Page 2 – Defense Daily

Lockheed Martin to Receive Sustainment Contract for FPS-117 Radars

The U.S. Air Force plans to award Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] site near Syracuse a five-year contract for sustainment of the AN/FPS-117 Atmospheric Early Warning System (AEWS) radar, originally developed by General Electric [GE].

“A sources sought notice posted in September 2024 was issued to determine potential contractors capable of addressing the combined software and hardware issues,” the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s AEWS program said in a Thursday business notice. “While responses were received from several vendors, none of them were capable of sustaining the systems that are proprietary technologies to [Lockheed Martin]. Where possible, the government has identified certain assemblies/systems of the FPS-117 Radar that are not considered proprietary technology to [Lockheed Martin]. Those systems will be procured through another contract vehicle which will be competed.”

“Given that the government does not own the rights to the assemblies/systems identified, and that [Lockheed Martin] has proprietary rights over those systems, a sole source award to [Lockheed Martin] is warranted,” the notice said.

The Air Force has said it may issue a five-year Advanced Range and Radar Array Key Instrument for Sustainment (ARRAKIS) solicitation this year to improve the performance of the FPS-117 (Defense Daily, Nov. 26, 2024).

Last November, Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) held an ARRAKIS industry day at the FPS-117 engineering facility at Hill AFB, Utah. The Air Force is looking to sustain the FPS-117 until at least 2035.

The 250-mile range, three dimensional phased array antenna radar, able to detect objects at 100,000 feet, has 27 sites and is part of the U.S./Canadian AEWS to warn of intrusions into North American airspace by aircraft, missiles, and now balloons over the North Pole. Canada’s portion is the North Warning System (NWS).

NWS, originally designed to counter Soviet bombers, covers nearly 3,000 miles across North America from the Aleutian Islands in southwestern Alaska to Baffin Island in northeastern Canada, and U.S. Northern Command has spoken of the need to move to longer-range, over-the-horizon radar to counter not only aircraft, but cruise missiles and small drones.

For ARRAKIS, AFMC is looking for contractors with hardware/software radar design tech refresh experience. Contractors attending last November’s industry day were SRC, Inc.; Select Engineering Services; Decryptor, TSS Solutions; and Kihomac.

Lockheed Martin is to continue its sustainment of the FPS-117’s proprietary mission software, the Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar, the Signal Processor Data Processor, and the Digital Array Row Transceivers.

“Proprietary designs driven by contractor business strategies hinder sustainment and significantly impact weapon system performance,” according to an Air Force briefing slide from last November’s industry day. “The complexity of logistics has compromised the level of support, increasing the difficulty of performing technical and emergency services when needed.”

The maximum annual number of FPS-117 “emergencies”–temporary radar malfunctions–is “four to five,” the AEWS program said last year. “Two last year, three or four the year before. Temperature can get to -70F or colder at the sites. That impacts the hardware.”

Emergency service “is essential,” the AEWS PMO said, as “techs may not have the tools to figure out what exactly is the problem,” if the radar stops rotating.

“That’s when contractor would be called upon,” the AEWS PMO said. “Down time can only be less than a designated number of hours per year. When radars go down, the four star of NORAD is immediately notified.”

A fiscal 2024 North American Aerospace Defense Command/U.S. Northern Command (NORAD/NORTHCOM) unfunded priorities list to Congress said that 1980s radars and earlier will begin reaching the end of their service lives this year and that these radars “will begin to fail at increasing rates.”

Such radars include the 1970s-era Westinghouse, now Northrop Grumman [NOC], TPS-75 and the FPS-117.

The Air Force said that it has awarded Lockheed Martin $472 million so far under the Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar program for 19 TPY-4 radars to replace the TPS-75s (Defense Daily, Apr. 22). The contract includes $100 million added by Congress for four TPY-4s for NORAD/NORTHCOM.

SAIC Nabs Potential $55 Million SDA Award To Be Tranche 3 Integrator

Taking lessons learned from the development and acquisition of the initial Proliferate Space Warfighter Architecture (PWSA), the Space Development Agency (SDA) this week awarded Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] a potential $54.9 million contact to be the integrator for the Tranche 3 portion of the architecture.

SAIC’s role is a new one under the program. General Dynamics’ [GD] Mission Systems division previously won a contract to establish the Ground, Management, and Integration framework for Tranches 1 and 2 of PWSA.

Under the five-year cost-plus award fee Tranche 3 Program Integration (TP3I) contract, SAIC will provide various systems engineering and integration tasks such as develop verification products, coordinating test events for space vehicles, coordinating product reviews, configuration management, and create, manage, and maintain a T3 program delivery schedule across all satellite vendors within the tranche.

SAIC’s support will enable “the delivery of Tranche 3 Space Vehicle Transport, Tracking, and Custody Layers and their integration within the PWSA Ground Segment,” SDA said in an April 22 award notice.

SDA recently released a request for proposals for the Tranche 3 satellites, which consist of communications spacecraft—called the Transport Layer—and missile detection and tracking birds—called the Tracking Layer. Awards are expected later this year.

A small fleet of Tracking and Transport Layer satellites are already on orbit under the Tranche 0 phase of PWSA. The launch of Tranche 1 spacecraft was originally planned for last fall but various delays, including supply chain challenges, have moved the start of those launches until late this summer.

“With the spiral development model, SDA continuously pushes lessons learned into subsequent tranches,” an SDA spokesperson told Defense Daily. “SDA decided to contract with a Tranche 3 integrator based on lessons learned from acquiring and delivery of Tranche 1 and 2.”

SDA said five offers were received for the T3PI effort. The government obligated an initial $6 million in fiscal year 2025 research and development funds at the time of the award.

Earnings Up, Sales Dip At L3Harris In First Quarter

L3Harris Technologies [LHX] on Thursday posted strong first quarter earnings on lower corporate, divestiture, and business transformation costs, and higher operating earnings despite a slight drop in sales.

Net income jumped 35 percent to $386 million, $2.04 earnings per share (EPS), from $285 million ($1.48 EPS) a year ago.

Excluding merger and divestiture expenses, a divestiture-related loss, and costs associated with the company’s LHX NeXt transformation, adjusted earnings of $2.41 EPS were up 7 percent and topped consensus estimates by a dime. Adjusted segment operating margin rose 50 basis points to 15.6 percent.

Costs associated with LHX NeXt are declining and the initiative is wrapping up the cost optimization phase and will transition to enterprise transformation, entailing artificial intelligence-enabled and digital transformations solutions, and further supply chain optimization to “become leaner and more agile,” Ken Bedingfield, chief financial officer of L3Harris, said on the company’s earnings call.

Sales declined 2 percent to $5,1 billion versus $5.2 billion a year ago, due to the divestitures last year of an antenna business and an ordnance business, and one less work week in the quarter. Excluding the portfolio adjustments, organic revenue was flat as gains in the Communications Systems and Aerojet Rocketdyne segments were offset by declines at Integrated Mission Systems, and Space and Airborne Systems (SAS).

Continued challenges on classified fixed-price development programs within the Space Systems business of SAS weighed on sales and earnings. Bedingfield described the losses on the contracts as “kind of tens of millions of dollars of negative adjustments across a couple of programs.” He added that the programs will be in the clear later this year or in early 2026, noting they are important for “our country and the warfighter, and we see it as a strong growth area in the future.”

Orders were light at $4.3 billion, which the company shrugged off as being normal during a presidential transition period. Backlog declined 3 percent to $33.2 billion from the end of 2024.

L3Harris updated its outlook for 2025 to account for the recent divestiture of its Commercial Aviation Solutions business, which represents about a $525 million hit to sales and 55 cents EPS headwind to adjusted earnings this year. Improved performance and capital deployment options will partially offset the earnings hit by about 25 cents.

Sales are projected to be between $21.4 billion and $21.7 billion, $400 million lower than prior guidance. Adjusted earnings are forecast between $10.30 and $10.50 EPS versus between $10.55 and $10.85 previously. Free cash flow guidance remains at $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion. Free cash was negative $72 million in the quarter.

The company does not expect “meaningful” impacts from tariffs, Bedingfield said.

The company is confident in its previous “framework” for 2026 sales of $23 billion. Chris Kubasik, chairman and CEO of L3Harris, highlighted the Trump administration’s potential $1 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year 2026, a $1.1 billion award in April from the Dutch Defense Ministry for network modernization and software-defined radios, a classified award also in April worth more than $350 million, and another $200 million international award, as future growth drivers.

Kubasik said that international demand and interest in the company’s products remains strong despite concerns from allies and partners about the Trump administration’s commitments to alliances and security pacts.

Bedingfield also highlighted that the company’s work on the Technology Refresh 3 for the F-35 fighter is transitioning from development to a gradual ramp up in production, which will benefit sales in 2026. He said the space business will also return to growth next year with additional opportunities being the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) expected award later this year of the third tranche of missile tracking satellites and the administration’s Golden Dome for America homeland missile defense effort.

L3Harris’s missile tracking satellites are part of earlier tranches of the SDA Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, including its Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS), which tracks advanced missile threats and provides fire control data to missile interceptors. President Trump’s directive in January establishing Golden Dome calls for accelerating HBTSS and L3Harris has said it is ready for production (Defense Daily

, April 9).

If L3Harris can get a production “order here quickly, we can have the U.S. covered while the president is still in office,” Kubasik said of HBTSS on the call.

Bedingfield also highlighted the Aerojet Rocketdyne segment, which he heads, as being well positioned for Golden Dome opportunities given its role supplying solid rocket motors and other propulsion-related systems for missile interceptors, target vehicles for the Missile Development Agency that it is looking to accelerate, and in-space propulsion.

USAF Air Superiority Concept ‘Evolving,’ As FY 2026 Budget to Show Whether Service Had to Make Trade-Offs to Afford F-47

The U.S. Air Force is examining ways to provide air superiority beyond the service’s traditional go-to of advanced manned fighters and air-to-air missiles at the same time that Air Force leaders say that omnipresent air dominance may not be required and that Boeing‘s [BA] future F-47 will allow the joint force “freedom of maneuver” against technologically advanced countries, such as China.

While the Air Force will continue to provide air superiority for the joint force, “there might be places where air superiority doesn’t turn into air supremacy,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph “Solo” Kunkel, the service’s director for force design, integration, and wargaming, told a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ virtual forum on Thursday.

“There’s probably places where there’s mutual air denial, where no one has air superiority, but we’re denying the air domain to the adversary,” he said. “I think, in some of these cases, that may be perfectly acceptable where we don’t have dominating presence all the time, where we’re not trying to take over a particular plot of air, but we’re denying its use to the adversary. Is that air superiority? I don’t know. I tend to think it is, but it may not be the traditional definition that we’ve had.”

Yet, mutual air denial has characterized Ukraine, which has become a war of attrition.

A week before leaving office at the end of the Biden administration, then Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said that a manned Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter would require more than $20 billion extra in research and development, as he laid out options for the incoming Trump administration, including long-range strike and de-scoping the NGAD program to comprise just unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) controlled by manned fighters, such as a successor to the Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35 (Defense Daily, Jan. 13).

Manned NGAD has had a more than $200 million estimated unit cost, and an Air Force NGAD review panel, led by Timothy Grayson, a special assistant to Kendall, examined the way ahead and provided input to Kendall before the Air Force announced the manned NGAD pause in December.

A month ago, President Trump, in an Oval Office ceremony with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, and Lt. Gen. Dale White, military deputy to the Air Force Acquisition and Technology Office, announced that Boeing had beaten Lockheed Martin in the NGAD competition to win the engineering and manufacturing (EMD) development contract for the F-47 (Defense Daily, March 21).

F-47 will assure “air superiority for generations to come,” Kunkel said. “The capabilities that it brings to the fight are game changing for us. We paused [NGAD]. I was part of the group that did the analysis and said, ‘Hey. Is there a different way to do this? Can we do this with the current capabilities?’ And we found…and I guess we probably didn’t need to do the analysis because we found out that we were right, that air superiority does matter, that it changes the entire complexion of the fight and that the F-47, the NGAD before we called it the F-47, absolutely does matter and changes the character of the fight, not just for the Air Force, but for the joint force.”

The F-47 “allows the joint force to get places it otherwise couldn’t,” Kunkel said. “It allows us to move closer to the adversary and to counter the adversary in ways that we can’t [now].”

The Air Force is examining CCA employment by a number of aircraft, including the F-47, he said–an employment that is to complicate an adversary’s targeting decisions and an employment that may feature air-to-air and other missions.

Next month, DoD is to release its fiscal 2026 budget request, which will clear up any trade-offs the Air Force had to make to afford F-47 EMD or whether the service received a significantly higher total obligational authority than in years past and thus did not have to assume higher risk in certain areas, such as flying hours, through reducing what it has viewed as critical spending.

Lockheed Martin Acquiring Amentum’s Rapid Solutions Business For $360 Million

Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Amentum [AMTM] on Wednesday said they have reached a deal for Amentum to sell its engineering and technology-focused Rapid Solutions business to Lockheed for $360 million in cash.

Rapid Solutions will become part of Lockheed Martin’s Space segment when the transaction closes, which is expected in the second half of 2025. Rapid Solutions accounted for about 1 percent of Amentum’s sales in 2024, which were $8.4 billion. The business has about 230 employees.

Rapid Solutions manufactures intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, advanced communications, and tactical systems.

“Together, Rapid Solutions’ electronically steered array and Lockheed Martin’s demonstrated production capability and discipline as a prime integrator will provide the industry with a strong cost and value proposition to foster competition and help us support national security systems,” Tahllee Baynard, vice president of the Ignite division within Lockheed Martin Space, said in a statement.

Amentum said the divesture is part of its strategy to focus on advanced engineering and technology-focused solutions, and will help with debt reduction. The company expects the deal to provide $325 million in after-tax proceeds.

Boeing’s Losses Narrow In First Quarter Amid Strong Sales; No ‘Undue Risk’ In F-47 Contract

Boeing [BA] on Wednesday reported significantly lower losses in its first quarter as losses narrowed in its Commercial Airplanes segment and the defense and services segments notched modest gains, while sales were strong on an increase in commercial aircraft deliveries.

Boeing’s earnings followed closely the company’s win last month over Lockheed Martin [LMT] to develop and produce the Air Force’s F-47 sixth generation air superiority fighter (

Defense Daily, March 21). While the program is largely classified, the Air Force has said the engineering and manufacturing development contract is cost-plus incentive-fee and includes production of a small number of test aircraft.

Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s president and CEO, on an earnings call assured investors the contract fits within the company’s strategy to avoid risk associated with fixed-price development contracts on a number of defense programs that have caused it billions of dollars in losses in recent years.

“Clearly, we haven’t come off our strategy of ensuring we’re entering into the appropriate contract type for the appropriate type of work,” Ortberg said. “So, I wouldn’t worry that we’ve signed up to undue risk like we’ve done in some of our past fixed-price programs.”

The value of the EMD contract has not been disclosed and Boeing said it was not included in “backlog at the end of the quarter pending completion of the source selection and evaluation review process.” Lockheed Martin on Tuesday said it did not protest the award (Defense Daily, April 22).

The F-47 win will “secure our fighter franchise for decades to come,” Ortberg said. The company currently supplies the F-15EX fighter to the Air Force, and the F/A-18 Super Hornet to the Navy. Super Hornet production is slated to end in 2027.

During the second quarter, Boeing will “begin to baseline the performance of our F-47 plan,” Ortberg said.

Results in Boeing’s defense business were mixed in the quarter. Operating income increased 3 percent to $755 million while sales fell 9 percent to $6.3 billion related to commercial derivative aircraft for defense customers. Operating margin rose 30 basis points to nearly 3 percent.

No charges were taken on fixed-price development programs, which showed “improved performance” during the quarter, Ortberg said.

Ortberg also provided updates on the work for the Navy’s MQ-25 unmanned aerial refueling tanker, noting the first engineering development aircraft has been transported from the St. Louis-area plant to a new, nearby facility in Illinois to begin final assembly for ground and flight testing later this year.

Progress has also been made on the Air Force’s T-7A jet trainer, with the company achieving the first two incentive milestones under a memorandum of agreement it signed with the customer in the fourth quarter of 2024, he said (Defense Daily, Jan. 28, 2025).

Boeing is also working with the DoD on revising the VC-25B presidential aircraft to “allow for an earlier first delivery while maintaining our focus on safety and quality,” Ortberg said.

Overall, in the quarter Boeing’s sales increased 18 percent to $19.5 billion from $16.6 billion a year ago with commercial aircraft sales up 75 percent. Sales in the Global Services segment were flat.

The net loss was $31 million, 16 cents loss per share (LPS), versus a loss of $355 million (56 cents LPS) a year ago, 76 cents a share better than consensus estimates. The Commercial Airplanes segment posted a narrower loss while Global Services was up modestly.

Ortberg also reviewed the potential impacts of the tariff wars the Trump administration has instigated with U.S. trading partners. The impacts from the purchase of supplies from international vendors were “immaterial” in the quarter, he said, noting that most of Boeing’s supply chain is in the U.S.

Ortberg also pointed out that “many” imports from Canda and Mexico are exempt from tariffs under a North American trade deal worked out in the first Trump administration. The company has suppliers in Japan and Italy that do structures work on widebody aircraft and the company is paying the 10 percent duties on these imports, costs that are expected to be recovered when the planes are exported, he said.

Retaliatory tariffs launched by other countries could impact Boeing’s ability to deliver aircraft, Ortberg said. Currently, China is the only country rejecting deliveries and Boeing is assessing options to provide these aircraft to other customers, he said.

Free cash flow in the quarter was negative $2.3 billion. Backlog stood at $544.7 billion, up 4 percent from $521.3 billion at the end of 2024. Defense backlog stood at $61.2 billion, down 4 percent from $64 billion at the end of 2024.

Allvin: ‘If We Don’t Watch It, We’re Gonna Have to Be Fightin’ From Topeka’

Advances in Chinese air defenses and the expanse of the Pacific are presenting major operations and budget challenges for the U.S. Air Force.

While the “sanctuary” of U.S. and overseas allied bases have met demands through today, such basing will be insufficient to mount air campaigns in the years ahead against technologically advanced nations, like China, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin told the Apex Defense conference in National Harbor, Md., on Tuesday.

“As you move farther and farther out, that is challenging the American airpower way of war, and if we don’t watch it, we’re gonna have to be fightin’ from Topeka,” he said. “We don’t want to do that because what this drives is, if we still intend to leverage American airpower as part of the joint force in this way, it becomes almost cost prohibitive. The ranges are excessive. The depth and the density of the air defenses make our sophisticated capabilities that we have used through stealth and precision to be able to degrade air defenses even more challenging, and it makes that even more [clear] that we’re on the wrong side of the cost curve.”

“We need to think about that in the time now where we also have the opportunity of disruptive technology…understanding that the United States Air Force still does the five things it’s always done–air superiority, precision global strike, rapid global mobility, ISR, and command and control, but we have to understand how to do it within the context of the changing character of war,” Allvin said.

His comments echo those of Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph “Solo” Kunkel, the service’s director for force design, integration, and wargaming, who also used the “Topeka” analogy in February in a talk on the Air Force’s classified future force design–“One”–in which Kunkel said that the service would not rely on standoff, but instead also have “stand-in” forces able to operate with a high tempo in dense air defense zones (Defense Daily, Feb. 26).

Emerging needs for the Air Force look to be more air refueling booms and autonomous drones, including possibly thousands under the service’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program.

The Air Force wants CCA Increment 1 to be reusable air-to-air drones for the service’s Mission Area 1 of high ground threats. Increment 2 is to be a technology leap above Increment 1.

The Air Force has bestowed “mission design series” designations on the Increment 1 prototypes (Defense Daily, March 4). The General Atomics‘ Gambit offering is the YFQ-42A and Anduril Industries‘ Fury is the YFQ-44A. “Y” signifies prototype aircraft, “F” fighter/air-to-air mission, and “Q” a drone.

“CCA with small logistics footprints would improve the Air Force’s ability to periodically change their operating locations as part of a shell game to complicate China’s missile targeting,” according to Logistics While Under Attack: Key to a CCA Force Design, a recent report by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “Combined with active and passive airbase defenses, a resilient CCA force would help ensure the Air Force remains an ‘inside force’ that generates decisive combat airpower alongside America’s allies.”

GD Opens 2025 With Strong Results Led By Aerospace

Just as it closed 2024, General Dynamics [GD] opened 2025 financial results with double-digit top and bottom-line increases powered by gains across its operating segments, in particular Aerospace which benefited from a 50 percent increase in business jet deliveries, the company reported on Wednesday.

Net income in the first quarter was up 24 percent to $944 million, $3.66 earnings per share (EPS), from $799 million ($2.88 EPS) a year ago, topping consensus estimates by 16 cents per share. Segment operating margin increased 70 basis points to 10.4 percent.

Sales increased 14 percent to $12.2 billion from $10.7 billion a year ago.

The Aerospace Segment was out in front with sales and operating income up 45 and 69 percent, respectively, mainly on the higher jet deliveries and a solid contribution from its aircraft services business. Supply chain issues in the segment continue to abate in terms of schedule and quality, Phebe Novakovic, GD’s chairwoman and CEO, said on the company’s earnings call.

Despite tariff concerns and related caution by customers, interest for business jets in the U.S. and Middle East for business jets remains strong, Novakovic said. She declined to speculate on potential impacts to the company this year from U.S. and reciprocal tariffs, offering that GD’s defense businesses are unlikely to “get hit much,” while the Gulfstream business jet division will have “some…impacts.”

Sales in the three defense segments were up in the mid-to-high single digits, led by Marine Systems construction of the Columbia- and Virginia-class submarines, and DDG-51 destroyers. Operating income the segment was also up consistent with sales growth and demand remains strong, she said.

The marine supply chain continues to suffer from “delays and quality problems,” Novakovic said, adding that “new shipbuilders continue to come down learning curves.” She also said that a draftsmen union that “converts engineering specs to drawing has voted to authorize a strike.”

GD has been able to hire and train employees to support shipbuilding growth, she said.

The Technologies segment enjoyed an 11 percent increase in operating income led by the Mission Systems division on strong performance.

“Their focus on advanced technology, enabling autonomous platforms, smart munitions, subsea warfare and strategic deterrence, as well as advanced AI, cloud, cyber and quantum solutions is driving demand for the group,” Novakovic said.

Technologies, in particular the GDIT division, is facing a “significant amount of uncertainty” as the Trump administration assesses its “spending priorities,” she said. While there has been some routine “sluggishness” around solicitations and awards, there is not change in segment’s outlook this year and the first quarter results, including orders, were strong and there is “a lot still to be determined” as the administration sorts out its priorities, Jason Aiken, executive vice president of Technologies, said on the call.

Sales and earnings were higher at Combat Systems on growth in the Ordnance and Tactical Systems, and European Land Systems businesses.

“Demand for Combat System products continues to be robust, with particular strength in Europe,” Novakovic said. “Orders for wheeled and tracked vehicles are up reflecting the heightened threat environment.”

Novakovic also highlighted new combat programs with the U.S. Army, efforts to accelerate modernization of the M1 Abrams tank, and increasing munitions capacity and production.
GD is maintaining its 2025 outlook and will provide an update during the second quarter earnings call in July.

Orders in the quarter were light and backlog of $88.7 billion was down 5 percent from $93.7 billion a year ago. Free cash flow was a $290 million outflow. Free cash flow performance will improve throughout the year, GD said.

No. 2 Senate Democrat, Senior Defense Appropriator Durbin Won’t Seek Reelection

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the no. 2 Senate Democrat and a senior defense appropriator, announced Wednesday he will not seek reelection in 2026.

Durbin’s decision is likely to set off a highly contested Democratic primary for the open Illinois seat.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) speaks during a press conference held in the James R. Thompson Center, Chicago, Illinois, February 26, 2021. (U.S. National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Rodriguez)

“The decision of whether to run for reelection has not been easy. I truly love the job of being a United States senator. But in my heart, I know it’s time to pass the torch. So, I am announcing today that I will not be seeking re-election at the end of my term,” Durbin said in a video statement.

Durbin, 80, was elected to the Senate in 1996 and has served as the upper chamber’s Democratic Whip since 2005.

He was previously the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee (SAC-D), taking on the role in 2012, before opting out of that leadership post in 2020 to assume the party’s top spot on the Judiciary Committee.

Durbin remains the second highest ranking Democrat, in terms of seniority, on both the full Appropriations Committee and the SAC-D panel.

“As a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Durbin fought to strengthen Rock Island Arsenal’s manufacturing capabilities, as well as create a new advanced manufacturing center. Senator Durbin also supported a new Cyber Protection Team for the Illinois National Guard and bringing a Department of Defense Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute to Illinois,” a biography on his website states. “Senator Durbin has ensured that Scott Air Force Base and Naval Station Great Lakes remain one-of-a-kind military installations for their respective military services.”

Duckworth and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, in October offered their endorsement for Scott Air Force Base as the seventh main operating base for the Air Force’s KC-46A Pegasus tanker, after the service selected the base as one of seven candidate locations (Defense Daily, Oct. 1 2024).

Durbin, at the time, said the 126th Air Refueling Wing “has proven itself to be a strong candidate for a new set of KC-46 aircraft, and I’m pleased that U.S. Air Force leadership has recognized that with its recent selection of a shortlist.”

“I believe that no base is better equipped to receive new aircraft than Scott Air Force Base and look forward to the Air Force giving them full and fair consideration as it makes a final decision in the months ahead,” Durbin added.

In 2023, Durbin also co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that looked to amend DoD’s emergency acquisition authorities to allow for quickly replenishing stockpiles of weapons provided to partner nations attacked by an adversary, to include those munitions sent Ukraine to aid in its fight against Russia’s invasion (Defense Daily, June 23 2023).

Durbin is the latest senior SAC-D member to announce his retirement, with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is also the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, confirming last month she would not seek reelection in 2026 (Defense Daily, March 12).

Mingus: Army Aims To Scale NGC2 Across The Force In ‘Very Short Period Of Time’

As the Army moves out on its Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) modernization initiative, a senior official said Tuesday he believes the service can scale the new architecture across the entire Army “in a very short period of time.”

“This is not going to be a production challenge. It’ll be a money challenge [and] we are going to find a way to do that. We believe we can literally do the entire Army in a very short period of time,” Gen. James Mingus, the Army vice chief of staff, said during an Association of the U.S. Army event.

U.S Army Spc. Mason Delbono assigned to the 25th Infantry Division talks capabilites of the Skydio X10D Drone to Gen. James. J. Mingus, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army during JPMRC 25-01 on Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, Oct. 5, 2024. Photo by Staff Sgt. Brenden Delgado

The Army has previously detailed a vision for NGC2 to provide “commanders and units at echelon an open and modular C2 ecosystem across hardware, software and applications with access to a common and integrated data layer,” and has described it as a “fundamental change in how the U.S. Army conducts digital mission command.”

Network modernization, with NGC2 now as the leading initiative, has taken over as the Army’s top modernization priority, Mingus and officials have said.

“The Army’s investment into Next Generation Command and Control sets the baseline for operating on today’s modern battlefield, and more importantly, this investment sets conditions for future command and control. This is one of our most important investments, it sets the conditions for AI-enabled, data-centric and software-defined warfare,” Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, has said previously.

Army officials in late March said contract awards are expected “imminently” to begin ramping up NGC2, with an aim to scale up the effort over the next year and outfit a division with new capability (Defense Daily, March 31).

“We’re going to be able to put some stuff out for [soldiers] to be able to use in a fraction of the time, within the fiscal year, to at least start to be able to start to [build] on [NGC2]. And we’re going to do, in parallel, the scaling of what we already have and then also have other opportunities for folks to come in,” Lt. Gen. Rob Collins, military deputy in the office of the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, told reporters at the time.

Mingus noted the Army “successfully prototyped” the vision for NGC2 at this spring’s Project Convergence experiment, and said the Army will next outfit the 4th Infantry Division with “an entire set” of equipment to support further prototyping efforts.

“We’re going to make sure that underneath a division load, an entire division formation, that this is going to prove out,” Mingus said.

NGC2 may also reduce the amount of network-related equipment troops have to carry, Mingus said, with the vice chief citing modularity and interoperability as a key aspect of the future architecture.

“Because it is a modular open systems architecture, because it is naturally designed to be ‘plug and play’…the interoperability components of it are baked in from the beginning instead of having to be [added] in there after the fact,” Mingus said.

Joe Welch, deputy to the commander of Army Futures Command, has said previously that with NGC2 the Army aims to change its relationship with industry, to include a focus on shifting from “this concept of an industry integrator into more a team of teams [approach].”

“Instead of telling [industry] what we need them to deliver, we’re presenting them with a problem statement and asking for their help. And we’re working with the best tech companies in the world, American companies that are absolutely positioned to deliver capability to the U.S. Army, both large and small companies,” Welch has said. “This is a very software-driven capability. We’re talking about the ‘app store,’ the integrated data layer, AI marketplaces, cloud computing, local computing, mesh network, satellites, all of this working together. There’s a piece for everybody in here.”

Mingus during the discussion also said the Army’s push for more flexible funding authority should eventually cover all technology that advances faster than the standard budget cycle (Defense Daily, April 22).