DOD Tests AI-powered Spectrum Management Technology on Aerial Combat Training Ranges

DOD Tests AI-powered Spectrum Management Technology on Aerial Combat Training Ranges

The Department of Defense is prototyping new spectrum management technology that lets artificially intelligent software route radio communications and wireless data links to the best frequency available, taking account of congestion on the airwaves and even enemy jamming.

The prototype, dubbed OSCAR, for Operational Spectrum Comprehension, Analytics, and Response, will be developed and tested at five aerial combat training ranges—the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, and Naval Air Station Point Mugu, all in California; and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The news comes amid increasing congestion of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) and growing concern about peer adversaries such as China who might be able to hack, jam, or intercept the globe-spanning EMS communications upon which the U.S. military relies.

“The nation has entered an age of warfighting wherein U.S. dominance in air, land, sea, space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) is challenged by peer and near peer adversaries,” states the foreword in the Defense Department’s October 2020 Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy. “These
challenges have exposed the cross-cutting reliance of U.S. Forces on the EMS, and are driving a change in
how the DOD approaches activities in the EMS to maintain an all-domain advantage.”

Peraton Labs announced the three-year, $18 million contract award from the DOD Office of the Undersecretary for Research and Engineering on Oct. 26. The company’s Vice President for Network Systems Sunil Samtani, said aerial combat training is an excellent use case for the new technology. Like a video game, it requires enough bandwidth to project simulated enemy targets onto the visual displays of the trainees and maneuver them in real time.

“Flight training is a really, really hard problem,” explained Samtani. “When you are doing live virtual constructive training, you have the [trainee] fleet in the sky, and then you have a lot of emulated assets”—pretend enemy aircraft, basically—“being generated on the ground. And you have to pass information back and forth, pretty much in real time [and with high fidelity] and that requires very high bandwidth, so you can get spectrum congestion, you can get different communications devices interfering with each other.”

OSCAR relies on the increasing virtualization of radio frequency (RF) technology. Modern communications equipment is software defined—capable of switching wavelengths and even waveforms at a moment’s notice, simply by running different code. These software defined radios “will have an interface OSCAR can plug into, that will allow it to dynamically manage the frequencies being used,” Samtani said. If one wavelength is too crowded, or being jammed, OSCAR simply instructs both the transmitting and receiving devices using that frequency to reconfigure themselves and switch to another, less crowded or unjammed, part of the spectrum.

OSCAR connects to the software-defined equipment via a control plane—a separate channel from the one carrying the data or voice communications the device is transmitting. Samtani explained that OSCAR’s machine learning algorithms crunch data derived from signal processing by its sensor network and identify the optimal frequency for every conversation, to avoid both congestion and jamming.

“Some of these radios can be configured for spectrum contestation. You can run them in an LPI [low probability of interception], LPD [low probability of detection], or anti-jam mode, Samtani said. “OSCAR’s algorithms can tell the difference between an issue of congestion or accidental interference and something coming from an adversary” and would automatically trigger either stealth or anti-jamming modes as appropriate.

For legacy communications equipment that can’t be reconfigured on the fly to use a different frequency, OSCAR will suggest an “exclusion zone” for the frequency it uses—keeping other users of that wavelength out of the area where they might create interference, perhaps only during key moments for the mission using the legacy kit.

“OSCAR doesn’t just coordinate frequencies, but time and space as well,” Samtani said.

Current spectrum management approaches lack the automated dynamic orchestration OSCAR offers, he added, and are at best useful for gaming out a manually operated spectrum usage plan.

“This is a system that goes beyond the current state of the art in terms of spectrum management,” he said.

The communications user won’t notice anything, except perhaps better communications quality than they’re used to, Samtani said. The frequency hopping can happen completely automatically, or as just a series of suggestions to the spectrum manager, depending on how OSCAR is configured, he said.

Samtani explained that OSCAR would provide spectrum managers with a “common operational picture” of their spectrum resources—showing which assets, where, are using what frequencies. The manager can see all assets on the range using spectrum, Samtani said, “even ones he or she didn’t deploy … There might be squatters out there who are using spectrum. The manager can see all that in a single picture.”

OSCAR employs a sensor network—deployed across the range—to collect the data which makes up this common operational picture and is displayed on a map-based dashboard. The dashboard also doubles as an operator console, and OSCAR will offer the spectrum manager options for ensuring the smooth functioning of data and voice communications.

“They can’t wait to try it out,” he said of the spectrum managers at the five ranges.

Video: SAIC’s Cloud One and EITaaS Programs Bring Capability to the Warfighter

Video: SAIC’s Cloud One and EITaaS Programs Bring Capability to the Warfighter

Fazal Mohammed, Software Solutions Director at SAIC, discusses the advantages that SAIC’s Cloud One and EITaaS software programs provide for the capability needs of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force.

China’s New Two-Seat J-20: Trainer or Manned-Unmanned Teaming Platform?

China’s New Two-Seat J-20: Trainer or Manned-Unmanned Teaming Platform?

A short video of a Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon that circulated on the internet Oct. 28 shows a taxiing new two-seat version of the stealth fighter, still in primer and untreated composite. It could indicate at least a trainer version of the airplane or possibly China’s future approach to manned-unmanned air combat teaming.

China has hinted at the existence of a two-seat J-20—possibly known as the J-20B or J-20S—in social media videos and trade show presentations, but the new images, if authentic, indicate the airplane has reached the fabrication stage. China has leaked or allowed videos to be circulated of Mighty Dragons taxiing at the same test facility since the J-20’s existence was first revealed during former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ visit to that country in 2011.

The U.S. opted not to develop a two-seat/trainer version of the F-22 and F-35. This was both to save money but also because it was believed pilots could become proficient enough in the simulators that their first flight in the types could also safely be their first solos. That decision was based on experience with the A-10 and F-117, neither of which had an operational two-seat version for training.

While China may have learned from operating the J-20 in a training/development role for the last few years that a two-seat trainer is needed to improve safety, the fact that it was not created early in the program hints that there are other reasons for its appearance now.

One possibility is that the two-seat J-20 is a rough analogy of the USAF’s F-15E two-seat strike airplane, in which the weapon systems officer manages the employment of ground attack munitions. However, the J-20 is clearly optimized for higher-altitude flight and likely, standoff operations in the strike role. The F-15E was built around the two-seat F-15B/D trainer versions, however, which appeared soon after the single-seat F-15A and C models.  

The two-seater may also indicate that, like the U.S. Air Force, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force is planning to operate drones or other unmanned aircraft in partnership with its frontline fighters. A second crew member in the cockpit could relieve the pilot of managing these additional aircraft while operating in what is sure to be a complex and rapidly-shifting air combat environment. The back-seater could reduce the pilot’s workload substantially in this application, at the cost of some reduced range due to the extra weight of a second crew station.

China is known to be working on a number of “loyal wingman”-type projects—including a stealthy-looking, cockpit-less jet similar to the J-20 called “Dark Sword”—and recent intelligence estimates have said that China is advancing rapidly in artificial intelligence. Dark Sword features a chin-mounted, faceted electro-optical system like the one on the J-20 that is a near-twin of that on the F-35, and which the Pentagon believes was stolen and copied. The second crew member could potentially manage unmanned teammates for a large number of J-20s.

It’s unlikely that the new aircraft is meant to be an electronic warfare version of the J-20, as the emissions required for such a mission would largely negate the airplane’s stealth qualities. Such a mission would likely best be hosted aboard a non-stealthy platform.

The U.S. Air Force did not have a comment on the new aircraft.

Secretary Austin Chairs Biweekly China Briefings Amid Hypersonics Test Worries

Secretary Austin Chairs Biweekly China Briefings Amid Hypersonics Test Worries

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

A flurry of attention about the possibility that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon in August was confirmed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley in a Bloomberg TV interview released Oct. 27.

“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning,” said Milley. “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention.” 

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby declined to comment on the Chinese test first reported by Financial Times, but he confirmed that Austin has maintained regular China-oriented briefings after a DOD China Task Force stood down in June.

“I literally just came from the Secretary’s latest China brief,” Kirby said during an Oct. 27 Pentagon briefing. “One of the things he tasked himself with at the end of the task force was personal leadership over a regularly scheduled coordination and discussion session with the senior leadership here at the department, including the service Chiefs and the service Secretaries, as well as appropriate combatant commanders.”

Austin defined China as the department’s “pacing challenge” during his nomination hearing Jan. 19 and has repeatedly warned of China’s aggressive behavior and rapid military technological advances.

Kirby said no one Chinese technology is the most concerning to the Secretary.

“There’s a suite of issues with respect to China from the security perspective,” he said. “Taken together, all those things are reason for concern.”

The department’s work under Austin began with the task force that interviewed hundreds of experts and reviewed thousands of pages of policies, analysis, and intelligence. The task force, led by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Dr. Ely S. Ratner prior to his confirmation, is now informing every aspect of the U.S. security approach to China.

That includes operational concepts, the DOD budget, programs, priorities, training, and exercises, and it will be a factor in the global posture review and upcoming National Defense Strategy.

“A free Indo-Pacific remains a key national security goal of the United States,” Kirby said.

Kirby made clear the U.S. is not there yet when asked about America’s own hypersonic capabilities and defenses against an adversary’s use of a hypersonic weapon.

“It’s in the budget,” he said. “Our own pursuit of hypersonic capabilities is real, it’s tangible, and we are absolutely working towards being able to develop that capability.”

The Air Force has conducted a series of hypersonics tests in recent months, although some have failed.

“This is not a technology that is alien to us, that we haven’t been thinking about for a while,” Kirby said. “I would argue that it’s not just our own pursuit of the sort of technology, but our mindfulness that we have defensive capabilities that we have to continue to hone and to improve.”

No Protests in B-52 Re-Engining Award to Rolls-Royce

No Protests in B-52 Re-Engining Award to Rolls-Royce

The deadline for lodging protests against the selection of Rolls-Royce North America to provide new engines for the Air Force’s fleet of B-52s has passed, and none have been lodged on the Government Accountability Office’s docket.

“The deadline passed at [close of business] Monday, Oct. 25,” an Air Force source said. The companies had 10 days after receiving a debrief on why they were not selected to make it known if they planned to protest, and that has not happened.

Rolls-Royce won the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program, or CERP. The contract, announced Sept. 24, is worth $2.6 billion if all options are exercised. The company will build 650 of its F130 powerplants, now flying on the C-37 transport and E-11 Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft, for installation on all 76 B-52Hs, each of which will receive eight engines.

Neither GE Aviation nor Pratt & Whitney, which were not selected for the contract, were immediately able to comment about potential protests. The Air Force said it received four proposals for the CERP program; as a matter of policy, it does not reveal who submitted those proposals. Pratt and GE had both publicly touted their response to the request for proposals.

Although a protest is the typical remedy when a company believes it was unfairly treated in a source selection, companies can also take action through the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, an avenue which may still be open to a non-selected competitor.

Rolls’ proposal was substantially lower than the Air Force’s own estimates of what the CERP would cost. Early in the program, the service estimated it might cost $10 billion. Rolls’ contract also calls for spare engines, support gear, commercial engineering data, and sustainment activities. A timetable for the installs has not yet been set.

The CERP program has been underway since 2018 and is one of the first to be an “e-Series” program, conducted in a paperless, digital fashion. The Air Force expects the new engines to deliver up to 40 percent better range than the Pratt TF33s with which the B-52s have been flying for 59 years.

Space Force ‘Very Happy’ With Air Force Research Lab Realignment

Space Force ‘Very Happy’ With Air Force Research Lab Realignment

The Air Force Research Laboratory has finally filled a new post announced more than a year ago to be a single point of contact for its new customers in the Space Force—and those customers say the lab’s realignment to work for two services appears to be succeeding.

AFRL will be making an announcement about the candidate selected for the new position of deputy technical executive officer for space shortly, officials said.

Meanwhile, the man whose job it is to tell AFRL what the new space service needs from the lab, Space Operations Command Chief Scientist Joel B. Mozer, told Air Force Magazine he’s more than satisfied with the efforts AFRL has made to be responsive to Space Force requirements.

AFRL Commander Maj. Gen. Heather L. Pringle “has bent over backwards to demonstrate that she is committed to the Space Force as well as the Air Force, and so we’re very happy with that,” he said.

“The lab has done an amazing job of setting up those forums and councils to make sure that we have an input into their processes,” Mozer added.

Last year, having decided not to try to break off the space-related parts of AFRL, but rather to preserve the institution as “one lab, [serving] two services,” Pringle tapped Kelly D. Hammett, who runs the AFRL Directed Energy Directorate, to figure out how to make that vision a reality.

“So, we’re not going to actually rip all those billets and money out and make them a separate organization. They’re going to essentially be [assigned to the Space Force and then] given back to AFRL to execute in place,” Hammett told Air Force Magazine. His job, he said, was to figure out, “How are we going to do that? How are we going to make decisions and prioritize things to reflect Space Force priorities?”

The working group Hammett led recommended the creation of a new senior staff position—the deputy technical executive officer for space. Reporting directly to the commander, the new post is “a single voice that can speak to the customers across the Space Force, to hear their concerns, to get their demand signal, and to help prioritize it through the internal process” at AFRL, Hammett said.

Although the post was originally conceived of as a Senior Executive Service appointment, “Those SES billets are very hard to come by,” explained Hammett. The new job uses AFRL’s specialized hiring authorities to appoint a senior-level executive known as a DR-5, above the top-level civil service GS-15 designation but still below the SES level. ”It’s a special position,” Hammett said. “We only have about 20 of these in all of AFRL,” including the director of the Systems Technology Office and “a couple of our deputy directors at different directorates.”

Nonetheless, lacking an SES rank will make the job more challenging, Hammett said. “This person is the integrator—the conductor, I call it—of all of our space [science and technology]. They’ve got to be able to talk, persuade, … build consensus because now they’re not going to have the status of an SES,” but they will be trying to manage the chiefs of AFRL directorates who are SES. “So they’ll be below them in rank trying to say, ‘Well, I need you to come change your investments over here to do this because Space Force said so.’ That’s going to take tact and diplomacy.”

“I kind of wish it was at a higher level,” said Mozer of the new post. “It’s not what we [in Space Force] originally hoped for, and I think, not what AFRL originally hoped for, either.” Still, as a deputy to the commander, the new appointee would presumably carry her two-star imprimatur when talking to AFRL leaders, Mozer said. 

In September last year, Hammett himself was tapped for the new role—dual hatted in addition to his day job running directed energy research—an interim appointment that has lasted more than a year.

In his day job, Hammett explained, he oversees three lines of effort using directed energy. One is electro-optics— using lasers and sensors to “track and image objects in space for space domain awareness, so we can know where they are very precisely and very rapidly.” Electro Optics is one of the four elements of AFRL that was administratively shifted to the Space Force. The second is the development of terrestrial-based directed energy weapons, like the Tactical High Power Operational Responder (THOR)—a microwave weapon developed for air base defense against drone swarms. The third is … Well, he can’t really say.

“In terms of any space superiority, or space control stuff, I cannot talk in the open about anything that might be going on there. But you can kind of get the gist of it,” Hammett said. “There are technologies that we’re working on that could potentially enable some capabilities. And that’s about as far as I can say.”

But part of the mission of the Space Force is deterrence: How can that be achieved if its leaders can’t talk about its capabilities? 

“You have no credible deterrence if your potential rivals don’t know anything about what your potential capabilities are,” admitted Hammett. “There have to be some acknowledged capabilities to provide that deterrence,” he said, adding this was well understood by Space Force leadership. “Gen. Raymond has talked about the need to declassify more … The question is what are you going to reveal and what are you going to keep hidden?”

But neither Hammett, nor his soon-to-be announced full-time replacement as deputy TEO for space will get to make that call. “Those decisions are at the four-star or Secretary level,” he said.

Mozer said he was consulted on the development of the deputy TEO for space post and on individual candidates for the job. Indeed, he was originally going to be a member of the appointment board that makes the hire but couldn’t make the scheduling work.

Last week, Pringle called Mozer to tell him they had made a selection. “I expect that to be public in the very near future,” he said. AFRL spokesman Bryan Ripple told Air Force Magazine that paperwork had to be completed before any announcement.

Just One Piece of the Puzzle

Why did it take more than a year to fill this vital new role? Hammett explained that the creation of the deputy TEO for space was just one element of a concept of operations the working group had developed to realign AFRL.

That CONOPS also proposed a series of changes—not to organization, but to governance—to make AFRL more agile in its responses to Space Force research and technology needs. The plan needed buy-in across the enterprise and from Space Force partners.

“It took months and months of effort to get everybody on the same page,” recalled Hammett. Then there was a debate about who would provide the billet for the new post. ”Is this a Space Force person, or is this an AFRL person? That’s still not 100 percent determined. We are launching out with an AFRL person,” he said.

Finally, both Hammett and Mozer separately made the point that this was a post requiring exceptional talent and that headhunting for such a job always takes time.

When the new deputy TEO for space arrives, the person will find that, now that the governance changes in the CONOPS have been implemented, there are two new forums that bring together AFRL leadership to meet Space Force requirements.

The Space Science and Technology Board brings together the directors of the four major AFRL elements that were administratively transferred to the Space Force—Space Vehicles, Rocket Propulsion, Electro-Optical, and Systems Technology. According to Hammett, this group represents the 10 percent of AFRL resources focused directly on space.

The Space Science and Technology Group brings together management teams at the “action officer level” from every one of the lab’s nine technology directorates, plus its functional directorates such as finance and personnel—and research partners such as AFWERX and the Transformational Capabilities Office, as well. “Everyone is there,” said Hammett.

The group, he explained, is key to leveraging the 90 percent of AFRL resources which aren’t focused directly on space “but may be very space relevant,” such as research into materials, sensors, electronics, cybersecurity, and human performance. “There’s a lot of that which we need to harvest to make the Space Force successful,” he added.

The board meets every other week, the group weekly. That‘s a major shift up from the usual tempo of AFRL governance, points out Hammett. (For comparison, the AFRL Council, the lab’s leadership body, meets quarterly.)

“It allows us to … make decisions and try to establish policy and respond on a very rapid timescale, to the types of demand signals we’re getting from the Space Force, because they are moving fast and implementing,” Hammett said. “They’re in Year 2, and they want ‘new this’ and ‘new that,’ and so we really have to be able to respond at that speed.”

And so far, so good, said Mozer. In the Wartech process, for instance, which helps AFRL incubate its top priority Vanguard R&D programs, “Space is doing just fine.” With “a couple of space-focused programs out of a small handful, I would say that we are getting our fair share,” he said.

However, he added, “It’s still to be determined how well this works out in the long run.” The Space Force is “very new and exciting” right now. But what would happen as the shine wears off? “The real question is as we go forward, do we revert back to our old ways of doing things? Or do we keep the same focus on it? And I think we will, but that’s the thing we have to watch out for,” he said.

Mozer described his job as being “the demanding customer for [AFRL], to really give them some meaty priorities and problems to work on,” drawn from the strategic direction provided by the Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond.

“My role is to … translate CSO guidance into [science and technology] priorities for the lab and the acquisition community,” he explained.

Mozer said his biggest challenge was balancing immediate needs against longer-term requirements. Raymond, for instance, had set resilience and survivability of current constellations as an immediate strategic objective. And AFRL was developing Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) as a more resilient alternative to GPS. “So that’s a good example of where they know what our problems are, there’s a clear need, and they’re addressing it,” Mozer noted. “Where it gets harder is how do you balance that against the longer-term needs to build cislunar”—the space between Earth orbit and the Moon—“architecture or develop in-orbit refueling or repair … How do you allocate resources between the needs hitting your windshield today versus a potential need that’s coming down the pike and you have to invest now to develop options” to deal with it.

“That’s where it gets fuzzy,” Mozer said. It’s made fuzzier still by the commercial space sector, which is racing to develop new capabilities—often innovating faster than even cutting-edge research institutions can in the military. “What we have to do is figure out what are the unique things that if the government doesn’t invest in it and doesn’t buy down the risk, or do something else that industry is not going to do, those things aren’t going to happen. Those are the high priority things that we need to do.”

To help think about resource allocation, Mozer has developed what he calls the nine matrix: Three columns and three rows. “The three rows are: One, evolutionary work that will make our current systems better, faster, more capable, cheaper, whatever. The next row is revolutionary work—things that change the game, just totally new ways of doing things. And the third is what I call tech surprise, … scientific and engineering disciplines where we think there might be outcomes that could be surprises to us in a military sense, or things like quantum computing that we don’t necessarily think that we are going to weaponize right away. But we certainly would be worried if somebody else did it when we weren’t paying attention.”

The three columns are:

  • Work that supports the current generation of satellites for the next five years
  • Work that supports the next generation of overhead architecture currently being designed by the Space Warfare and Analysis Center, 15 years out
  • The next generation after that, “which is really when you start thinking about these long-term ideas of expanding into cislunar space, and Mars, and space logistics,” Mozer said.

“If you have a certain size of technology budget, you need to allocate it among each of those nine buckets,” said Mozer. Right now, he said, the Space Force view was that the biggest investment, up to 30 percent of its total budget, should go on “game-changing, next-generation stuff.”

The advantage of the matrix, he added, “from a prioritization perspective, [is] it allows us to turn the knobs if we decide, for instance, we want to take risk in the future to pay for the present or vice versa,” Mozer said. “All we have to do is change the allocations between those nine elements then we can communicate that to the lab—it’s a clear way to communicate what our tolerance for short-term versus mid-term versus long-term risk is.”

Report: Texas and Virginia Top DOD Spending by State; Texas and California Lead for Air Force

Report: Texas and Virginia Top DOD Spending by State; Texas and California Lead for Air Force

A new report by the Defense Department’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation found that Texas and Virginia were America’s top recipients of defense spending, some $83 billion and $64.3 billion, respectively. Texas and California topped the spending categories for Air Force contracts and personnel, some $17 billion and $15 billion, respectively.

The analysis of fiscal year 2020 data, which runs from Oct. 1, 2019, until Sept. 30, 2020, broke down DOD spending in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Over the fiscal year, DOD spent $593.9 billion, the equivalent of 2.8 percent of America’s gross domestic product. Contracts accounted for $439 billion while DOD payroll accounted for about $155 billion.

The report is meant to help local officials assess their state’s dependence on defense spending and to target assistance for “more resilient communities and companies.” State-by-state graphics include heat maps for spending by county and a list of the defense contractors and how much they were paid.

Among the states where the Air Force received the highest proportions of defense spending compared to the other services, Nebraska was highest at 79 percent, Oklahoma next at 74 percent, then Montana at 73 percent. However, with defense spending ranging from just $300 million to $3.4 billion, the actual dollar value spent on the Department of the Air Force is relatively low compared to higher dollar states.

The states where the Air Force received the largest share of funding were Texas and California. In Texas, $13.53 billion was directed to contracts and $3.33 billion to personnel. In California, $12.32 billion was spent on contracts and $2.55 billion on personnel.

Colorado, which hosts U.S. Space Command, as well as Space Force field commands Space Training and Readiness Command and Space Operations Command, ranked fifth overall in Air Force dollars at $6.18 billion. Some $4.93 billion was spent on contracts and $1.25 billion on personnel in the state. Ranking third and fourth for Air Force dollars was Virginia at $8.46 billion and Florida at $8.42 billion.

Just over 60 percent of DOD’s spending went to just 10 states.

Top 10 States by Total Defense Spending

RankStateDefense Sending
(Billions)
1Texas$83.0
2Virginia$64.3
3California$61.0
4Maryland$30.4
5Florida$29.1
6Connecticut$23.6
7Arizona$20.2
8Massachusetts$18.6
9Pennsylvania$17.8
10Georgia$15.8
Total for Top 10 States$363.8
Total for Top 10 States and Washington, D.C.$593.2
Source: U.S. Department of Defense
Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation

The majority of contract dollars were spent on supplies and equipment, such as aircraft and parts (54 percent), services (34 percent), research and development (7 percent), and construction (5 percent). The biggest chunk of personnel pay was spent on Active-duty military (46 percent), followed by civilian pay (40 percent). The National Guard received 8 percent of personnel dollars, and the Reserve received 6 percent of DOD personnel dollars.

The top defense contractors nationwide in fiscal 2020 were Lockheed Martin with $72.9 billion, General Dynamics with $22.8 billion, Boeing with $22.4 billion, and Raytheon with $20.2 billion.

The DOD Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation did not immediately respond to calls and emails from Air Force Magazine requesting comment on the report.

L3Harris Wins Contract to Upgrade Counterspace Systems

L3Harris Wins Contract to Upgrade Counterspace Systems

Space Systems Command awarded L3Harris Technologies Inc. a $120.8 million contract to develop a “ground-based deployable electronic warfare capability” that can “reversibly deny satellite communications, early warning, and propaganda,” according to an Oct. 22 contract announcement. 

Under the contract, L3Harris will upgrade 16 Counter Communications Systems at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo.; Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.; Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla.; and classified locations outside the continental United States, according to the announcement. 

“CCS is the only offensive system in the United States Space Force arsenal,” said Lt. Col. Steve Brogan, SMC combat systems branch materiel leader in the SMC special programs directorate, in a January 2020 Space Force release. “This upgrade puts the ‘force’ in Space Force and is critical for Space as a warfighting domain.”

Work is slated to be complete by February 2025 and will be performed in Melbourne, Fla.

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson said earlier this year that electronic warfare will remain a priority for the new service. Electromagnetic warfare is one of seven disciplines the Space Force listed as necessary to secure space in its Space Power doctrine released last year. 

Of the Space Force’s $10.5 billion research, development, test, and evaluation budget for 2021, $57.2 million funded counterspace programs. It requested another $38.1 million in its 2022 RDT&E budget request. 

Kratos, General Atomics Get Contracts for ‘Off-Board Sensing Station’ Unmanned Fighter Escort

Kratos, General Atomics Get Contracts for ‘Off-Board Sensing Station’ Unmanned Fighter Escort

The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems Inc. and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems matching $17.7 million contracts for an “Off-Board Sensing Station,” which is an unmanned aircraft that would extend a manned fighter’s sensing range and also potentially carry additional weapons for that aircraft.

The cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts are potentially worth $49 million if a $31.4 million option is exercised. They call for the two companies to deliver a “base effort” within a year, while the “option technical effort” would be completed by the end of January 2024. The work supports AFRL’s Autonomous Collaborative Platforms program and is a technology maturation effort. Seven companies competed for the contract, but only one will be carried into fabrication.

The Broad Agency Announcement dates back to September 2020 under what AFRL called “Science and Technology for Autonomous Teammates,” or STAT, and proposals were submitted in April of this year. The Air Force expected to award two basic effort contracts but planned to exercise only one option; the BAA said AFRL “cannot afford” to exercise two options. The BAA said the service was looking for an open-architecture system “to achieve the goals of rapid time-to-market and low acquisition cost.” The OBSS is “the second aircraft demonstration in a product line concept for attritable aircraft development, treating the aircraft as a limited-life commodity,” USAF said.

Kratos, in a press release, said the OBSS is “intended to be an affordable, highly modular conventional takeoff and landing, jet-powered” unmanned aerial system. It aims to “provide significant performance for sensor extension missions” for manned aircraft, but also potentially offer a “significant offensive weapons volume” or “weapons bay extension.”

The concept is part of AFRL’s ongoing manned-unmanned teaming prototyping efforts and presumably explores using escort aircraft to augment the capacity and capability of manned fighters.

Kratos is heavily involved in the arena of low-cost attritable aircraft systems, and AFRL has already tested the XQ-58 Valkyrie and UTAP22 Mako in the arena of manned-unmanned teaming. General Atomics has an extensive line of UASs, including the Predator, Reaper, Gray Eagle, and Avenger lines serving the Air Force and Army.

Kratos said the OBSS—of which it declined to supply an image—is “a new addition” to the company’s UAS line, meant to employ kinetic and non-kinetic effects that “generate affordable, force-multiplier combat power.” It will use digital engineering methods to “develop, leverage, and integrate system-ready technologies” and perform “prudent early ground and flight demonstrations and experiments.”

Steve Fendley, Kratos Unmanned Systems Division president, said the contract shows Kratos is getting larger, “further enabling our economies of scale” across its UAS portfolio. The company seeks to help USAF supply “mass to the fight” by “bending the cost curve to enable the U.S. to acquire and employ large numbers of aircraft” that challenge an adversary and “force them to recalculate their options.”

Eric M. DeMarco, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions CEO, said the company is “committed to disrupting the …national security market by providing rapid, agile, affordable, and relevant systems.” The OBSS award “reaffirms our approach to treat affordability as a technology.” He credited the company’s Ghost Works unit as designing its OBSS.

General Atomics could not immediately be reached for comment.