A target missile was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii during Flight Test Standard Missile-45. USS John Finn (DDG-113) detected and tracked the target missile with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar using the Aegis Baseline 9.C2 weapon system. Upon acquiring and tracking the target, the ship launched an SM-3 Block IIA guided missile which intercepted the target. Missile Defense Agency Photo
The Missile Defense Agency is nearing its planned defense-of-Hawaii test event...
The following is the July 17, 2020 Congressional Research Service report, Emerging Military Technologies: Background and Issues for Congress
From the report
Members of Congress and Pentagon officials are increasingly focused on developing emerging military technologies to enhance U.S. national security and keep pace with U.S. competitors. The U.S. military has long relied upon technological superiority to ensure its dominance in conflict and to underwrite U.S. national security. In recent years,...
https://news.usni.org/2020/07/21/report-to-congress-on-emerging-military-technologies
Sailors man the rails aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) as the ship pulls into Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on April 2, 2019. US Navy Photo
The House Armed Services Committee may force the Navy to begin integrating hypersonic weapons onto the Zumwalt class of destroyers, something the sea service has talked about but not prioritized in its budget.
The Navy was put in charge of developing a common hypersonic glide body that will ultimately serve as a conventional prompt...
U.S. Marines with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marines, 4th Marine Regiment, fire a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) during Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course (WTI) 1-18 in Yuma, Ariz. on Oct. 17, 2017. US Marine Corps Photo
The Marine Corps is in talks with the Pentagon’s research and development community over how a land-based hypersonic weapon could be incorporated into the smallest service’s quick-maneuver concept.
Mike White, assistant director for hypersonics in the...
https://news.usni.org/2020/06/18/marines-considering-adding-land-based-hypersonic-weapons-to-arsenal
Artist’s concept of a hypersonic vehicle. DARPA Photo
The Navy will focus in 2020 on developing hypersonic weapons at breakneck speed, with testing to occur throughout the year, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said Friday in a message to the fleet.
Modly’s memo, SECNAV Vectors 9, likens the need to develop hypersonic weapons today to 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik. The U.S. scrambled to respond to the new reality: the Soviet Union was in space, and the...
U.S. Marines with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit fire an M777 Howitzer during a fire mission in northern Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve on Mar. 24, 2017. US Marine Corps Photo
The National Defense Strategy says the Pentagon should focus on countering and deterring China and Russia, but the department’s $738-billion budget request for Fiscal Year 2020 suggests it intends to put money into other lesser priorities, the author of a major analysis of Pentagon spending told USNI News.
T...
Raytheon and United Technologies executives spent this week pitching their proposed combined operations as a deal intended to create a defense industry research and development powerhouse.
Cash flows from the combined operations of both companies will fuel the development of directed energy weapons, hypersonic weapons and counter-hypersonic missile systems, the chief executives of both Raytheon and United Technologies said during separate conference calls with analysts this week.
The Department...
Sailors train with the LA9-P Laser Hail and Warning System on the fantail of aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75).
When confronting threats from space, directed energy and hypersonic weapons, the U.S. is working toward the technology it needs; what’s slowing progress is the lack of confirmed people to fill key Pentagon positions to guide these programs, warned the chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.
By not filling dozens of senior positions with confirmed...
An undated artist’s rendering of the planned Columbia-class submarine. Naval Sea Systems Command Image
CAPITOL HILL – If the U.S. opts to develop low-yield nuclear missiles, expect the Navy to deploy these weapons as part of the nation’s undersea nuclear deterrent, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command told lawmakers Thursday.
If developed, the U.S. low-yield nuclear weapons would fall within limits set by the New START nuclear arms treaty, Air Force Gen. John Hyton, commander of U.S. Strategic...