The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) this week named Mark Munsell as its new Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer (CAIO), adding to his duties, formalizing the position, and elevating it to the senior levels of the organization.
Munsell, who is also the director of NGA’s Data and Digital Innovation Directorate, will ensure the agency is sharing best practices and not duplicating efforts around AI, establish governance around the use of AI, ensure the agency’s work aligns with guidance from the Defense Department and intelligence community, recommend and prioritize AI initiatives, and advise leadership on applying the technology to its operations.
The CAIO role had been utilized in an acting capacity but now is a formalized senior agency position.
As director of the Data and Digital Innovation Directorate, Munsell already oversees NGA’s marquis AI program, NGA Maven, which applies computer vision to sensor data to speed the detection of people and objects for warfighters.
Munsell reports to Trey Treadwell, associate director for capabilities at NGA. As the CAIO, he is a member of the agency’s AI National Security Coordination Group, which collaborates internally and externally to share computing resources, accelerate AI adoption, and lower costs, NGA said.
Munsell also will join the intelligence community’s CAIO Council, which supports the intelligence community and DoD in achieving AI objectives. He will also help with AI strategy, and goals and objectives for the community’s AI vision.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] on Wednesday completed its acquisition of smallsat manufacturer Terran Orbital
, acquiring the former SPAC as its largest customer.
Terran Orbital and subsidiary Tyvak International are now part of Lockheed Martin’s Space business area and recognized as Terran Orbital, a Lockheed Martin company. Lockheed Martin said in an Oct. 30 release it will remain a merchant supplier to the space industry for satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations, and in-orbit support.
Peter Krauss, who had been serving as COO since June 1, will lead the company as CEO, according to Lockheed Martin’s 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Krauss is the founder of PMK Consulting, and previously led payment card company Arroweye Solutions as CEO, and Plasticard Locktech International as CEO.
The new leadership team also includes Thomas Klinger of Lockheed Martin Space as acting CFO. Charles Nichols, who had been serving as multi-functional manufacturing director at Lockheed Martin, was appointed chief transition officer.
CEO Marc Bell is no longer with the company. In addition, CFO Adarsh Parekh, CRO Marco Villa and chief transformation officer Gary Hobart are no longer with the company.
Terran Orbital went public in March of 2022 in the wave of special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) mergers and ran into financial troubles in its two and a half years as a public company. Twice it was at risk of its stock being delisted for trading below $1. After signing a $2.4 billion constellation deal with Rivada Space Networks, Terran Orbital later slashed its revenue outlook in 2023 and removed the constellation from its backlog this year as Rivada did not keep up with payments.
Lockheed Martin agreed to acquire the satellite manufacturer in August in a $450 million deal based on enterprise value, a bargain versus the $606 million unsolicited proposal put forward in March. Lockheed Martin was Terran Orbital’s largest customer and represented 71% of the company’s revenue in the first six months of the year.
Terran Orbital builds satellite buses for Lockheed Martin’s Space Development Agency (SDA) contracts. The company delivered 10 buses for the Tranche 0 Transport Layer. It is currently building 42 buses for Lockheed Martin’s work on the Tranche 1 Transport Layer and 18 satellite buses for the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer.
While defense industry entrants are bringing welcome competition to Pentagon modernization efforts, the heritage defense giants are also working with some of the new firms on microelectronics advancements, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said on Tuesday.
Such collaboration has included defense heavyweights Lockheed Martin [LMT], Northrop Grumman [NOC], and RTX [RTX] and relative newcomers Anduril, Epirus, and Tignis, she said.
California’s Epirus specializes in high-powered microwave counter drone systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced electronics, while the Seattle-based Tignis focuses on the improvement of chip production through AI.
In 2022, Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act to spur the homeshoring of computer chip foundries, and Section 9903(b) of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act gave the go ahead for what has become a network of regional hubs under the “Microelectronics Commons.”
“The CHIPS Act made clear to America — and the world — that the U.S. government is united in its commitment to ensuring that our industrial and scientific powerhouses can deliver what we need to secure the future,” Hicks told the Microelectronics Commons’ annual meeting/National Science and Technology Council symposium in Washington, D.C.
“And we’re united beyond the U.S. government,” she said. “Take industry: right now we’re living through an era in which a new generation of defense-tech startups and scale-ups is disrupting America’s defense industrial base. That’s welcomed, because competition is good for the taxpayer and good for the warfighter.
“So you might expect to see the newcomers and the mainstays always eyeing each other warily, contesting whose products are better, and rarely collaborating or finding common cause, yet that’s not the case with our regional innovation hubs in the Northeast, Midwest, and Southwest,” Hicks said. “They’ve given a home to both traditional primes, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX, and newer venture-backed companies, like Anduril, Epirus, and Tignis.”
DoD said that it is to spend $1.9 billion to boost microelectronics production in fiscal 2024 as part of more than $39 billion in fiscal 2024 spending to support the department’s implementation plan for the National Defense Industrial Strategy (Defense Daily, Oct. 29).
Benefiting from its sensing, radar, work, and force protection work, Leonardo DRS [DRS] on Wednesday posted strong third quarter sales and earnings, continuing its robust momentum this year.
Net income jumped 21 percent to $57 million, 21 cents earnings per share (EPS), from $47 million (18 cents EPS) a year ago. Adjusting for certain amortization, transaction, restructuring and one-time non-operational costs, per share earnings of 24 cents topped consensus estimates by a nickel. Adjusted operating margin increased 50 basis points to 12.3 percent in the quarter on higher sales and program execution.
Sales increased 16 percent to $812 million from $703 million a year ago.
The top-line increase was driven by revenue from infrared sensing and tactical radar in the Advanced Sensing and Computing segment, which enjoyed 24 percent sales growth, and force protection systems in the Integrated Mission Systems segment, which was up 3 percent.
Bill Lynn, Leonardo DRS’s chairman and CEO, touted the company’s acquisition of RADA Electronic Industries nearly two years ago, a deal that gave it a suite of tactical radars used in different applications and that are in demand in the U.S. and abroad (Defense Daily, Nov. 28, 2022). Airborne threats to “people and platforms” have expanded, he said, which plays into the company’s radar wheelhouse.
“Effective air defense is being achieved through a greater quantity of capable and distributed tactical radars versus the traditional, more centralized model,” Lynn said during the company’s earnings call. “This is similar to what is happening in space with the shift to low Earth orbit satellites for missile tracking and detection missions. Our tactical radars are being deployed for a diversity of close-in and short-range air defense applications against drones, missiles, and other airborne threats.”
Lynn also highlighted recent contract wins for over-the-horizon radar, noting, “This marks an expansion of our radar portfolio into new sensing modalities for more long-range and sophisticated threats.”
The company is also expanding its infrared sensors into small tactical drones, he said.
Another bright spot in the quarter was Leonardo DRS’s work on the Navy’s Columbia-class nuclear submarine program for which the company is supplying the integrated electric propulsion to prime contractor General Dynamics [GD] under a $3 billion contract awarded a year ago.
Leonardo DRS is “performing well on our portion of the Columbia-class program…delivering to our customers with quality and on schedule,” Lynn said. Financially, the company is “seeing incremental benefit” from “the more attractively priced shipset overall” on the program, he added.
Unlike some suppliers on the submarine program, Lynn said his company is not a chokepoint for key components.
Last week, during GD’s third quarter earnings call, the company said the supply chain for the submarine industrial base is improving but continues to struggle with late deliveries “from major component suppliers,” contributing to schedule delays and higher costs (Defense Daily, Oct. 23).
Given strong results so far this year—sales are up 19 percent and net income 32 percent—combined with clear visibility through the fourth quarter, Leonardo DRS raised its sales outlook for 2024 to around $3.2 billion, representing 11 to 13 percent growth versus 2023. Adjusted earnings guidance is now between 88 cents and 91 cents EPS versus the prior range of 82 cents to 88 cents EPS due to a lower-than-expected tax rate.
The company also provided preliminary guidance for 2025, with sales forecast to be 5 to 8 percent higher than 2024 and adjusted operating margin of around 13 percent. The outlook will not be greatly impacted by an extended federal budget continuing resolution, Mike Dippold, Leonardo DRS chief financial officer, said on the call.
Leonardo DRS tallied $1.1 billion in orders in the quarter, representing a book-to-bill ratio of 1.3 times sales. Backlog stood at $8.3 billion, 75 percent higher than $4.7 billion a year ago. Free cash flow in the quarter was $48 million.
Denmark is to get the AIM-120D-3 missile, the latest version of RTX‘s [RTX] Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).
The State Department has approved a $744 million foreign military sale (FMS) to Denmark of 203 AIM-120D-3s and nine AMRAAM guidance sections “to include precise position provided by either Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module or M-Code,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said on Tuesday.
Previously, the State Department had approved FMS sales of earlier model AIM-120-C8s.
RTX has received a number of recent FMS and domestic AMRAAM contracts–worth several billion dollars–and has said that it is ramping up AMRAAM production.
In 2019, the Air Force disclosed development of the Joint Air Tactical Missile (JATM) to offset the Chinese PL-15 air-to-air missile.
The Lockheed Martin [LMT] JATM is to have a longer range than the AIM-120D. While the Air Force has divulged little about JATM and has said that its capabilities are classified, defense analysts have said that the missile will likely have a speed of Mach 4 to 5 and a range of 120 to 150 miles.
The Pentagon on Tuesday released the implementation plan for its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), detailing “concrete actions” to bolster the industrial base such as investments to ramp up munitions production, support to the submarine industrial base, addressing supply chain vulnerabilities and pursuing international co-production efforts.
Across the next two fiscal years, the Pentagon noted it plans to invest over $77 billion in a range of programs and initiatives that support priorities laid out in the new National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan (NDIS-IP).
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Dr. William A. LaPlante holds a press brief at the Pentagon, May 6, 2022. (DoD Photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class James K. Lee)
“The [NDIS-IP] represents a critical step forward in ensuring America’s continued technological and military superiority in an era of intensifying strategic competition. This plan translates the vision and objectives outlined in the National Defense Industrial Strategy into concrete actions and initiatives that will strengthen and modernize our defense industrial base,” Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, writes in the plan. “By executing the NDIS-IP, the DoD will enhance our ability to produce and sustain the advanced capabilities our warfighters need to deter aggression and prevail in conflict. We will foster a more agile, resilient, and competitive defense industrial base that can rapidly adapt to evolving threats and technological change.”
DoD released the NDIS in January and said its aim is to “catalyze generational rather than incremental change” for bolstering weapons production, noting the subsequent implementation plan would include “near-term measurable actions and metrics to gauge progress” (Defense Daily, Jan. 11).
The NDIS lays out four long-term goals to ensuring the industrial base can meet requirements to produce capabilities “at speed and scale,” focused on resilient supply chains, workforce readiness, flexible acquisition, and economic deterrence, with the Pentagon having said it would track its successes over the next three to five years to ensure it’s on path to achieve those objectives.
The new implementation plan lays out six initiatives with specific lines of effort to support the NDIS’ four key priorities, adding the document encompasses work being done across the DoD, additional U.S. government agencies, industry and international partners to get after “a more resilient defense industrial ecosystem and buy-down risks.”
The six initiatives include: “Indo-Pacific deterrence” with lines of effort to continue ramping up the supply of key munitions and missiles and supporting the submarine industrial base, “production and supply chains” focused on assessing supply chain risk vulnerabilities, onshoring critical production capacity, bolstering industrial cyber security and increasing munitions stockpiles and “allied partner and industrial collaboration” that covers strengthening the AUKUS trilateral security partnership, co-development and co-production of weapon systems and facilitating international industrial collaboration.
LaPlante has previously discussed the department’s intent to pursue more co-development, production and sustainment arrangements with international partners in its effort to improve industrial base capacity (Defense Daily, Aug. 19 2023).
“We keep saying production is deterrence. I believe co-production, particularly, is highly important, because it also shows commitment and resiliency and strengthens all the countries. So you’re going to see this more and more,” LaPlante has said. “Where we’re headed is co-development, co-production and co-sustainment with our partners. That’s where we’re all headed.”
The remaining three key initiatives laid out in the NDIS-IP include: “Capabilities and infrastructure modernization” which will encompass nuclear modernization efforts, continuing to upgrade the Organic Industrial Base and improving maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade capacity, “new capabilities using flexible pathways” that will utilize the Replicator and Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) programs and “intellectual property and data analysis” which covers investments to protect IP and advancing the “data, analytics and AI ecosystem.”
The Pentagon began the new Replicator initiative to get after fielding innovative technology at rapidly at scale with a focus on attritable drones and will turn to counter-drone tech in the next instantiation, while the RDER program aims to quickly find new technologies for prototyping to fill joint warfighting gaps (Defense Daily, Sept. 30).
The new NDIS-IP is intended to serve as a “guiding framework” for resourcing decisions and investments to bolster the industrial base in the coming years, LaPlante writes in the document.
“It will inform our budget priorities, shape our research and development focus areas, and drive our engagement with industry. By aligning our resources and investments with the strategic imperatives outlined in this plan, the DoD will build and maintain the robust and responsive defense industrial base our nation requires,” LaPlante said.
In a fact sheet accompanying the new document, the Pentagon notes it will spend $39.42 billion in FY ‘24 on programs and investments that support NDIS-IP priorities, to include: $30.6 billion on missiles and munitions, $3.3 billion for the submarine industrial base (SIB), $1.9 billion to boost microelectronics manufacturing, $929.1 million for Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III efforts, $921.3 million for the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program, $885.4 million for the Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program, $500 million for Replicator, $300 million for the APFIT program to transition promising technologies into production, $80 million for the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) and $530,000 for the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) Warstopper program to ensure access to “critical wartime materials.”
The Pentagon’s FY ‘25 budget request then covers another $37.73 billion in investments that support NDIS-IP priorities, according to the fact sheet, to include: $29.8 billion for missiles and munitions, $3.3 billion for the SIB, $1.9 billion for microelectronics, $1.1 billion for IBAS, $500 million for Replicator, $400 million for the APFIT program, $393.4 million for DPA Title III efforts, $144 million for the OSC, $138.8 million for the ManTech program and $52.5 million for DLA’s Warstopper program.
“The DoD’s commitment to achieving the NDIS vision through partnership and continuous investment is accurately conveyed by our increased investment in defense industrial capacity and resilience,” the NDIS-IP states.“While the FY ‘24 budget and FY ‘25 budget request are clear signals of the department’s prioritization of the NDIS vision, additional investment will be required in future budget cycles for the modernization and expansion objectives detailed in the strategy.”
The NDIS-IP also includes a “Risk Mitigation Framework” with DoD citing “risks of inaction” that could occur if the individual actions under the six key priorities are not fully implemented, to include: An inability to compete globally resulting in a decrease in defense industrial base exports and market share, production disruptions due to lack of onshoring critical manufacturing, over-customization that results in higher costs and lengthy development timelines, sustainment and logistic challenges that disrupt sustainment efforts and an overall “degraded technological edge.”
“The NDIS-IP also outlines the risks the defense industrial ecosystem will face if we do not take the actions necessary to achieve the mission set forth in the NDIS and articulates the risk mitigation necessary for successful execution,” DoD writes in the document. “The NDIS Risk Management Framework assesses the extent to which any DoD activity ‘buys down’ or reduces risk. For each initiative, the department identifies efforts led by DoD components to mitigate the risk. These mitigation efforts are tied to key classified milestones and measures, allowing leadership to track progress and understand the residual risk after implementation.”
DoD said a forthcoming NDIS-IP annex will include specific details on industrial base vulnerabilities and the performance and outcome metrics to mitigate those associated risks.
The Pentagon added that it plans to update the NDIS-IP annually and will issue progress to stakeholders, including lawmakers, with the department citing Congress’ support as key to carrying out the plan’s stated priorities.
“Congressional support [for the NDIS-IP] is particularly essential, as it provides the policy guidance, resources, and legislative framework necessary to enable effective public-private partnerships, promote technological advancements, and secure supply chains,” DoD writes in the report.
Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) President and CEO Eric Fanning on Tuesday applauded the release of the NDIS-IP and specifically cited the inclusion of performance and outcome metrics tied in with each of the six priority areas.
“AIA is particularly pleased to see a plan to incorporate performance and outcome metrics associated with six key risk areas. This will provide visibility to stakeholders and encourage policymakers to enact risk mitigation strategies,” Fanning said in a statement. “We are eager to understand the specific metrics the NDIS-IP will incorporate into its classified report and encourages the DOD to avoid adding cumbersome compliance and reporting requirements in the process.”
The Israeli Ministry of Defense on Tuesday unveiled a $537 million deal to increase serial production of the laser interception system Iron Beam with primary developers and producers Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems
[ESLT].
Iron Beam is Israel’s ground-based 100-kilowatt laser system meant to intercept unmanned aerial vehicles, mortars, rockets and some cruise missiles, complementing the Iron Dome air defense system focused on similar relatively shorter range threats. Like most laser systems in development, the system aims to help intercept some threats at a cheaper rate per shot.
The Iron Beam 100kW-class High Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS), developed by Rafael and Elbit Systems for the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The laser system is meant to complement the current Iron Dome defense system. (Photo: Rafael Advanced Defense Systems)
“The system is expected to integrate into Israel’s multi-layered defense array as a complementary capability to the Iron Dome system. This integration will significantly enhance Israel’s defense capabilities against current and future threats, offering lower operational costs,” the ministry said in a statement.
Maj. Gen. (Res.) Eyal Zamir, director general of the Ministry of Defense, signed the deal at a ceremony at the Ministry’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Other attendees included Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Dr. Daniel Gold, Head of the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D), Yoav Tourgeman, CEO of Rafael, Bezhalel (Butzi) Machlis, CEO of Elbit Systems, and other senior officials.
Zamit also revealed that the “first capability” of Iron Beam is expected to enter operational service within one year.
The ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development research and development unit leads the project while Rafael and Elbit are the primary developers.
Israel boasted the system is a “technological breakthrough” with capabilities demonstrated via a series of successful trials.
The IMoD signed a landmark deal worth approximately NIS 2 billion (over $500 million) to expand serial production of Israel’s first domestically developed laser interception system, the Iron Beam, with lead developers Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems. pic.twitter.com/dtAvPluIqm
In 2022 Rafael announced the Iron Beam had completed a series of tests where it successfully intercepted UAVs, mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles (Defense Daily, April 15, 2022).
In late 2022 Lockheed Martin [LMT] said it was teaming with Rafael to jointly develop, test and manufacture laser weapon systems like Iron Beam, which included developing a variant for the U.S. defense market (Defense Daily, Dec. 5, 2022).
Rafael first debuted a full scale model of the Iron Beam in March 2023 during the International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi.
Avio USA, a subsidiary of Italy’s Avio S.p.A, is considering sites for Avio’s first solid rocket motor (SRM) plant in the United States.
The company said that it has picked the Texas-based ACMI Group‘s ACMI Properties to design the plant.
“Avio USA and ACMI Properties are in the process of evaluating several locations to select the best possible site for the several hundred-acre solid rocket motor production facility,” Avio USA said this week. “Multiple states are currently under consideration. The evaluation period for the factory’s location is planned to conclude in the first half of 2025.”
Avio USA said that its SRM plant will be “a significant investment in the U.S. industrial base to support the rapid increase in demand for solid rocket motors in the defense and aerospace industries and that “the project represents Avio’s largest investment in the American market to-date and is expected to create hundreds of new, high paying jobs.”
In July, RTX‘s [RTX] Raytheon business and Avio said that they have signed a contract to develop military SRMs and bolster the SRM part of the U.S. defense industrial base (Defense Daily, July 24).
Avio has said that it has more than 1,300 workers engaged in space launcher and defense solid rocket motor work and that it has sites in Coleferro outside Rome, French Guyana’s European spaceport–the location of the company’s Vega space launcher, and Arlington, Va., where Avio USA is based.
Northrop Grumman [NOC] and L3Harris Technologies [LHX] have dominated the U.S. SRM business, but new companies are entering, including Ursa Major, X-Bow Systems, and Anduril Industries through its buy last year of West Lafayette, Ind.-based Adranos, Inc.
In addition, in August, General Dynamics [GD] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] announced that GD’s Camden, Ark. plant would produce SRMs for Lockheed Martin munitions as the first step in the companies’ stated aim to strengthen the SRM part of the defense industrial base (Defense Daily, Aug. 13).
Retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. James Syring, the CEO of Avio USA, said in Avio’s Tuesday statement that “we are seeing significant demand for our capabilities from our current customers in multiple product lines, and this [new U.S.] facility will be critical in expanding our production capacity so we can meet the needs of our current and future customers as an independent supplier.”
Syring headed the DoD Missile Defense Agency from 2012 to 2017.
Propulsion and on-orbit repair and refueling of satellites are underfunded innovation areas that the DoD Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) has looked to take on.
“Our 2024 investment strategy talks about space-enabled services–propulsion, on-orbit servicing, refueling–all of it is within the area that we see as inherently undercapitalized,” Jason Rathje, the director of OSC said on Tuesday after a discussion before the Washington Space Business Roundtable (WSBR) in Washington, D.C.
“Hopefully, we’ll be releasing our new investment strategy in the not too distant future,” he said. “Once that happens, you’ll see some different areas.”
The OSC has used a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) for OSC loans–the first time in four decades that DoD has used SBIC funds, as DoD has not had authority to operate its own federal credit program (Defense Daily, March 17, 2023). The idea is to encourage venture capital (VC) investment in critical, DoD technology areas with lower rates of return. For example, if DoD provides half the dollars to a given investment fund–and VC the other half–the VC investment rate of return (IRR) would double, and DoD would see its loan investment funds returned with interest.
DoD has used SBICs–first, to spur U.S. advancement in space after the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik and again in the 1970s to flow supercomputer money to the then-struggling Cray Computer Corp.
OSC has grown from three employees since its establishment on Dec. 1, 2022 to more than 50, and if fiscal 2025 funding comes through, the office may double in size, Rathje said.
OSC and the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act may shift VC funding to hardware from VC’s focus in the last two decades on software firms.
“When we started this effort [OSC] a few years back, six percent of all private capital in the venture space was going into the hardware-centric critical technology areas, and that number is getting smaller by the day,” Rathje told the WSBR. “How do we buck that trend? How do we get investors back in? In 2006-07, 45 percent of all capital was being invested in hardware-centric industries. It’s been a precipitous decline.”
Software “is a better business model” than hardware, Rathje said after his remarks on Tuesday. “You make more money faster. Capital flows to returns. You can’t penalize the capital markets for responding to that. It’s just where the incentives go.”
Early in 2025, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) will begin testing of unmanned systems being acquired under the Defense Department’s Replicator initiative and will continue monthly experiments to see how well the technologies fit into operational plans, a command official said on Tuesday.
The Replicator products will be tested against INDOPACOM’s concept of operations and concepts of employment, leading to initial operating capability (IOC) later next summer, Bob Stephenson, director for capabilities and resource integration within the command, said at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute.
Replicator was announced in August 2023 as an effort to relatively quickly acquire and field thousands of all-domain attritable autonomous systems within two years to overcome China’s advantages in mass (Defense Daily, Aug. 28, 2023). In May, the first unmanned systems for the initiative began to be delivered (Defense Daily, May 23). The initial tranche includes uncrewed surface vehicles, uncrewed aerial systems, and counter-uncrewed aerial systems of various sizes and payloads. The only system that DoD has confirmed that is in the initial buy for mass production is AeroVironment’s [AVAV] Switchblade-600 loitering munition.
As new capabilities emerge, particularly unmanned systems, Stephenson said INDOPACOM is focusing on the manning, logistics, and sustainment aspects of these.
“So, we’re using our experimentation to tease out those details,” he said. “A lot of our later experiments turn almost into reversals.”
Next spring the command will do a “major exercise with unmanned vehicles” that will “replicate the echelons of command with the systems and show that we can from the JTF (Joint Task Force) commander down to the individual units, specially employ them in scenarios where we think we’re going to do that,” Stephenson said, adding that he has a “pretty large experimentation directorate.”
Of late, INDOPACOM has realized a growing need to experiment with U.S. partners in the Indo-Pacific region, Stephenson said. He highlighted the latest Autonomous Warrior exercise that recently wrapped up in Jervis Bay, Australia, that also included the United Kingdom, and Japan as an observer. These partnerships are important operationally, politically, and for science and technology, he said.
Stephenson INDOPACOM was able to “pull some promising technologies out of Autonomous Warrior” for inclusion in the initial Replicator batch. He did not identify the specific year for the exercise that benefited Replicator.
RDER Update
Also speaking at the Hudson event was Thomas Browing, assistant secretary of defense for mission capabilities within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (R&E). Browning oversees R&E’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER), which sets out annual joint problem sets and invites proposals that could fill gaps and then quickly experiment with selected prototype solutions for potential transition to programs of record.
Under the RDER effort in 2024, Browning’s team experimented with solutions for logistics and forward base defense. Some of those solutions will be examined further in exercises in 2024 and 2025.
For the 2025 RDER campaign, Browning said the focus will be on gaps in INDOPACOM’s capabilities for an enduring campaign. The campaign will explore solutions to meet the command’s needs to see, blind, and possibly “kill” the enemy, Browing said.
This effort will focus on “gaps in our ability to discern a depiction of the battlespace,” gaps in counter-C5ISR and targeting, gaps in making “our kill chains work” and how to make the enemy’s “kill chains not work,” he said.
In 2026, RDER will focus on two “underserved areas,” space control and space support, and collaborative autonomy, Browing said. Space control and support has to do with supporting the “terrestrial fight” by taking advantage of the “explosion” of satellites in low Earth orbit for communications, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, he said.
Browning said that the collaborative autonomy effort under RDER was conceived before Replicator existing, calling it “pretty prophetic.” He described collaborative autonomy as unmanned systems at “the forward edge of the fight” being able to synchronize with each other, not kill each other, and talk to each other.
“So, where are those areas in allowing different services’, potentially even allies and partners’, vehicles and systems work together independent of human interaction?” Browning said. “We just finished the selection process in that and those are going to the ’26 POM,” he added, referring to the program objective memorandum that outlines the Defense Department’s five-year budget period beginning in fiscal year 2026.
