On the two year anniversary of the war, the Breaking Defense team has assembled a series of pieces on the state of the conflict across multiple domains, what might come in year three, and what lessons the US has learned from the conflict.
By Breaking Defense StaffROC-X – The solution to organic precision strike capabilities
At AUSA Global Force 2024, IAI will present integrated, AI-driven combat systems – both manned and unmanned – that are opening new opportunities on the battlefield.
SDA and MDA need to characterize the Earth’s infrared background — which has “a lot of complex shapes to it, clouds, land and stuff like that” — in order to “pull out the dim signal” of a hypersonic missile, an SDA official explained.
By Theresa Hitchens
Two of the experiments, each involving two satellites, are focused on laser links: one between satellites themselves; the other from satellites to a MQ-9 Reaper drone on the ground.
By Theresa Hitchens
A next step will be a series of “strategic directives” from the Joint Requirements Oversight Council that roll out “over the next few months,” Brig. Gen. Rob Parker, Joint Staff J6 Deputy Director says.
By Theresa Hitchens
“We really focused on payloads that had tactical utility, because they were an underserved market,” said Blackjack program manager Stephen Forbes.
By Theresa Hitchens
The upcoming upgrade to the Army’s tactical network, Capability Set ’23, will exploit the boom in commercial Low- and Medium-Earth Orbit satellites to boost communications for fast-moving Stryker units.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“The Army needs information when and where they want it,” said Rob Zitz, a former Army intel official. “The IC should not get a vote on what Army needs or how Army executes combat missions.”
By Theresa Hitchens and Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
BAE Systems’ LR-PGK: The Superior Anti-Jam Solution
Going the distance to defeat emerging jam threats.
“Getting a laser beam on a spacecraft to point to a laser receiver on another spacecraft accurately enough with the right power levels, the right waveforms, etc.,– it’s not an easy thing,” said General Atomics VP Nick Bucci.
By Theresa Hitchens
SDA currently is primarily focused on “beyond-line-of-sight targeting for sensitive targets — so, for ships and mobile missiles,” Director Derek Tournear says, as well as for “advanced missile threats.”
By Theresa Hitchens
In this fall’s Project Convergence exercises, it took a heroic effort just to get the network to work at all. Next year, the Army wants the network to function in the face of electronic attack.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. How do you get targeting data from satellite to howitzer in less than 20 seconds, on a tactical network that was never designed to do that? You improvise, Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher told me.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“If we get this right, we will be the envy of the other services, because we’re not tied to business of the past,” says Space Force CSO Gen. Jay Raymond.
By Theresa Hitchens
JADC2 is a way for the individual service C2 networks to “all have the same networking infrastructure to talk to one another,” says SDA Director Derek Tournear.
By Theresa Hitchens
SDA says it’s still a transition partner for Blackjack, despite no specific funding line in its 2021 budget.
By Theresa Hitchens
