Page 7 – Defense Daily

Army Seeks $2.4 Billion In FY ‘26 To Flexibly Move Around Drones, C-UAS, EW Portfolios

The Army is officially moving ahead with its push for more agile funding authority, requesting $2.4 billion for fiscal year 2026 that it would look to flexibly move around its drones, counter-UAS and electronic warfare portfolios.

“We basically merged budget lines within those programs to enable us with the agility to be able to respond to, one, what’s happening out there on the battlefield, what we’re seeing and taking lessons learned and, two, what industry is able to provide. These capabilities evolve very, very quickly,” a senior Army official told reporters Thursday during a budget request briefing.

Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy A. George join “Fox and Friends” to discuss the new Department of Defense memorandum on Army transformation and acquisition reform, at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., May 1, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

Senior Army officials have discussed plans to pursue the ability to flexibly move funding around select capability areas rather than rigid budget line items, arguing it will allow the Army to procure the most promising technology in a given category being locked into one type of system tied to a specific budget line.

Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich, deputy chief of staff G-8, said in March the Army views its initial effort to gain flexible funding authority for drones, C-UAS and EW as a “pilot program” it could look to expand upon if there’s success with the effort (Defense Daily, March 19).

Newly published FY ‘26 budget documents offer a breakdown of the Army’s initial stab at agile funding, to include $856.8 million for the UAS portfolio.

That request includes $726 million that can be moved around for different small UAS capabilities as well as $118.4 million for “future UAS.”

The Army is also seeking $80.4 million specifically for launched effects agile portfolio, split between $67.8 million in the discretionary budget and $12.6 million in the pending reconciliation bill.

Launched Effects is the Army’s program to field new autonomous air vehicles that can be launched from aircraft or ground platforms with a variety of payloads and mission system applications to provide a range of effects for reconnaissance, extended communications links and eventually lethal capabilities.

For drone defeat systems, the Army has requested $693.4 million to move flexibly around its C-UAS portfolio, with that request split between $306.6 million in the discretionary budget request and $386.8 million in reconciliation.

The Army’s flexible funding request for EW in FY ‘26 is $79 million, with two separate portfolios listed in the budget document.

The budget request also lists a $21.9 million agile portfolio line for the Soldier Borne Sensor program, which has focused on fielding nano-drones with reconnaissance capabilities.

Along with the $1.74 billion for agile procurement, the budget documents also include $690.3 million that could be moved flexibly around select research and development accounts, with $143.6 million for C-UAS, $186.2 million for EW and $363.4 million for launched effects development.

Army Vice Chief Gen. James Mingus has said the agile funding strategy should eventually cover all technology that advances faster than the standard budget cycle (Defense Daily, April 22).

DoD Cites ‘Flexibility’ In Defending Use Of Reconciliation For Budget, Including Golden Dome, Shipbuilding

After releasing the most extensive details to date on its $961.6 billion fiscal year 2026 budget request, the Pentagon on Thursday defended its decision to factor in anticipated reconciliation funds for the spending boost citing the flexibility and lengthier amount of time to spend those dollars.

The move to combine an $848.3 billion in discretionary spending with $113.3 billion in mandatory funding from the pending reconciliation bill for its budget submission has received pushback from lawmakers, including Republicans, with the Pentagon putting its entire $25 billion Golden Dome request and plans to build 16 new Navy ships in the reconciliation portion of the request.

HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division conducted and completed initial sea trials for Virginia-class attack submarine New Jersey (SSN 796) in February 2024. (Photo: HII)

“[Reconciliation funds are] 10-year money with a lot more flexibility than the average discretionary dollar provides. It’s often colorless. And it gives us that 10-year window that industry often asks us for, a longer-term window than the one-year budget cycle that we always are on,” a senior defense official told reporters at a briefing on the department’s budget request.

“Given the timeline that the reconciliation [bill] is on, should it pass, it would be delivered faster to the department than the FY ‘26 discretionary base [spending]. So those programs will actually be on a much faster and more stable timeline with a better demand signal [to industry] over the long term,” the official added.

The White House in May rolled out a “skinny” budget outline for FY ‘26, touting an “unprecedented” 13 percent boost in defense spending, while the proposed $1 trillion total national defense topline factored in the $113 billion increase that would come from funds in the pending reconciliation bill (Defense Daily, May 2).

Congressional Republicans are currently pressing ahead with plans to finalize and pass the massive reconciliation over the next few weeks, which includes a defense portion totaling $150 billion that would be allocated over the next fours and builds in flexibility to be spent over the next decade.

“What we’ve been saying is [it’s a] one budget, two bills approach for the FY ‘26 budget,” the senior defense official noted.

Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), respective chairs of the Armed Services Committee and Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, have both called the move a “budgetary sleight of hand” and pushed back on the FY ‘26 budget request essentially representing a flat request, or a cut when factoring for inflation, when taking the reconciliation funds out of the equation (Defense Daily, June 4).

“There are some members of the administration who thought we would be delighted with the $1 trillion [defense topline request]. That’s not the way we viewed it. We need a steady increase in terms of the baseline [budget] year after year after year to get where we need to get. And we need to get to five percent [of] gross domestic product,” Wicker has said previously. “We view reconciliation as a major opportunity to try to catch up, but it makes no sense then to have a flat budget.”

A budget document the White House submitted to Congress earlier this month outlined several major programs where the Pentagon was planning to utilize anticipated reconciliation funds for large portions or, in some cases, all of the funding, to include the entirety of the Pentagon’s $25 billion FY ‘26 request for the Golden Dome missile defense project (Defense Daily, June 11).

“The president and the administration’s commitment to reconciliation is what led the department to be so confident in putting so many critical capabilities in the reconciliation bill, knowing that there will be a question on how we’re going to pull the rabbit out of the hat again [next year],” the senior defense official told reporters.

Newly published budget documents show that more than half of the Navy’s $47.3 billion shipbuilding request for FY ‘26 is on the reconciliation side, covering funds for 16 of the 19 total new ship procurements.

Specifically, the Navy request $26.5 billion on the reconciliation side for 1 Virginia-class submarine, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, one San Antonio-class Amphibious Transport Dock (LPD) ship, one America-class Amphibious Assault Ship (LHA), nine Landing Ship Mediums and two Fleet Replenishment Oilers.

The discretionary base budget portion of the request covers three ships, a Columbia-class submarine, another Virginia-class submarine and one T-AGOS surveillance ship.

“I think for all of us, it’s helpful to talk about these together because I think it does confuse industry when we talk about, ‘Well, it’s in this bill or that bill.’ And this is our [president’s budget request,] these two bills,” a senior Navy official said.

The current defense portion of the reconciliation bill set to be considered by the Senate does not include the requests for the LHA and LPD after originally being included in the version passed by the House.

“In terms of what the plan is if reconciliation does not pass, at this moment we’re very excited to see the Senate’s progress on reconciliation. [We’re] very happy that the House has been collaborating on the defense portion. And we have been working with HASC and SASC on the defense portion as well,” the senior defense official said. “This is our request for what we would like to see in reconciliation and what we’d like to see in the discretionary base [budget], and it will go through the normal congressional budgeting process from here and we’ll work with Congress on the details and why the department is requesting certain things in our $961 billion request.”

The House Appropriations Committee on June 12 passed its $831.5 billion FY ‘26 defense spending bill, which it wrote and approved before having received full budget details from the White House (Defense Daily, June 13).

DoD Says Budget Request Includes $13 Billion For Autonomy And Related Systems

The Defense Department is requesting $13.4 billion in fiscal year 2026 for autonomous systems and autonomy technology, the first time it has ever broken this out as its own category in the budget, a senior department official said on Thursday.

The request includes $9.4 billion for unmanned and remotely operated aerial vehicles, $1.7 billion for unmanned surface vessels (USVs), $734 million for underwater systems, $210 million for autonomous ground systems, and $1.2 billion on software and technologies that network these systems with a “central brain,” the official said during a Defense Department background briefing that began a rollout of more specifics about the Trump administration’s FY ’26 defense budget request.

The Navy’s request as part of autonomous solutions is $5.3 billion, a $2.2 billion increased over FY ’25, a senior service official said during the briefing. The request includes the purchase of three low-rate initial production Boeing’s [BA] MQ-25 unmanned aerial refueling aircraft, which is slated for its first flight in FY ’26, the official said.

House appropriators earlier in June recommended $508 million for the purchase of three MQ-25s in FY ’26.

There is also funding for additional unmanned aircraft systems, unmanned undersea systems, and USVs, the official said.

A “Budget Highlights Book” released by the Navy on Thursday says the research and development (R&D) request for various robotic autonomous systems as part of the account for ships includes $715 million for air systems, including the MQ-25, MQ-4, and MQ-9, $668 million for undersea systems such as the small and medium UUVs, the Large Displacement UUV, and Boeing’s Orca Extra Large UUV, and $203 million for USV efforts.

The autonomous USV R&D section includes a recent change to combine the medium and large programs into the Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) programs. The MASC effort will “rapidly ramp up” these programs, the document says.

Under the aviation R&D account, the budget document says the Northrop Grumman [NOC] MQ-4 Triton long-endurance intelligence and surveillance platform would receive $376 million and MQ-25 $305 million.

Within a section of the highlights document called aircraft operations, it says the Navy had 94 unmanned aircraft in FY ’24, dipping to 66 in FY ’25 and again in FY ’26.

An Air Force official during the briefing highlighted that the request for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program is for $807 million “to fund accelerated platform development efforts to sustain autonomy development.” Anduril Industries and General Atomics, which supplies the MQ-9 drone, are under Air Force contract to develop their respective CCA offerings.

An Army official said the service is requesting $1.1 billion for unmanned aircraft systems to include the short-range and long-range reconnaissance programs, and launched effects.

DoD Cites E-7 Wedgetail Unit Cost Increase from $588 Million to $724 Million

In proposing the fiscal 2026 cancellation of the U.S. Air Force planned buy of E-7A Wedgetail airborne warning aircraft by Boeing [BA] in favor of space-borne air moving target indication (AMTI), DoD is citing “significant delays” in E-7, an increase in plane costs from $588 million to $724 million per copy, and concerns about E-7’s survivability in “contested environments.”

Long-range kill chains is an investment growth area for the Department of the Air Force, specifically the Space Force, in fiscal 2026. Space Force budgets nearly $7.7 billion for such long-range kill chains in fiscal 2026–nearly all of it in the fiscal 2026 reconciliation package and a more than $7.4 billion increase from the amount in the fiscal 2025 year-long Continuing Resolution.

While the Department of the Air Force moves to develop and field space-borne AMTI, plans call for the department to count on U.S. Navy E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, as the Air Force retires its E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes.

This month, the House Appropriations Committee rejected the Air Force’s plan to end E-7A and provided $500 million for Wedgetail in fiscal 2026 (Defense Daily, June 13).

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, suggested on Thursday that his subcommittee also would not accede to the Air Force’s request to cancel the Wedgetail buy.

“The constrained topline, of course, is forcing services to make artificially tough choices,” he said at the start of a Thursday hearing on the Department of the Air Force budget. “In your case, let me just say this. We all want to go to space, but let’s be honest about the risks and trade-offs this request is forcing you to make. If the choice you’re facing is between an available, advanced airborne system with onboard battle management and a nascent space capability, you’re going to have to resist the urge to turn proven capabilities like the E-7 into bill payers.”

While the Air Force is retiring its remaining AWACS in favor of future AMTI from space, the service is also divesting its only dedicated close air support aircraft–the A-10 Warthog. The Pentagon said on Thursday that it would spend $57 million to retire the 162 A-10s in fiscal 2026, two years earlier than the Air Force had planned.

In fiscal 2026, the Air Force requests nearly $3.5 billion for the Boeing F-47 sixth-generation fighter–$2.6 billion in the base budget and $900 million in the DoD reconciliation bill. The $3.5 billion compares to $2.4 billion provided for F-47 in the year-long fiscal 2025 continuing resolution enacted in March, according to a White House Office of Management and Budget document.

For the Northrop Grumman [NOC] B-21 Raider and LGM-35A Sentinel future ICBM, the Air Force requests $10.3 billion and $4.2 billion, respectively, in fiscal 2026–$4.5 billion for B-21 in fiscal 2026 reconciliation and $5.8 billion in the base budget, and $1.5 billion for Sentinel in reconciliation and $2.7 billion in the base budget.

While the Air Force keeps the buy of Boeing F-15EXs going in fiscal 2026 in the service’s request to buy 21 for $3.1 billion, the Air Force trims its planned budget for Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35As from $4.5 billion for 44 planes in fiscal 2025 to nearly $3.6 billion for 24 in fiscal 2026.

U.S. Space Force Halts Tranche 3 of Transport Layer, Looks Into New Communications Options

When the office of the DoD comptroller released its fiscal 2026 budget documents on June 27, there was a reference to the U.S. Space Force providing $277 million for the MILNET proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) constellation.

Now, it appears that was an error.

“In FY 2026, funds were erroneously transferred into Program Element (PE) 1203609SF, pLEO SATCOM (MILNET) from PEs 1203154SF, Long Rang Kill Chains and 1206427SF Space Systems Prototype Transitions,” according to the Space Force research and development budget document under the Department of the Air Force. “This funding will be realigned back to PE 1203154SF & 1206427SF for proper execution following enactment.”

Nearly $237 million of the funds are now to revert to Program Element Number 1203154SF for Long Range Kill chains’ “auxiliary payloads”–part of a classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) effort, based on SpaceX‘s Starshield, for space-based ground moving target indication (GMTI).

The other $40 million is to go back to Program Element Number 1206427SF for Space Systems Prototype Transitions/”space-to-space communications.”

As the Space Force explores future communications options, it is halting funding for the Space Force Space Development Agency’s Tranche 3, Transport Layer effort for advanced LEO communications satellites.

The Department of the Air Force, which is conducting an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) on future satellite communications, said that it intends MILNET to be a “plug and play” architecture that is not SpaceX-reliant.

“In the FY 26 budget we learned DoD is halting the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 3, Transport Layer and that work which has been going on for several years and had robust competition and open standards has been replaced by something called MILNET, which is being sole sourced to SpaceX,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, said at a Thursday hearing on the Department of the Air Force’s fiscal 2026 funding request.

The Space Force’s Long Range Kill chains’ “auxiliary payloads” research and development fiscal 2026 request lists an award date of October this year.

“No competition, no open architecture, no leveraging a dynamic space ecosystem,” Coons said of MILNET. “This is a massive and important contract.”

Coons then asked Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, “Doesn’t handing this to SpaceX make us dependent on their proprietary technology and avoid the very positive benefits of competition and open architecture?”

“Tranche 2 is still funded in the budget submission, including the Transport Layer, so we’re looking forward to delivery of that system over the next handful of years,” Meink responded. “As we go forward, MILNET, the term, should not be taken as just a system. How we field that going forward is something that’s still under consideration, and we will look at the acquisition of that.”

Coons then said that he would “deeply appreciate a classified briefing” from Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman “on exactly where this [MILNET] is going and why this particular decision was made.”

SDA has extensively publicized the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), including the communications and missile warning satellite constellations.

PWSA Tranche 2, Transport Layer contractors include Lockheed Martin [LMT], Northrop Grumman [NOC], York Space Systems, and Rocket Lab USA [RKLB].

The Department of the Air Force said that the future satellite communications AoA will help the department determine MILNET requirements and architecture, “but there is and will continue to be investment in commercial SATCOM as appropriate to meet warfighter needs.”

“We will continue to evaluate a variety of pLEO capabilities, including PWSA Transport Layer, to determine the optimal path forward for enabling diverse data link requirements,” the department said. “As part of the AoA, we are also investigating communication between different optical crosslinks in order to support a scalable multi-vendor satellite communication architecture that avoids vendor lock.”

Last month, Space Force Space Systems Command said that it had picked CACI [CACI], General Atomics, and Viasat [VSAT] to continue developing space laser communication terminal prototypes in Phase 2 of the $100 million Enterprise Space Terminal (EST) program (Defense Daily, May 8).

Low size, weight, power, and cost ESTs “are a key building block of the broader space data network known as MILNET, which will build a space mesh network for resiliency and information path diversity,” SSC said last month. “The EST program leverages prior investment by the Department of Defense and commercial developers to operationalize a new enterprise waveform designed to communicate in the Beyond Low Earth Orbit regimes.”

Meink took office as the 27th secretary of the Air Force last month.

Before Meink’s nomination in January as Air Force secretary, he served, since October 2020, as the NRO’s principal deputy director. There, he spurred acceleration of NRO’s use of fixed price contracts. Some national security analysts have said that Meink has had a close working relationship with SpaceX founder Elon Musk and have expressed conflict of interest concerns because of that relationship.

Meink has said that he favors multiple competitions over defense modernization programs’ lifetimes (Defense Daily, March 28).

DHS Hosting Industry Tech Challenge For Remote Identity Validation

The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate this year is hosting a technology challenge for vendors to test their capabilities to remotely verify the authenticity of identity documents, part of an ongoing series of events for remote identity validation.

The first phase of the Remote Identity Validation Rally (RIVR) examined “easy-to-use” technologies to remotely validate identity documents when users conduct routine transactions like applying for government services or opening bank accounts. That effort in 2024, which S&T called the Remote Identity Technology Validation Demonstration, “helped establish new benchmarks for remote identity verification technology and gave companies clear targets for improvement,” the directorate said this week.

In 2025, S&T will assess the ability of systems to authenticate identity documents, the liveness of selfie photos, and how well they verify identity based on images taken with smartphones and other devices.

“Since we announced the Remote Identity Validation Rally, we’ve seen a tremendous response from technology users and developers,” Arun Vemury, S&T’s senior adviser for biometric and identity technologies, said in a June 25 statement. “There’s clearly strong interest in a robust, collaborative process to strengthen remote identity verification and fight fraud.”

The RIVR technology challenges is being done in partnership with the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Forensic Laboratory, and the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.

DTRA Scrutinized Fordow for More Than 16 Years Before June 21 B-2 Strikes

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which has expertise in the destruction of hard and deeply buried targets, has studied Iran’s Fordow nuclear site since at least June 2008, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Daniel Caine said on Thursday.

In 2009, a DTRA officer “was brought into a vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going on in Iran,” Caine told reporters. “He was shown some photos and some highly classified intelligence of what looked like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran. He was tasked to study this facility, work with the intelligence community to understand it, and he was soon joined by an additional team mate. For more than 15 years, this officer and his teammate lived and breathed this single target–Fordow, a critical element of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program.”

The intelligence community’s battle damage assessment (BDA) of the June 21 strikes on the Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites in Iran by Air Force B-2 stealth bombers may not reach a definitive conclusion for the next several weeks. The seven Northrop Grumman-built [NOC] B-2s dropped 14 Boeing-built [BA] GBU-57 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs)–12 on Fordow and two on Natanz.

DTRA and the Air Force Research Laboratory began MOP tests in 2004 under the MOP Technology Demonstration effort, and DTRA conducted flight tests from 2008 to 2010 before the program moved to the Air Force, the service said.

“In the beginning of its development, we had so many PhDs working on the MOP program doing modeling and simulation that we were quietly and, in a secret way, the biggest users of supercomputer hours within the United States of America,” Caine said on Thursday.

Outlets from Fordow included a main exhaust shaft and, alongside, two ventilation shafts–the latter targeted by the 12 MOPs, six for each shaft, he said.

“Each weapon had a unique, desired impact angle; arrival; final heading; and a fuze setting telling the bomb when to function–a longer delay in a fuze, the deeper the weapon will penetrate and drive into the target,” Caine said.

Nuclear experts have called into question the Trump administration’s assertion that the B-2 strikes on Fordow and Natanz and other strikes on Isfahan “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear program and said that the highly enriched uranium (HEU) and all the centrifuges for converting HEU into weapons-grade uranium were not at the sites (Defense Daily, June 25).

Last week, at least 30 hours before Operation Midnight Hammer began, the Trump administration indicated that it was considering military strikes on Iran.

Trucks “showed up at the Fordow FEP [fuel enrichment plant] the day before the strike, possibly to relocate sensitive equipment, and certainly to cover those entrances with dirt,” according to Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation expert and professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

“In the days preceding the [June 21] attack against Fordow, the Iranians attempted to cover the shafts with concrete to try and prevent an attack, ” Caine said on Thursday. “The [concrete] cap [on each of the two ventilation shafts] was forcibly removed by the first weapon, and the main shaft was uncovered. Weapons 2, 3, 4, 5 [for each ventilation shaft] were tasked to enter the main shaft, move down into the complex at greater than 1,000 feet per second and explode in the mission space.”

“Weapon number 6 [for each ventilation shaft] was designed as a flex weapon to allow us to cover, if one of the preceding jets or weapons did not work,” he said.

While the active duty and Missouri Air National Guard B-2 crew members assigned to the June 21 strike, most graduates of the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis AFB, Nev., dropped their bombs on the aim points, and the MOPs functioned, as expected, “the Joint Force does not do BDA,” Caine said. “By design, we don’t grade our own homework. The intelligence community does.”

Navy Leaders Tell Lawmakers Columbia Sub About 17 Months Late

The Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) is now projected to be ready by early 2029, Navy officials told lawmakers this week.

The Navy says its highest priority program is the Columbia-class, starting with the future USS

District of Columbia (SSBN-826), which it intends to gradually replace the aging Ohio-class SSBNs.

Acting Chief of Naval Operations told the Senate Appropriation’s defense subcommittee on June 24 that “we are now on a pace to deliver that sub approximately two years late, March of ‘29. We are trying desperately to claw back that schedule. I work with the PEO, as does the Secretary, on where there’s opportunities there to move that to the left.”

Although Kilby said they are two years late, compared to the original contracted schedule, this March 2029 delivery schedule is about 17 months late and more precise than what Navy officials told lawmakers two months ago.

In their written opening statement for a Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee hearing on April 8, Navy program officials said SSBN-826 was over 50 percent complete but it was running a year and a half behind schedule (Defense Daily, April 14).

Kilby said he is optimistic they will shorten the remaining timeline, but that March 2029 is the current schedule. “I’m going to try to pull it to the left to deliver it earlier.”

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) also asked if the $1.93 billion in advanced procurement funding in the fiscal year 2026 budget request is enough to get the submarines on a better schedule, given how there is no further funding in the reconciliation bills.

“I believe it will, sir. But again, we have to make the industrial base do what it’s designed to do. So that is going to require a lot of work on both sides of the government and industry to make that happen, and we’re committed to that work,” Kilby responded.

The Navy has said SSBN-826 must be ready to start its first patrol by fiscal year 2031 to make up for retiring Ohio-class submarines and in April officials estimated the the District of Columbia would be ready around 2029 before accounting for testing and certification.

The service has also looked into and is planning to extend the life of several Ohio-class SSBNs long enough to hedge against Columbia-class delays.

HII transporting the stern of the future USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826), the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, ti General Dynamics Electric Boat in January 2024. (Photo: HII by Ashley Cowan) — HII transporting the stern of the future USS *District of Columbia* (SSBN-826), the first *Columbia*-class ballistic missile submarine, to General Dynamics Electric Boat in January 2024. (Photo: HII by Ashley Cowan)

Previously, in 2024, the former executive director of the Program Executive Office for SSBNs said the Navy would have the boat ready on patrol in 2030 even if the path was hard and it was on track to deliver only 12 months late, up to a year faster than it is projected now (Defense Daily, Nov. 18, 2024).

Former Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro’s shipbuilding review from April 2024 noted the Columbia-class is 12 to 16 months behind schedule (Defense Daily, April 3, 2024).

In 2024, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noted persistent design and construction challenges for the new submarine led to schedule delays and argued cost growth would likely worsen in the later construction stages (Defense Daily, Oct. 2, 2024).

Reed also noted the Navy’s FY ‘26 request for Virginia-class attack submarines (SSN) is $816.7 million for one boat because it assumes $6.5 billion in another submarine from the reconciliation bill even though both Senate and House versions online include $4.6 billion for one additional SSN in FY ‘26.

When he asked if this is enough to push industry and the Navy to get to its goal of two submarines per year, Kilby said while they are “working hard to get to that build rate that we need to, right now we’re at 1.1 subs a year. We’ve got to work hard to get exactly where you want to go. I’m not satisfied with it. The Secretary is not satisfied with it.”

Kilby reiterated he thinks the congressional funding to improve the industrial base and procure submarines will help them reach the two boats per year rate, “but we need to come back and report to you regularly on where we are with that build rate.”

General Dynamics Electric Boat [GD] is the lead contractor for the Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines, with HII [HII] a major subcontractor.

Updated Defense Reconciliation Bill Adds Industrial Base Support, Reduces Border Support Funds

The chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday released an update to the $150 billion defense portion of the wide-ranging reconciliation bill, which includes adding funds for industrial base and critical minerals efforts, a cut to border operations support and removing classified programs.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the SASC chair, noted the latest version of the defense language was once again coordinated with the House and Trump administration, and arrives as Congress presses ahead with plans to finalize and potentially pass the massive budget reconciliation bill over the next few weeks.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee posture hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., March 16, 2023. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. John Wright)

“This bill is a crucial down payment to modernize our military and enhance defense capabilities amid rising global threats. It provides significant funding for key areas including Golden Dome, unmanned technology, and shipbuilding,” Wicker said. “Alongside important reforms in the NDAA process, this bill will help transform the Pentagon and strengthen our military.”

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been responsible for crafting the defense portions of the reconciliation bill, which covers a total of $150 billion in defense spending over four years, to include $25 billion for the Golden Dome missile defense system, tens of billions to boost shipbuilding and production of munitions and drones and increases for a wide swath of defense priorities.

After the House narrowly passed the initial version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” last month and the Senate then began its consideration, Wicker unveiled initial compromise defense language with some slight adjustments from the lower chamber’s version such as a $5.7 billion reduction in shipbuilding and adding over $4 billion for readiness priorities (Defense Daily, June 4).

The latest update to the defense portion of the bill includes some further adjustment to include adding in $5 billion for funds to support critical minerals supply chain efforts and $3.3 billion for industrial base support efforts.

Meanwhile, the bill now adjusts the amount of funding available for military support to border security operations to $1 billion, a $2.3 billion cut from the most recent version of the language.

All language related to classified programs has also been removed from the bill, to include $5.13 billion for classified military space superiority programs, $550 million for classified Air Force programs, $480 million for classified Navy programs, $300 million for the Strategic Capabilities Office’s (SCO) classified space-related efforts and $96 million for classified nuclear deterrence-related programs.

The updated legislation also adds $2.55 billion for “military missile defense capabilities,” while removing $2.4 billion for development of “non-kinetic missile defense effects” and $183 million for Missile Defense Agency special programs.

The latest version also adds $3.65 billion for military satellites and efforts to protect those assets, $1 billion for the X-37B military spacecraft program, $600 million for Air Force long-range strike aircraft, $500 million for Navy long-range strike aircraft, $350 million for military space command and control systems, $150 million for nuclear weapons delivery programs and $125 million for military space communications.

The bill also includes $600 million for accelerating SCO programs, an increase from the original $250 million, and adjusts a $100 million shipbuilding line to cover advanced procurement for the light replenishment oiler program rather than for procurement of commercial logistics ships.

Lawmakers, including Wicker, have pushed back on the Trump administration’s inclusion of anticipated reconciliation funds to achieve its proposed $1 trillion defense request for fiscal year 2026 (Defense Daily, June 4).

Startup Developing Reusable Satellite Bus Emerges From Stealth

Lux Aeterna on Wednesday emerged from stealth and announced a $4 million pre-seed funding round that will go toward a demonstration mission in 2027 for launching a satellite that will return to Earth to be refurbished for later use, which the company said would mark the first ever reuse of a satellite.

The pre-seed round was led by Space Capital

The Denver-based startup’s Delphi spacecraft is planned to launch in early 2027 on a rideshare mission aboard a SpaceX rocket and will host a payload, conduct on-orbit tests, and then return to Earth. The company said its reusable satellite bus will meet Defense Department demand for responsive space capabilities and lower costs.

Participants in the pre-seed raise include Dynamo Ventures, Mission Once Capital, Alumni Ventures, Service Provider Capital, and angel investors that include the co-founders of Dive Technologies, which was previously acquired by Anduril Industries.