![]() While these efforts are more directly connected to long-term acquisition planning than those internal to industry players, they are neither programmed nor designed sufficiently to transition to full-scale deployment where the technology is needed. Lastly, national and defense service laboratories are funded for research, development, and technology maturation, but their technology transition plans don’t sufficiently motivate industry developers to pick up these technical solutions for application in operationally relevant systems. Therefore, we need a single roadmap to ensure alignment between the warfighter’s operational needs and industry-led independent research and development, which industry and all branches of the military can follow. The military cannot complete its missions if the defense industry is not up to speed on the Pentagon’s emerging needs. In order to overcome this and introduce innovation as soon as it’s available, we need to establish a common roadmap for the future. With no mechanism to sell a new idea that emerges too late to be planned in, there is no incentive for the developer to introduce technology advances that could increase capability or operational suitability, and the government has no meaningful way to extract or reward cutting-edge solutions over older technologies that meet minimum requirements. When the plan is set years before execution, it is guaranteed to exclude meaningful technology developments that happen in that intervening time. The Defense Department should continue these efforts while continuously searching for new approaches and incentives to expedite the acquisition processes at a larger scale.Ī second challenge is that acquisition plans are often developed too far in advance, precluding innovations that emerge at the wrong moment in the development cycle relative to the acquisition timeline. Plus, Other Transaction Authority agreements allow the military to buy small quantities of new technology solutions for prototyping and testing. For example, its Rapid Innovation Fund program offers up to $3 million in funding for new technologies that meet national security needs. ![]() The good news is that the Pentagon has already taken steps to accelerate the acquisition process. By the time a solution reaches the warfighters it is usually at least four years old, which in advanced technologies, may as well be a lifetime. Early and continuous internal investment from industry has such delayed returns that fast-following or aligning to sub-optimized system requirements is more profitable. The typical development lifecycle for mature advanced technology is at least 18 to 24 months and the ensuing acquisition cycle can be more than twice as long. First, acquisition timelines for defense systems technology are too long. There are a few key factors contributing to this issue. The structure of the Pentagon’s existing acquisition governance unintentionally incentivizes the industrial base to slow-roll cutting-edge technology advancements and force-fit the solutions they developed years ago, keeping directed energy and other advanced technology from getting from the lab to the warfighters. In order to more rapidly deliver this fast-evolving technology to men and women in uniform, the Pentagon must also find ways to accelerate the current acquisition process. Recognizing this threat, both the House and Senate appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2020 reflect notable funding increases, as high as $656 million, for hypersonics and hypersonics defense, underscoring that this should be an even higher priority for the Pentagon.īut realizing the promise of directed energy for hypersonics defense will require much more than increased funding. Addressing this threat will require new defenses, such as directed energy weapons, which reach targets at the speed of light, have much larger magazines, cost less per shot, and engage targets with precision far beyond traditional kinetic weapons. America’s adversaries are rapidly advancing their offensive capabilities with hypersonic missiles, which can fly at more than five times the speed of sound.
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