The Air Force Research Lab’s Directed Energy Directorate wants to receive by Jan. 15 proposals for the Counter-electronics High-power Microwave Advanced Missile Project, an effort to develop a multi-shot and multi-target aerial high-power microwave weapon to attack electronic systems. AFRL issued the broad agency announcement in October as one means to address a combatant commander requirement for “additional military options against the variety of electronic systems that are used in military, industrial, civil, and asymmetrical applications.” Contractors are expected to produce five aerial demonstrators. AFRL estimates the demonstration program cost at around $40 million from Fiscal 2009 to 2012.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…