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Happy Friday!
In the news this week:
The Navy CIO released Information Superiority Vision 2.0. It has three pillars: optimize, secure, and decide.
- One of the focus areas: employ commercial technologies today.
Our top story reveals that more RDER projects have been announced, bringing the total number to seven projects transitioned to the services.
- These largely focus on surveillance and communications capabilities, both standalone features and others that enhance existing platforms such as the MQ-9,
DISA Director Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner gave updates on the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract's performance to date, plus hints of what JWCC Next will look like.
- So far, DoD has awarded $996 million in contracts on JWCC. Skinner said the process is awarding contracts within weeks of releasing a task order, but the Next phase will work to pick up the pace even more.
- Other priorities: increasing the number of companies and bringing on more capabilities like AI.
A post from Phil Stiefel on LinkedIn details how DIU overcomes some of the familiar barriers interfering with DoD's ability to adopt the new tech DIU identifies.
- Challenges he describes include contract vehicle problems, color of money issues, funding gaps, and end-of-year funds issues.
Research from CSIS shows how defense contractors have become more specialized in defense since the 1960s, rather than having a diversified portfolio that includes a robust mix of commercial and defense capabilities and customers.
In our One More Thing section, the new presidential helicopter is finally in use after years of delay—and just in time for President Biden's arrival in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention.
And in ARP news, huge congratulations to Dr. Rene Rendon, associate professor of acquisition management at NPS, for winning the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Contract Management Association.
- Rendon is a prolific researcher, advisor of student theses, journal editor, and integral member of the acquisition community.
Want to read some of his recent research?
Come work with us!
The Department of Defense Management (DDM) at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is looking to hire one full-time faculty member specializing in program management. Duty location of Monterey, CA.
Applications due as soon as possible. Start date: October 1, 2024.
Learn more and apply now!
This Week's Top Story
Pentagon reveals 5 more funded RDER projects, including a top Marine priority
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Breaking Defense
The Pentagon’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve has successfully transitioned at least seven technology projects to the services so far, from high-altitude balloons to underwater communications, including five that were not previously linked to the high-speed acquisition effort.
The Pentagon’s R&D chief Heidi Shyu had already claimed two programs in an interview with Breaking Defense, but new details provided by program officials about five others indicate that a top focus for RDER is squarely on surveillance and communications, the eyes and ears of the joint force. Three of the projects focus on “enhancements” to comms, sensors, and other technical abilities aboard platforms developed by other programs: unmanned speedboats, 4th generation fighters, and the MQ-9 Reaper. Four develop new systems: surveillance balloons, underwater communications, and two types of targeting node.
Such high-tech but low-profile projects create crucial connective tissue, especially as the military tries to link its disparate forces into the nascent global battle network known as CJADC2.
But these niche capabilities are also all too often overshadowed in service budgets by big-ticket weapons systems like stealth jets or manned warships. In fact, one of the programs, a sensor-fusion system called the Maritime Targeting Cell, was number one on the Navy/Marine Corps Unfunded Priorities list before RDER came to the rescue.
“We’re doing things because the services are not,” Pentagon CTO Heidi Shyu told Breaking Defense in a recent interview defending RDER from critics.
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