Breaking Defense: SPACE & MISSILE DEFENSE SYMPOSIUM.: Some 35 years after Ronald Reagan’s famous Star Wars speech, the Pentagon’s R&D chief said that space-based missile defenses are technically feasible and reasonably affordable. Since Reagan’s day, technology has advanced enough that putting both sensors and shooters in space is not only possible but “relatively easy,” Undersecretary for Research…
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Defense News: In the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress agreed with the Air Force to cancel the manned JSTARS recap program in favor of a largely space-based system, the Advanced Battle Management System. ABMS is undefined, without an estimate of cost and with an unknown fielding date. In the meantime, against Air Force wishes, Congress has…
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Defense News: WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday announced the Trump administration is laying the groundwork a new Space Force and eventually a separate military branch, dedicated to space. While the merits of a new organization are debatable, U.S. national security space systems are vulnerable to a wide array of threats, ranging from cyberattacks…
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Defense News: WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence on Aug. 9 unveiled the Pentagon’s plan to set the stage for a Space Force — a new military service branch centered around space operations — which could be in effect as early as 2020. That plan involves creating an independent unified combatant command, U.S. Space Command, that…
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Defense News: HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — The Army is heading toward acquiring an interim cruise missile protection capability as part of an effort being spearheaded by the air-and-missile defense cross functional team within the service’s new Futures Command. The Army’s AMD CFT took on the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 program as one of its priorities in…
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WHNT 19: HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Space and Missile Defense Symposium is all about the future. That’s a fair statement, and so is this, “It’s the only symposium in the world that focuses exclusively on space and missile defense,” said Bob McCaleb, the Lead Executive at Northrop Grumman in Huntsville. The SMD Symposium has been…
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Defense News: HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Missile Defense Agency is ‘not averse’ to developing and fielding space-based missile defense interceptors, its director, Gen. Samuel Greaves, said August 8 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. While it has appeared, in a way, like Congresshas been pushing the development of space-based missile defense interceptors on an…
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Defense News: HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — The U.S. is seeing the need more and more to become increasingly interoperable with allies when it comes to missile defense, but there are many challenges still to overcome, according to a panel of former and current missile defense stakeholders at the August 7 Defense News Missile Defense Networking Reception.…
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UPI: Aug. 8 (UPI) — Lockheed Martin has received a $15.8 million contract for materials and development support for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system. The modification to a previous contract, announced Tuesday by the Department of Defense, increases the cumulative value of the contract to just under $2.9 billion… Read full post. …
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Defense News: HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Raytheon and a Lockheed Martin-Dynetics team are now locked in a head-to-head battle to build a powerful 100-kilowatt laser for the U.S. Army, pushing the envelope on directed-energy capability development. And the Army is moving full-speed ahead with plans to select one winner to integrate its laser system onto the…
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