying the capability,” he said in an April 9 interview at Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “It’s exactly how it should work. And then we’re looking beyond this demonstration for Victus Haze to eventually a productionized capability that the Space Force will need in an enduring sense.”

The company’s Jackal spacecraft — designed to maneuver around and approach other objects in space — flew for the first time in early March, but the mission was cut short when the company could no longer maintain contact with the satellite.

Rogers said his team is still validating what it thinks was the cause of the issue. In parallel, the company is working aggressively to implement fixes before its next two flights, which are set to occur in the next 12 months.

Those launches will help with risk-reduction for Victus Haze, which will fly a variant of Jackal that features a new propulsion system designed to provide more thrust for dynamic maneuvers.

“There are some fundamental changes and so that’s what we will be doing risk reduction on in the coming flights,” he said. “As we get more comfortable with the avionics and other capabilities of Jackal, then we focus on emergent risks like propulsion.”

Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion captured nearly a quarter of the country, the stakes could not be higher for Kyiv. After a string of victories in the first year of the war, fortunes have turned for the Ukrainian military, which is dug in, outgunned and outnumbered. Troops are beset by shortages in soldiers and ammunition, as well as doubts about the supply of Western aid.

Lawmakers dragged their feet for months over the new law, and it is expected to be unpopular. It comes about a week after Ukraine lowered the draft-eligible age for men from 27 to 25.

Comparing Russian, Ukrainian forces two years into war

The law will become effective a month after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signs it, though it’s unclear when he would. It took him months to sign the law reducing conscription age.

It was passed Thursday against a backdrop of an escalating Russian campaign that has devastated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks. Authorities said Russian overnight missile and drone attacks again struck infrastructure and power facilities across several regions and completely destroyed the Trypilska thermal power plant, the largest power-generating facility in the Kyiv region.

With Russia increasingly seizing the initiative, the law came in response to a request from Ukraine’s military, which wants to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops, Zelenskyy said in December. Incumbent army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Zelenskyy have since revised that figure down because soldiers can be rotated from the rear. But officials haven’t said how many are needed.

The law — which was watered down from its original form — will make it easier to identify every draft-eligible man in the country, where even in war many have dodged conscription by avoiding contact with authorities.

But it’s unclear that Ukraine, with its ongoing ammunition shortages, has the ability to arm large numbers of recruits without a fresh injection of Western aid.

Earlier this month, Volodymyr Fesenko, an analyst at the Center for Applied Political Studies Penta, said the law is crucial for Ukraine’s ability to keep up the fight against Russia, even though it is painful for Ukrainian society.

“A large part of the people do not want their loved ones to go to the front, but at the same time they want Ukraine to win,” he said.

Thursday’s vote came after the parliamentary defense committee removed a key provision from the bill that would rotate out troops who served 36 months of combat — a key promise of the Ukrainian leadership. Lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said in a Telegram post that he was shocked by the move to remove the provision.

The committee instructed the Defence Ministry to draft a separate bill on demobilization within several months, news reports cited ministry spokesperson Dmytro Lazutkin as saying.

Exhausted soldiers, on the front lines since Russia invaded in February 2022, have no means of rotating out for rest. But considering the scale and intensity of the war against Russia, coming up with a system of rest will prove difficult to implement.

Ukraine already suffers from a lack of trained recruits capable of fighting, and demobilizing soldiers on the front lines now would deprive Ukrainian forces of their most capable fighters.

In nighttime missile and drone attacks, at least 10 of the strikes damaged energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said more than 200,000 people in the region were without power and Russia “is trying to destroy Kharkiv’s infrastructure and leave the city in darkness.”

Ukraine’s leaders have pleaded for more air defense systems — aid that has been slow in coming.

Four people were killed and five injured in an attack on the city of Mykolaiv on Thursday, the regional governor, Vitalii Kim, said. In the Odesa region, four people were killed and 14 injured in Russian missile strikes Wednesday evening, said Gov. Oleh Kiper.

Energy facilities were also hit in the Zaporizhzhia and Lviv regions.

The new servicing arrangement for the BAE Systems-built L119 guns replaces a maintenance plan for the 105mm guns that currently entails shipping them outside of the country for repairs.

Officials announced the agreement to use a Ukrainian plant during an April 9 British trade mission to Kyiv, which saw the two sides sign a new defense pact aimed at encouraging cooperation on defense and industrial issues.

The British, along with other European arms makers, are eager to boost ties with Ukraine as the war with Russia opens up possible opportunities for local production. Twenty-nine British companies joined the trade mission, the second of its kind in recent months.

BAE is cooperating with British-based company AMS Integrated Solutions in providing the in-country repair and maintenance capability for the L119.

The two companies signed a teaming agreement last December to provide maintenance, repair and overhaul services on BAE-supplied weapons from existing facilities in Ukraine.

Aside from the towed light artillery, the company has supplied other weapon types to Ukraine, including AS90 tracked 155mm howitzers and Challenger 2 main battle tanks.

Kyiv has also signed a statement of intent with Sweden to explore possible support and production of the CV90 family of armored vehicles, made by the Swedish arm of BAE and donated to Ukraine by Stockholm.

Maj. Gen. Anna-Lee Reilly, director of operations at Defence Equipment and Support, the Ministry of Defence’s procurement and support arm, said the AMS-operated facility could become a center for the support of several other weapons systems.

“The repair facility that has been secured is scalable to provide a similar capability for U.K. and other nations’ systems,” she said.

The light gun support deal could be a stepping stone to Ukraine building the L119 in the country.

During a visit by BAE CEO Charles Woodburn to Kyiv last August the company said it was setting up a local office. Exploring potential partners and how it could eventually facilitate the production of the light gun locally was one of the issues being studied, BAE said at the time.

Alexander Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries, said in a statement issued during the British trade mission that the U.K. was making progress towards building local production capabilities.

“It was British defense companies that were the first to open their offices here after the start of the great war. Our partnership is developing, and today we are one step closer to British manufacturers being the first to start producing their weapons in Ukraine,” said Kamyshin.

A tender published by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration earlier this month lists a budget of 49.63 billion won (U.S. $36.56 million) for multipurpose variants of the ground robots.

The vehicles will be purchased domestically, said the notice, via a competitive tender. After contract signature, production of an unspecified quantity will proceed till December 2026.

The bid marks the first major acquisition program for Seoul’s ground troops to procure operational UGVs, Kim Jae Yeop, a senior researcher at the Sungkyun Institute for Global Strategy in Seoul, told Defense News. The vehicles are envisioned to carry out reconnaissance, transportation and lightly armed missions alongside manned ground formations.

According to Kim, there are two leading candidates for the bid: Hyundai Rotem and Hanwha Aerospace. “Both companies are important Korean defense contractors, especially for land systems, and have been proceeding with their own UGV development programs,” he said.

Hyundai Rotem confirmed to Defense News that it will participate in the tender, though it declined to specify what platform it will offer.

As for its credentials, a spokesperson noted that the company “was the sole bidder selected for a rapid demonstration acquisition project after initially proposing it to the Korean Army” in November 2020.

That $3.6 million project, a precursor to today’s procurement effort, involved battery-powered HR-Sherpa-based 6x6 UGVs. “Hyundai Rotem’s UGV is the only vehicle that has been in actual operation for more than two years in various terrains in Korea,” the company spokesperson said.

Hanwha Aerospace also has been active in the UGV field, and the company can point to overseas experience. For example, the U.S. military chose Hanwha’s Arion-SMET 6x6 UGV to participate in a Foreign Comparative Testing program that occurred in Hawaii last December. It was the first Korean UGV ever evaluated for potential adoption by the United States.

The Arion-SMET, its name standing for Small Multipurpose Equipment Transport, weighs 1.8 tons, and its batteries permit a road range of 100km. South Korea’s army tested it in 2021, and it was demonstrated to U.S. Forces Korea the following year.

In separate news, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration approved a two-year pilot project, beginning in the third quarter of this year, for a UGV-based air defense system for the Marine Corps. A prototype is to be ready by the second half of 2026.

Armed with a 40mm weapon, the vehicle is meant to automatically detect, track and destroy intruding drones. The new platform is intended to replace existing manned antiaircraft systems, thus streamlining personnel numbers.

Nearby Japan is also adopting UGVs. According to a Rheinmetall press release issued April 8, the German company will supply three Mission Master SP vehicles. Japan is slated to receive these UGVs equipped with cargo, surveillance and remote weapon station payloads in January 2025.

The so-called hunt-forward missions, conducted by CYBERCOM’s elite Cyber National Mission Force, or CNMF, totaled 22 deployments, with some happening simultaneously across the world, Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh said in testimony submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 10.

“Enhancing the security of government, private sector and critical infrastructure systems grows ever more imperative,” said Haugh, who took the helm at CYBERCOM and NSA in February. “Foreign adversaries continuously update how they operate, and frequently work through American-owned networks and devices.”

Hunt-forward missions are executed at the invitation of a foreign government and are not always disclosed. They’re part of CYBERCOM’s persistent engagement strategy — a means of being in constant contact with adversaries and ensuring proactive, not reactive, moves are made.

Haugh’s disclosure offers a rare look at the CNMF workload, which is often nebulous, as some countries prefer to keep quiet the digital cooperation.

The mission force has in the past worked with Ukraine, ahead of Russia’s invasion; Albania, on the heels of Iranian cyberattacks; and Latvia, where malware was unearthed. Other previous deployments included Estonia, Croatia, Lithuania, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

The Defense Department sought $14.5 billion for cyber activities in fiscal 2025. The figure is about $1 billion more than the Biden administration’s previous ask. It is also up from FY23, when it sought $11.2 billion.

“We work every day against capable and determined cyber actors, many of them serving adversary military and intelligence services,” Haugh said. “Our operational experience reinforces the importance of campaigning globally in and through cyberspace across the conditions of competition, crisis and armed conflict.”

The two countries will improve their respective command-and-control systems, form an industrial council to build weapons together, network their missile defense systems with Australia’s and start a joint exercise with the United Kingdom, among other agreements. For the first time, America will also adjust its force structure in Japan to better work with Tokyo’s defense forces.

“This is about restoring stability in the region, and I think we have a chance of doing that,” Biden said at a Wednesday press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the White House Rose Garden.

The subtext in Biden’s comment is China, which over the last 15 years has grown far more powerful and aggressive. The change has worried the U.S. that China is trying to push it out of the region, isolate allies like Japan and potentially take Taiwan — which China considers a rogue province — by force.

There may be no better case study than Japan. In the last several years, it’s doubled a cap on defense spending from 1% to 2% — a share it plans to spend by 2027. Japan also entirely revised its national security strategy, scrapped limits on defense exports and bought weapons, such as the Tomahawk missile, that allow it to strike back if attacked.

Many of these changes altered Japanese defense policy that had been in place since after the Second World War, when Japan demilitarized and adopted a pacifist constitution.

“What Japan’s has been doing over the past few years is nothing short of astounding — just unthinkable even a few years ago,” said Toshi Yoshihara, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “And I credit the Chinese for that. No one has done more to get Japan to modernize and get serious about defense than China itself.”

Speaking with reporters ahead of the event, senior administration officials said the new agreements won’t take effect for months.

Earlier in the week, defense officials from Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. said Japan and other countries may later join part of the AUKUS defense pact, an agreement to share nuclear-powered submarines and other defense technology. Any openings would be for AUKUS’ second pillar, which concerns advanced technology like artificial intelligence and hypersonic missiles.

“What we’re all focused on is demonstrating to our respective populations early victories on pillar two,” Australia’s Minister for Defense Industry Pat Conroy told Defense News in an interview.

Kishida is in the nation’s capital for a state visit — one of Washington’s top honors. He’s the fourth leader from the Indo-Pacific to do so during the Biden administration, and the White House cites that number as a sign of its commitment to the region.

Biden and Kishida will also meet later this week with Ferdinand Marcos, president of the Philippines, in the three countries’ first trilateral summit.

All three areas face similar challenges, such as a lack of output at key suppliers, which prevents prime contractors from increasing deliveries to the Navy.

The service would like to strengthen the supply chains and increase delivery quantities in all three industrial bases, noted Vice Adm. Frank Morley, the top uniformed deputy to the Navy’s acquisition chief.

However, they have vastly different construction timelines. This means the weapons-industrial base — the one with the shortest manufacturing timelines and therefore the one that will show a return on investment first — is paving the way for how the Navy will manage the submarine and surface combatant counterparts.

Expanding the munitions-industrial base is not as complex as expanding shipbuilding-industrial bases, he noted during a panel discussion at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference. “But we can learn things about what stable funding does, what multiyear procurement [contracts] do, what kind of incentives” are effective in contracts, and how government spending can encourage additional private sector spending in facilities and workforce development, he added.

Specifically, he told Defense News, the Navy is improving the way it pairs public and private dollars, as well as how to spend that money at private companies and and government labs or warfare centers to benefit the final weapons production lines.

Morley added that the Navy had to learn how to best analyze the health of a supply base so it could understand which lower-tier vendors experience the biggest impact on delivery schedules and could most benefit from a one-time payment to expand their output.

“I look at munitions as our opportunity to teach ourselves many of the things that we can do in shipbuilding in parallel,” he said.

The Navy has increased its weapons spending in recent years, culminating in the fiscal 2024 budget request that included a historic $6.9 billion to buy missiles and torpedoes, $380 million specifically to address supply chain bottlenecks, and a request for authority from Congress to kick off four multiyear procurement contracts for weapons.

With the goal of increasing weapons output and reducing manufacturing timelines, Morley told Defense News, “we can do this in two, three, four years if we stick to it and do it right.”

He said that as individual vendors receive money from the Navy and prime contractors to expand their facilities, hire more workers or adopt advanced manufacturing processes, the Navy expects to see incremental gains that will eventually lead to “a larger magnitude impact.”

Learning how to measure that incremental progress will be important, he explained.

“Munitions is our guiding light as to the details of ... what to measure to show you’re getting effect because the ultimate outcome on shipbuilding has got such a long lead that you’ve got to measure incrementally as you go,” he explained.

James Geurts, the former Navy acquisition chief who moderated the panel discussion, explained the importance of measuring this progress, noting that without proof that something good is coming from the billions of dollars in spending, it’ll be harder to convince lawmakers to keep the money coming.

“We’ve got to be able to show that, collectively between the public side and the private side, we can put those resources to bear to produce outcomes. I think if we can do that and show that those resources are making changes and those are reflected in outcomes, that will then accelerate more resources coming in,” Geurts noted.

The Space Development Agency, a Pentagon space acquisition organization, already has launched 27 low Earth orbit satellites for experimentation and demonstrations in the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture program, Derek Tournear, Space Development Agency director, said Monday here at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.

Low Earth orbit satellites orbit about 1,200 miles above the Earth, compared to medium Earth orbit satellites, which run the Global Positioning System and are placed about 12,550 miles above the Earth.

Later in 2024 the second wave of low Earth orbit satellites will go into orbit, Tournear said. By the end of 2025, the program expects to have 160 satellites in orbit, the majority covering the globe to create connectivity across regions, more than two dozen dedicated to missile warning and a handful running missile control.

Marines and other military branches have relied on satellite communications for decades. But advances in low Earth orbit satellites deliver higher bandwidth and lower latency, or delays, meaning users can send more data faster.

Space Development Agency demonstrates Link 16 connectivity

Ukraine has relied heavily on company SpaceX’s commercial satellite Internet constellation Starlink to pass battlefield data throughout its war with Russia. The military version of the system is known as Starshield.

Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, began using the Starshield system recently, according to a March release.

The system allowed Marines to maintain communications services when weather forced power outages that shut down base fiber and cloud cover interfered with other satellite communications, said Maj. Tim Wrenn, 6th Marine Regiment communications officer.

During the September 2023 Archipelago Endeavor exercise, Marines used Starshield with the Swedish marines by mounting the device on a Swedish command and control boat.

“Having high bandwidth, low latency services on a mobile maritime platform allowed U.S. and Swedish Marines to prosecute fire missions and provide reliable and relevant information throughout the battlespace,” said Capt. Quinn T. Hemler, the assistant operations officer with 2nd Marine Division’s G-6 communications.

Marine Maj. Gen. Joseph Matos, commander of Marine Forces Cyber, said that satellite communications such as the Space Development Agency program enable both the crisis response mission of the Marine Corps and its ongoing Force Design changes that aims to better position the service for distributed, long-range operations.

“(Force Design) is really talking about modernization, bringing in new technologies, such as (Proliferated Low Earth Orbit) how do we incorporate that into what we do every day and how we fight,” Matos said.

While missile tracking is crucial, most Marines using the satellites are likely to see improved communication and less down time between transmissions as they pass data in training and operations between various platforms.

The Space Development Agency had demonstrated Link 16 connectivity using its satellites, Marine Corps Times’ sister publication C4ISRNET reported in November 2023.

Link 16 is the tactical data link used by the U.S. military, NATO and other partner nations to share tactical information such as text, voice and imagery.

The Link 16 application uses the “transport layer,” which is one of the layers that the Space Development Agency is developing along with the tracking, custody, navigation, support, emerging capabilities and battle management layers.

Once deployed, the transport layer, which holds most of the program’s satellites, will provide a mesh network of communications satellites that connect to each other and other space vehicles and ground stations, according to the Space Development Agency website.

The next batch of satellites is planned for 2027 and another for 2029, by which time the network is expected to have “full global persistence” and resiliency, Tournear said.

The program seeks to create a hybrid satellite terminal for troops to use. That would allow a user’s terminal to switch between the low Earth orbit satellites transport layer or use dedicated military or commercial bandwidths such as the satellite communication Ka and Ku bands, respectively.

The same terminal could also switch to use the Ka or Ku bands on MEO or GEO satellites.

The system would work much like multiband radios can switch between frequency bands for a variety of communications options.

Matos emphasized that while the low Earth orbit satellites program will give users new ways to communicate it still is only “part of the overall architecture.” If Marines can’t access those satellites for some reason, they need backup ways to conduct operations.

“We don’t own our own space assets,” Matos said. “We use what industry provides. If that’s not there then we have to look at other means of communication, single channel radio, troposphere, those are the systems we can control at the Marine Corps level.”

By comparison, the Army had 10 mishaps and 14 fatalities for all fiscal 2023. The current number of mishaps is equal to or higher than the total annual mishaps reported each year since fiscal 2016, according to Army Combat Readiness Center data.

“Over the first six months of this fiscal year we’ve seen a troubling trend with our accident rates,” Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, director of Army aviation said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “And certainly, any loss of life is 100% unacceptable and obviously when we have [an] accident where we lose the aircraft or severely damage the aircraft, we consider that unacceptable too.”

Army endures third Apache mishap in two months

The Army defines a Class A mishap as any that results in the loss of life or the loss of equipment totaling more than $2.5 million. The service tracks the rate of Class A mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. The current rate is 3.22, more than double the highest rate of any entire fiscal year in more than a decade, according to readiness center data.

During the “safety stand up” as opposed to a stand down, Army aviation will continue its normal operations, Rugen said. Commanders have asked for flexibility in providing the training.

“A stand up is more empowering,” he said. “We have ongoing operations that are critical that we complete. We want to empower the force at the lowest level to solve these problems.”

The training will target three broad areas, Rugen said. Decision makers, such as unit commanders, will focus on risk management and mitigation for aviation training and operations. At the operational level, the focus will target power management and spatial disorientation. Maintainers will review maintenance standards for aircraft repairs and safety checks.

“Spatial disorientation has been a trend,” Rugen said. “We get into aspects of flight where the crew must reinforce knowing where you are and where your aircraft is with respect to the ground.”

With the power management aspects, Rugen said aviators will reinforce measures taken regarding flight altitudes, higher temperatures and wind conditions.

Rugen and Brig. Gen. Jonathan Byrom, the readiness center director, did not share more specific information on causes of recent crashes or any training changes.

Aviation experts from Fort Novosel, Alabama, home to the Aviation Center of Excellence and the Army Combat Readiness Center, will visit aviation units across the service to work with units conducting the training.

A March 25 crash involving an AH-64E Apache helicopter at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington was the third Apache mishap in two months. That incident resulted in two soldiers injured.

In February, there were two separate Army National Guard Apache crashes, one in Mississippi resulting in the death of two pilots, the other in Utah, which was not fatal.

That pair of crashes prompted a Guard safety stand down.

In April 2023, the service grounded its entire helicopter fleet following a double Apache crash in Alaska that killed three, a March collision between two Black Hawk helicopters that killed nine in Kentucky and a February Guard Black Hawk crash that killed two in Alabama.

Five of the 12 incidents this fiscal year remain under investigation. Mishaps in which the investigations have concluded will be used in classified briefings in the training.

“The focus is to learn from those, so we don’t repeat any of the problems we had in the past,” Byrom said.

Officials issued the safety order Wednesday morning. Active duty aviators and aviation maintainers will conduct four to six hours of training by May 10. The Guard and Reserve components have 60 days to complete the training.

Roughly 100,000 U.S. servicemembers are stationed throughout Europe today, including about 20,000 who were surged to countries like Poland and Romania in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. U.S. forces have not been involved in fighting against Russia but have trained with Ukrainian forces headed to the front lines.

Another 40,000 NATO troops are stationed in the region as well, in support of Eastern European countries’ security efforts.

NATO holds its biggest exercises in decades, involving 90K personnel

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Gen. Christopher Cavoli — head of U.S. European Command — said the deployments are part of “a definite shift eastward” for the NATO alliance, and said infrastructure is in place to up the troop numbers even more if needed.

“In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, NATO took the decision to establish new battlegroups on a standing basis,” he said. “By design, they can all go up to brigade size at a time of need. And a number of nations have already elected to go up to that.”

In 2022, the White House announced plans to station the V Corps Headquarters Forward Command Post, an Army garrison headquarters, and a field support battalion in Poland, the first permanent U.S. forces on NATO’s eastern flank.

Cavoli said officials are planning to continue rotating U.S. units into Poland and other Eastern European sites for the foreseeable future, in recognition of Russian aggression in the region.

But he sidestepped questions from committee members about making some of those surge bases permanent, instead saying that officials are only preparing for potential changes in deployments in the future.

“We see a Euro-Atlantic area that faces more threats and dynamic challenges than at any time in the past 30 years,” he said.

The U.S. military footprint in Europe was a key friction point in recent years between Pentagon leaders and former President Donald Trump, who had pushed for steep drawdowns in the number of troops stationed there.

But President Joe Biden has voiced increasing support for European allies instead of reducing it, and has used the war in Ukraine to underscore that need.

While several Republicans on the armed services panel expressed concern for increasing direct military aid to Ukraine, none suggested significant reductions in the U.S. military posture in the region.

The defense committees of the upper and lower houses of the Italian parliament were due last week to start evaluating a proposal by the Italian defense ministry to purchase three of the torpedo-shaped BlueWhale drones designed for intelligence gathering, anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasures.

Equipped with sonars, including towed array sonar, the 5.5 tonne platform also boasts a raisable, satellite-linked turret offering radar and electro-optic capabilities.

The program was listed, without naming Elta, in last year’s Italian defense budget, which priced the purchase at €254 million ($273 million), with payments to be spread between 2023 and 2035, including logistic support, control stations and recovery and deployment systems for ships and submarines.

The Italian parliament’s defense committees generally approve all purchase proposals sent to them by the Italian defense ministry, marking the last formal step before a procurement goes ahead.

But last week, just before the BlueWhale purchase was due to be debated and voted on, the plan was withdrawn by the defense ministry.

Sources knowledgeable of the planned procurement said it was blocked over concerns that the technology could be entirely produced by Italian industry without the need to involve overseas firms.

The decision suggests that plans to partly involve Italian firms in work share on the 10.9 meter long BlueWhale were deemed insufficient.

Italy is raising its profile in sub-sea warfare with a new centre at La Spezia which brings together the Navy, industry and universities to develop systems.

A second reason, the sources said, was the political sensitivity involved in buying Israeli defense products amid the international outcry over Israel’s military operation in Gaza which has led to the deaths of over 33,000 Palestinians.

The Israeli operation followed the Hamas attack on Israel which killed around 1,200.

Italy’s right wing government is solidly pro-Israel, but opposition members of parliament sitting on defense committees hail from parties which have been vocal in criticizing the Israeli operation.

Two sources, who could not be named because they were not permitted to speak publicly about the program, told Defense News the decision to block it was also related to doubts raised by Italian officials over the performance of the platform, with criticism of the acoustic signal emitted by its propellor, its maneuverability and its cost.

A third source however said the BlueWhale’s performance had not been a factor.

Fluor, an engineering and construction company based in Irving, Texas, will receive about $409 million to finish the project within five years, the company announced April 10.

Tinian is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an American territory north of Guam and about 1,500 miles east of the Philippines. The Air Force launched bomber raids against Japan from Tinian during World War II. Since then, the island’s jungle has grown over the finished runways.

For years, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command — the military organization responsible for the region — has wanted to rebuild them. Its goal is part of what the Air Force calls Agile Combat Employment — divvying U.S. forces into smaller groups around the region. More, smaller groups would make American positions harder to target, the argument goes.

The top military and civilian leaders in the Air Force visited the island earlier this month to survey work on the airfield. Since January, airmen have started to clear hundreds of acres of jungle so that construction work can begin.

Indo-Pacific Command sends lawmakers an annual wish list of projects it deems necessary to deter a conflict in the region. This year’s list included $4.8 billion for infrastructure, though about a fifth of these construction projects show up in the Pentagon’s budget request for fiscal 2025.

Pentagon and military leaders in the Pacific sometimes disagree on where to spend money in the region and what work is even possible in the short term. That’s particularly true when it comes to construction. Materials and workers are much more expensive on Pacific islands than in the continental United States, and projects require bureaucratic rigmarole to start.

The result is often a path paved by delays, a Republican congressional aide told Defense News in January.

“The money takes very long to show up,” the aide said. “Then simultaneously you’re dealing with horrific bureaucratic problems.”

As a U.S. territory with existing sites to build on and mostly flat land, Tinian should be one of the easier places for the Defense Department to work, the aide said.

“It’s not a complicated project.”

The 19-page document, released April 10, provides a broad look at the service’s vision for a more integrated government-commercial space architecture. It promises greater reliance on private systems in the pursuit of a diversified, resilient network of satellites and ground capabilities.

“The Space Force will pivot to a new model for integrating commercial space solutions,” the document states. “The hybrid space architectures we field will integrate Department of Defense, commercial and allied space systems into more resilient, redundant and combat-effective capabilities.”

The Space Force has made some steps over the last few years to better engage with commercial industry, encouraging the acquisition workforce to look for off-the-shelf capabilities before building new government-owned systems. Last year, it created an office tasked with finding more opportunities to buy commercial systems and services.

The service had planned to release its strategy last fall, but Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman called for more details and fewer platitudes. Since then, it has moved through multiple revisions ensure it aligns with a similar Pentagon-level strategy, which was released last week.

The document lays out action steps for the service, designating offices to lead the charge and setting near-term goals. It also spells out which mission areas are most primed for commercial partnership, putting satellite communications, space domain awareness, in-orbit servicing and logistics and tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking toward the top of the list.

However, it only briefly addresses what funding will be required to implement it. An earlier version of the strategy drafted in February and obtained by C4ISRNET included a section committing to prioritizing commercial capabilities in the Space Force’s annual budget and called on the service to double its spending on commercial services over the next two years.

The draft also called for the service to begin to make changes to institutional processes and begin integrating commercial systems and services as part of the fiscal 2026 budget process.

The final version references the need to realign funding with commercial priorities, but doesn’t include the details from the earlier draft.

“Current funding levels and annual budgeting requests must evolve to achieve the desired end states,” the final document states. “As hybrid architectures are integrated into USSF force designs, budgets will be realigned and reprioritized to fully support their fielding. Likewise, as the [commercial space strategy] matures, the USSF will make any necessary organizational adjustments to fully leverage the operational benefits gained by hybrid architectures.”

Speaking April 10 at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman acknowledged that the strategy doesn’t provide the granular detail many companies and government organizations may be looking for.

He noted that as the service implements the strategy, it will need to make “tough choices” about where to shift funding in order to invest more in commercial systems.

“If you read the strategy expecting to see the answers to the most challenging promises of commercial integration, you’ll be disappointed,” he said. “But if you understand that effective integration will only come about with a common understanding of our priorities . . . I think you’ll find this document useful — useful as a tool to drive process change, to shift our mindset and useful to see the space versus relationship with industry in a new light.”

Implementation

The strategy’s near-term lines of effort fall into four categories: collaborative transparency, operational and technical integration, risk management and emerging technology. While the document is vague on which specific processes need to change to support the strategy, it notes that it will soon release a planning ordnance that fleshes out any adjustments or new initiatives in more detail.

Within the first focus area, the service aims to increase its awareness of commercial capabilities and find ways to draw them into existing programs. It will also work to expose its own workforce to the private sector to learn from commercial best practices and better understand challenges.

The operational and technical line of effort addresses the policies and processes the Space Force will need to adjust in order to integrate more commercial systems. It lists how each mission area will leverage these capabilities and which will rely more on bespoke government systems. The latter category includes areas like positioning, navigation and timing, and command and control.

“For mission areas where the USSF has determined relevance for commercial integration, all USSF units will be able to operate within a framework and secure the tools necessary to fully integrate commercial space solutions,” the document states. “For each relevant mission, the USSF will ensure that there is a process to flexibly select commercial vendors to meet Joint Force operational needs.”

Mitigating risk

Another goal within this effort is to “aggressively” pursue commercial integration within its test and training systems. That includes taking advantage of commercial ranges and other training capabilities.

The third line of effort is focused on helping mitigate the risk commercial firms accept by supporting military space operations. The service notes that industry needs to have a better sense of the threats they face from U.S. adversaries and says it will develop a process to more quickly provide that information.

The Space Force also commits to reducing the classification barriers and improving clearance processes.

Finally, the strategy calls for the service to develop a process for scouting emerging technology in the commercial sector and work more closely with organizations already doing this work, like the Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX and SpaceWERX.

“The USSF must establish a process to look across commercial offerings, to include traditional and non-traditional space sector, to identify the cross-cutting capabilities and services that can satisfy operational requirements,” it says.