Senators rally to boost defense spending, with $1 billion for Taiwan

WASHINGTON ― Republicans in the Senate and House are bucking spending levels agreed upon in the debt ceiling deal earlier this year. But they’re headed in different directions.

On Thursday, Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee joined Democrats in pushing a plan to increase defense spending beyond the negotiated cap, advancing an $832 billion Pentagon spending bill that includes an extra $8 billion in emergency funds.

“We reached bipartisan agreement to respond to some of our nation’s pressing challenges with additional emergency appropriations,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., said before the panel advanced the defense spending bill 27-1. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., was the lone “no” vote.

The move comes as House Republicans are attempting to slash nondefense spending well below the $704 billion agreed to in the debt ceiling bill, amid fervent Democratic opposition.

So far, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has resisted efforts to boost defense spending, and Republican House appropriators have kept their defense funding bills within the military spending cap — a 3.3% increase over this year in line with President Joe Biden’s budget request.

But the Senate’s move Thursday again puts Republican defense hawks at odds with deficit hawks in their own party, and leaves open the question of what the final defense spending number could reach when the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

Lawmakers are about to leave town for a monthlong recess, leaving about two months left to reach a fiscal 2024 funding deal — or potentially trigger a partial government shutdown.

Taiwan aid

Of the planned Senate emergency funds, $1.1 billion is slated for military aid to Taiwan via presidential drawdown authority. This is the same authority Biden has used to transfer weapons to Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles.

The Biden administration is preparing a similar drawdown package from U.S. stocks to Taiwan but needs congressional appropriations to backfill that equipment.

The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a foreign aid spending bill last week that includes a much lower dollar amount in Foreign Military Financing grants for Taiwan.

Senate appropriators funded the Taiwan aid through an emergency designation in the debt ceiling bill Congress passed in May, allowing them to bypass the spending caps without violating the sequester. Beyond that, senators from both parties have sought to further boost defense spending above the debt ceiling caps by attaching other Pentagon priorities to a supplemental appropriations bill later this year.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday called on the Biden administration to “work with Congress this fall to make urgent supplemental investments in meeting requirements in the Indo-Pacific,” including additional funding for the submarine-industrial base.

To that end, the report accompanying the Senate’s defense spending bill notes that its $8 billion in extra emergency funding “does not preclude the committee from making additional emergency supplemental recommendations at a later time based on the [Defense Department’s] needs, particularly as it relates to continuing support for Ukraine and Taiwan.”

Budget priorities

Taiwan aside, the other emergency funding in the Senate’s defense spending bill includes $2 billion for unfunded priorities lists from the services and combatant commands, another $1 billion in “high-priority defense-industrial base capacity shortfalls,” $1.9 billion “to increase military readiness,” and $1.5 billion in additional acquisition funding to address rising costs from inflation.

The bill also includes money for a 5.2% pay raise for troops in January — the largest increase in 22 years.

Additionally, the bill provides multiyear funding for all seven critical munitions categories that the Pentagon requested. Nonetheless, the bill report notes the Pentagon “is requesting funding to increase production capacity well above what is required by the proposed multi-year contract without firm private sector co-investment commitments.”

House Democrats hammered their Republican counterparts in June for not providing multiyear funding for all seven munitions sought by the Pentagon in the lower chamber’s defense spending bill. House Republicans opted to approve multiyear contracts for five out of seven of those munitions.

Republican appropriators did not provide multiyear funding for the Standard Missile-6 nor the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile amid concerns about industry’s ability to produce the number of munitions the Pentagon seeks to procure with multiyear funds.

The bill also includes $33.3 billion to build new ships, including funds to procure the next San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship. The Marine Corps requested the next ship in its unfunded priorities list, despite the Pentagon’s attempts to pause production.

Marine aviator chosen as next assistant commandant of the Corps

The White House has named its choice for the next assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, but a blockade by one senator on top military nominees means it’s unclear when he would take that job.

The Senate received the nomination of career aviator Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney to be the No. 2 Marine on Tuesday, according to a congressional website that tracks nominations.

A native of South Weymouth, Massachusetts, Mahoney has flown more than 5,000 hours, in the A-6, F-5, F-18 and F-35, according to his official bio.

When Mahoney was a colonel in charge of Marine Aircraft Group 12 in 2013, one of his sergeants said in a Marine press release about a motivational run the officer led, “I’ll go anywhere with him. He’s the person you want in the front calling the shots.”

Marine 3-star ‘myth-busts’ notions about Force Design 2030

As a general officer, Mahoney has served as the deputy commander of Marine Forces Pacific, director of strategy and plans at Headquarters Marine Corps, deputy commander of U.S. Forces Japan and commanding general of 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

Now the deputy commandant for programs and resources, Mahoney is the top budget officer in the Marine Corps. He has worked to allocate the Marine Corps’ money as the service has pursued the ambitious restructuring plan called Force Design 2030.

The funding has come in large part from divestments of older platforms and systems, though Marine leaders have said the “divest to invest” approach has now reached its limit.

Mahoney has defended Force Design 2030 in the face of public criticism of the plan from a group of retired Marine leaders.

“In the Marine Corps I grew up in for the last 35 years, internal disagreements stay internal,” he said in a November 2022 speech to the Marine Corps Association, the Corps’ professional organization. “They stay with our professional organizations so that we can have a robust and meaningful debate.”

If he is confirmed as assistant commandant, Mahoney will pin on a fourth star and become the top deputy to the Marine commandant.

For now, though, there is no Senate-confirmed commandant.

The White House nominated Assistant Commandant Gen. Eric Smith in May for the job, but Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, unilaterally has blocked confirmation of senior military nominees in protest of a Pentagon policy that provides travel expenses and leave for troops seeking out-of-state abortions.

A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment on the nomination of Mahoney, which also would be subject to Tuberville’s hold.

Because Smith was already the No. 2 Marine, he took on the duties of the commandant upon the statutorily required retirement of his predecessor, Gen. David Berger. But Smith doesn’t have the title or some of the official trappings of the office of commandant, such as the ability to issue the commandant’s long-term planning guidance.

And Smith doesn’t have a designated second-in-command. As both the acting commandant and the assistant commandant, he is juggling two full-time jobs each meant for four-star generals.

Mahoney’s nomination provides the clearest picture yet of what the top Marine leadership team will look like if the top two generals can get confirmed. The top enlisted leader will be Sgt. Maj. Carlos Ruiz, the Corps announced in June.

Ruiz, who doesn’t require Senate confirmation to become sergeant major of the Marine Corps, will take on his new role in August.

Thunderstorm damage to Vance’s T-6 fleet will slow pilot training

Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma is inspecting its entire fleet of T-6 Texan II training aircraft for damage after a severe thunderstorm swept through on July 21, delaying undergraduate pilot training by at least two weeks.

It’s the latest hiccup in pilot training as the service pushes to graduate nearly 1,500 new aviators this fiscal year, hoping to chip away at a perennial pilot shortage.

The thunderstorm battered the T-6s with winds over 70 mph, blowing off their protective covers and prompting concerns about debris in the engines and other structural problems, the Air Force said.

At least 12 T-6s require intensive repairs before they can return to flight, base spokesperson Terri Schaefer said. Local leaders have opted to check the entire fleet of 99 Texan IIs for structural and mechanical damage as a safety precaution.

The 71st Flying Training Wing resumed flight operations on Sunday, two days after the storm, while Air Force mechanics and contractors continue inspecting aircraft. Schaefer said Vance expects to return to normal operations by Aug. 4.

T-6s were the only airframe affected at Vance, which also flies the T-1 Jayhawk and T-38 Talon trainers. It’s too early to tell how much it may cost to repair them.

It’s unclear what longer-term ripple effects the storm may have on the pilot training process, which requires classes of students to move on to their next aircraft before new airmen are allowed to start. More than 260 undergraduate students are currently assigned to Vance, Schaefer said.

The T-6 is the first military aircraft a new student touches as part of the undergraduate pilot training curriculum. Earning pilot’s wings in the T-6 takes about seven months, at which point a trainee is selected to continue on the fighter-bomber track or the mobility track.

Slowing or pausing T-6 flights can cause repercussions farther down that line.

“The pilot training pipeline has been impacted by this storm, and officials are discussing how to make up for the time lost to meet production numbers,” Vance spokesperson Tech. Sgt. James Bolinger said.

This isn’t the first time Mother Nature has intervened in pilot training.

In February 2016, a hailstorm tore through Laughlin AFB, Texas, pelting the training base with chunks of ice that caused enough damage to ground 80% of its aircraft. In October 2018, Hurricane Michael devastated Tyndall AFB, Florida, the Air Force’s sole training site for the F-22 Raptor fighter fleet. And several training installations were among those hit by Winter Storm Uri and other squalls in early 2021.

The Air Force is also working through delays elsewhere in the training pipeline. Earlier this year, the service projected a slowdown in T-38 engine repairs would hinder aircraft availability until at least September, among other issues related to staffing and the inventory’s age.

Northrop Grumman won’t bid on Air Force’s NGAD fighter

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman does not plan to bid on the Air Force’s sixth-generation Next Generation Air Dominance fighter program as a prime contractor, chief executive Kathy Warden said Thursday.

But Northrop Grumman is interested in serving as a supplier to other bidders on the Air Force NGAD program as part of its mission systems portfolio, Warden told analysts in an earnings call.

The Air Force in May announced it had sent industry a classified solicitation for an engineering and manufacturing development contract for NGAD, launching the process for selecting a company to build the advanced fighter system that will replace the F-22 Raptor.

In Thursday’s call, Warden said Northrop had previously been “quiet” about its plans for NGAD, but has now told the Air Force it does not plan to respond to the request for proposals as a prime.

“We are remaining disciplined in assessing the right programs to pursue,” Warden said. “And that’s ones where we feel we’re well positioned with mature offerings, and where the business deal reflects an appropriate balance of risk and reward for both the customer and the industrial base.”

Warden said Northrop Grumman might participate in the Navy’s separate NGAD program, which the service refers to as F/A-XX.

“We have other opportunities we are pursuing,” Warden said when asked about F/A-XX. “I won’t disclose at this point exactly what those are until a little more information comes out on other programs. But you could assume that if we feel we’re well-positioned, and the government is appropriately balancing risk and reward, that would be a program we would pursue.”

Dave Keffer, Northrop Grumman’s chief financial officer, also said testers in the second quarter successfully turned on the power for the B-21 Raider’s systems, and the stealth bomber is still on track for its first flight in 2023.

Keffer said Northrop expects the Air Force to award the first low-rate initial production contract on the B-21 after that first flight.

But Warden warned inflation and other macroeconomic factors remain a risk for the B-21. She said the Pentagon notified Northrop in the most recent quarter that it has allocated another $60 million for B-21 LRIP procurement in 2023 due to inflationary effects. The Air Force has $1.4 billion budgeted in 2023 for B-21 procurement, including advance procurement funds from the previous year.

In a previous earnings call in January, Warden warned inflation, supply chain disruptions and labor issues had raised the B-21′s cost estimates. And the company said then a loss of up to $1.2 billion on one or more of the expected five LRIP lots was “reasonably possible.”

On Thursday, Warden said the company is still not expecting to generate profit from the B-21′s LRIP.

Australia selects South Korea’s Hanwha in military vehicle competition

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia has selected a South Korean infantry fighting vehicle as the winner of a program to replace its fleet of M113AS4 armored personnel carriers.

The office of Australia’s defense industry minister revealed the decision Thursday morning that the government chose Hanwha’s Redback for the effort dubbed Project Land 400 Phase 3–Land Combat Vehicle System (Infantry Fighting Vehicle).

The Redback beat out competition from Germany company Rheinmetall’s KF41 Lynx vehicle.

The program will see 129 Redback vehicles built in Australia for an estimate cost between AU$5 billion and AU$7 billion (U.S. $3.4 billion and U.S. $4.7 billion), making it one of Australia’s largest defense acquisition programs.

The decision comes after an extensive risk mitigation effort that saw both vehicle types put under testing that began in 2019. The tests were to last two years, but were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conroy said the government will accelerate the Redback acquisition, with the first vehicle to be delivered in 2027, two years earlier than planned. Deliveries will be completed in late 2028.

The Redback is based on the South Korean K21 infantry fighting vehicle with extensive modifications and locally provided technology. These include improved armor, a turret with a mounted Bushmaster 30mm gun, a launcher for Elbit Systems’ Spike LR anti-tank guided missile, and one-piece rubber tracks made by Soucy Defense.

Australia’s Redbacks are to be made in a purpose-built factory under construction at Avalon in the southeastern state of Victoria. The factory will also build the AS9 Huntsman self-propelled howitzer based on Hanwha’s K9 and its associated ammunition resupply vehicle.

Several other Australian defense contractors will assist with the program, including Electro Optic Systems and Marand.

Australia originally planned to acquire 450 infantry fighting vehicles under Project Land 400 Phase 3 when the program began in 2014 in order to replace its M113s on a one-for-one basis. However, its recently released Defence Strategic Review reduced that number to 129.

The review said this amount would provide sufficient vehicles for “one mechanised battalion in particular for littoral manoeuvre, including training, repair and attrition stock,” and allow for a focus on the acquisition of land-based, long-range rockets and missiles.

This change in focus will see Australia accelerate and expand plans to acquire the Lockheed Martin-made M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and a land-based maritime strike capability.

Senate to extend Buy American laws for Navy ships

WASHINGTON ― Senators unanimously agreed to legislation mandating that 100% of components for all Navy ships be manufactured in the U.S. by 2033.

The Senate passed the amendment from Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., by unanimous consent with little fanfare last week, tacking it onto the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. Senators are still considering additional amendments to the NDAA, and a final vote is expected later this week.

“Wisconsin has a proud tradition of shipbuilding, producing world-class products made by American workers that defend our freedom at home and abroad,” Baldwin said in a statement after the amendment passed last week. “By strengthening Buy America requirements for our shipbuilding industry, we can ensure that taxpayer dollars are not only going toward keeping us safe, but also supporting American jobs, growing our economy, and maintaining a defense industrial base that is critical to our national security.”

Her bill would require that the 65% of components for all Navy ships are “manufactured substantially all from articles, materials or supplies mined, produced or manufactured” in the U.S. starting in 2026. That figure jumps to 75% in 2028 and 100% in 2033.

It would allow the defense secretary to wave those requirements under certain circumstances, including to expand production to Canada, Britain, Australia or New Zealand or if the Buy American requirements increase the total acquisition cost beyond 25%.

Baldwin is up for reelection next year in Wisconsin, a battleground state. Wisconsin is home to the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard as well as Fairbanks Morse, a manufacturing company that builds engines for naval vessels.

Under Baldwin’s Buy American provision, Naval ships that use engines from countries like South Korea, Japan, Finland, Germany and Italy would eventually need to be built with engines sourced in the U.S.

Proponents of Buy American laws argue that they strengthen the industrial base by ensuring a steady stream of work for U.S. suppliers. Still, the U.S. has struggled to keep apace with its shipbuilding goals amid significant labor shortages.

Colin Grabow, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato institute, argued that Baldwin’s bill could further complicate an already constrained shipbuilding industrial base by eliminating foreign suppliers while inviting trade retaliation from U.S. allies.

‘Taking away options’

“This will make naval shipbuilding more difficult and expensive,” said Grabow. “We’re taking away options. We’re narrowing the choices and that just inevitably results in higher costs and extended options.”

He suggested the U.S. could go in the “opposite direction” and integrate more with U.S. allies on shipbuilding.

“Japan and South Korea are two of the biggest shipbuilder countries in the world, and the naval vessels they’re producing for their navies are a fraction of the cost of our own,” said Grabow. “Maybe there are some lessons to be learned there. Maybe we should use some of their shipyards.”

President Joe Biden signed a 2021 executive order during his first month in office to bolster Buy American requirements for federal contractors. The Pentagon is shielded from many of those requirements due to several exemptions, including defense trade agreements with 27 other countries.

Former President Donald Trump also emphasized Buy American policies as part of his “America First” agenda, signing his own executive actions in 2017. He toured Wisconsin’s Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard during his failed 2020 reelection campaign.

L3Harris says feds cleared Aerojet deal, set to close Friday

WASHINGTON — L3Harris Technologies plans to finalize its acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne on Friday, the company said in a letter to investors.

L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik said in the Wednesday letter the Federal Trade Commission told the company that day federal regulators would not block the sale. With that potential roadblock cleared, Kubasik said, the company is “moving forward to close the transaction on or about July 28.”

L3Harris announced plans to buy Aerojet, a key manufacturer of rocket engines and propulsion systems, in December 2022 in a $4.7 billion deal.

The company expressed confidence it would avoid the regulatory troubles that scuttled Lockheed Martin’s earlier attempt to buy Aerojet.

Lockheed Martin sought to buy Aerojet in 2020 in what would have been a $4.4 billion deal, saying it would lead to greater efficiency, speed and cost reductions for the U.S. government.

But Lockheed competitor Raytheon Technologies, now known as RTX, objected to the proposed acquisition. If Lockheed owned Aerojet, Raytheon said it would be forced to negotiate with Lockheed for solid rocket motors crucial for some of its systems.

The deal also drew scrutiny from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who called for the FTC to look into it.

The FTC announced a lawsuit in January 2022 that aimed to block Lockheed’s Aerojet acquisition on antitrust grounds, and amid concerns that competition in the defense industry could be harmed by the deal. If Lockheed owned Aerojet, federal regulators said, the company could cut off other contractors from Aerojet’s missile components such as scramjet engines for hypersonic missiles and control systems for missile interceptors.

Nearly three weeks later, Lockheed canceled its plans to buy Aerojet.

L3Harris’ effort to buy Aerojet did not escape Warren’s attention. In January 2023, Warren sent the FTC a letter urging it to oppose the deal. Warren also sent the Defense Department another letter this month urging officials to carefully review the deal and disclose any potential conflicts to federal regulators and the public.

In a conference call with investors Thursday, Kubasik said the company pledged to the Pentagon it would continue selling Aerojet’s products to all eligible customers.

“Once we close Aerojet Rocketdyne, I can assure you, we are highly motivated to sell rocket engines and rocket motors to anyone who wants to buy them within the rules, globally,” Kubasik said. “We bought this company to sell engines and motors, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

AUKUS succeeds if US eases defense regulations for allies

Without a doubt, the United States and its allies have entered into a period of intense strategic rivalry with China. This competition is unfolding as the capacity limitations of the U.S. defense-industrial base have been exposed by both the war in Ukraine and the lengthy delay in weapons deliveries to Taiwan. Fortunately, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security agreement, or AUKUS, announced in September 2021 has the potential to help remedy these industrial limitations and strengthen allied defense in the Indo-Pacific region.

In order for AUKUS to be successful, the United States must both change its approach to regulating defense trade with its closest allies and force the bureaucracy to adopt a more competitive mindset to manage the risks of technology transfer.

AUKUS has two parts, or pillars. The first focuses on Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines, while the second promotes deeper integration and cooperation in fielding advanced defense capabilities. Australia’s potential acquisition of those submarines has generated considerable attention, but achieving an operationally viable submarine capability will take a decade or more. This long timeline does not lessen the importance of the first pillar, but highlights the need to move with urgency to simultaneously implement the second pillar.

The second pillar offers the possibility of accelerating the research, development and fielding of advanced defense capabilities in the near term. It can help ensure the allies stay ahead of emerging threats with its focus on jointly developing and fielding cutting-edge defense technologies like hypersonic missiles, advanced undersea capabilities and quantum technologies.

Just as important, substantially streamlined cooperation across our collective defense-industrial bases will help offset China’s overwhelming manufacturing advantage.

But to exploit the opportunity created by the second pillar, fundamental reform of U.S. export control laws and technology release processes is needed. Specifically, modernization of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and Foreign Military Sales processes are necessary to maintain an advantage over China.

AUKUS presents an optimal test of our ability to do this. Creating a seamless defense trade partnership with two of our closest allies should be a simple process, given our already deep intelligence-sharing relationship and the frequency with which we coordinate and integrate our military operations. We have no closer allies.

However, two years after the AUKUS agreement, we have little to show for it — largely due to the Biden administration’s overly risk-averse approach to the implementation of the second pillar. We currently rely on a risk management approach to export licensing and technology release dating to the end of the Cold War — an era when our commanding geopolitical position gave us the luxury of adopting a zero-risk approach to these decisions.

That era is over. Today, China’s manufacturing capabilities and rapid military modernization are eroding America’s dominance in advanced technologies. To offset this, we must leverage the technology contributions and industrial bases of our closest allies. Protecting our most advanced technologies remains a national security imperative, but we should aim restrictive regulations at countries with a demonstrated record of a failure provide protection, not at our closest allies.

Rather than acknowledging our closest allies have legal, regulatory and technology control regimes comparable to those of the United States, some policymakers are cherry-picking flaws in those systems in an effort to preserve the existing approach to licensing and technology controls. Demands that our closest partners undertake extensive changes to their legal and regulatory systems suggest extraterritorial overreach and demonstrate an inability to characterize risk accurately.

Our approach to managing risk should account for the immense benefits of collaboration under AUKUS, including U.S. access to highly capable and relevant systems developed by our allies. In today’s geopolitical environment, the greater risk to our own national security is continuing to treat our technology as too precious to share.

AUKUS is not our first attempt to foster deeper defense cooperation with our two closest allies. In 2010, the Senate approved defense trade treaties with the United Kingdom and Australia. In the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, the United States incorporated the United Kingdom and Australia into our national technology-industrial base. However, both the treaties and NTIB changes have yielded little in the way of increased industrial cooperation.

The Biden administration has argued that this is the “decisive decade” in the strategic competition with China. I agree. But an incremental approach to implementing AUKUS places us at a grave disadvantage by preventing us from maximizing the benefit of our alliances in competing with China.

Were AUKUS to come up short, as the defense trade treaties and NTIB have, our closest allies would lose faith in our reliability as a partner. Alternatively, were AUKUS to succeed, it could incentivize other key allies to strengthen their industrial practices to allow for similar cooperation.

It is not enough to say that allies are our comparative advantage in the competition against authoritarian regimes. Sharing the burden of competition with allies, a fundamental feature of the United States’ successful Cold War strategy, requires that we enable greater defense-industrial cooperation now.

Earlier this year, I introduced the Torpedo Act (S 1471), which would do just that. This bill details what the United States needs to do to implement the second pillar successfully. Encouragingly, the core regulatory changes contemplated by the Torpedo Act recently passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a bipartisan basis, demonstrating Congress’ will to align the ambitious rhetoric of AUKUS with needed reforms to our export control and technology release policies. Failure to do so would render our rhetoric hollow and signal that we are fundamentally unserious about competing with China.

Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, is the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Lockheed, BWXT to build nuclear-powered spacecraft, engine

WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA selected Lockheed Martin and BWX Technologies to develop an experimental nuclear propulsion system that could provide a more efficient power source for future in-orbit maneuvering and Mars-bound spacecraft.

The companies are teamed for the agency’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations effort, or DRACO. Lockheed is designing a spacecraft that can carry an experimental nuclear reactor engine and fuel developed by Virginia-based BWXT.

The goal is to demonstrate the nuclear thermal rocket engine in orbit in 2027.

“With a successful demonstration, we could significantly advance humanity’s means for going faster and farther in space and pave the way for the future deployment for all fission-based nuclear space technologies,” Tabitha Dodson, DARPA’s program manager for the effort, said in a July 26 statement.

Lockheed and BWXT were chosen from a pool of contractors that included General Atomics, Blue Origin and Ultra Safe Nuclear Technologies who were maturing designs through work led by DARPA and NASA.

DARPA is taking the lead on space vehicle development, integration, nuclear regulatory requirements and launch. NASA, which expects the capability could support its plan to send humans to Mars by the late 2030s, oversees the engine portion of the program.

The agencies gave no value for the contracts, though Dodson told reporters during a July 26 phone briefing that the government plans to spend $499 million to design, fabricate and fly the system — half of which will come from DARPA and the other half from NASA. The companies have also contributed internal funding to the program, but neither provided details when asked.

Nuclear thermal rockets are similar to ground-based systems that rely on fission, or the separation of atoms, to create electricity. The heat generated in that process can turn liquid rocket propellant to gas, enabling more efficient maneuvers in space.

Dodson likened in-space nuclear propulsion to the sea-based reactors the Navy relies upon. The government has explored nuclear propulsion for spacecraft in the past, most notably through NASA’s Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications, or NERVA. The engine passed several ground test milestones but never took flight and the program was canceled in 1973.

DRACO will build on NERVA’s legacy, Dodson said, but with a new fuel source called high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU. Dodson noted that as a safety measure DARPA will design the reactor to remain inactive until it reaches orbit.

Congressional support for nuclear propulsion has grown in recent years, with lawmakers directing NASA invest more funding in engine development efforts. Given that support and the maturity of the technology, Dodson said, it’s imperative for the government to move forward with demonstration efforts like DRACO.

“I personally believe we have an obligation now to take advantage of this moment in time with the DRACO program,” she said. “We have a window of opportunity and political support and therefore funding to finally advance nuclear thermal propulsion for our nation and for the future of humanity.”

Lawmakers grill Pentagon officials over failure of MyTravel program

Lawmakers grilled the Pentagon on Wednesday over the decision to abandon its MyTravel program, a $374 million effort to modernize an aging travel management system used by service members and civilians that the department said failed to get off the ground.

The decision to discontinue the program was based, in part, on a low adoption rate and slower-than-expected return to travel that ultimately couldn’t justify carrying out the price tag, according to a Pentagon official who testified on behalf of the Office of the Under Secretary for Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

“While our decision may appear abrupt, the department had been discussing the challenges and potential courses of action for MyTravel for some time prior to the announcement,” said Jeffrey Register, director of human resources activity at the Pentagon, at a hearing on Capitol Hill. “MyTravel was intended to be a cost savings for the department, but that has not been the case.”

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who chairs the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, called the hearing to examine why the department was scrapping the planned upgrade to the travel management system, which for years has come under fire for malfunctioning and being difficult to use.

This “IT acquisition failure,” as Mace called it, raises other questions about how prepared the Pentagon is to tackle other modernization initiatives aimed at replacing aging technology without significant cost and time overruns. And against the backdrop of fifth consecutive failed financial audit, the unsuccessful venture also raises concerns about the agency’s ability to make efficient business decisions, lawmakers said.

The attempt to revamp and address pre-existing deficiencies of the Defense Travel System means that the department is back where it started: with a legacy program that is still in need of improvements.

“I have personally had really, really bad experiences with DTS,” said South Carolina Republican William Timmons, who is also a Air National Guardsman. “I have multiple times had to use my own resources to get to trainings because flights were canceled.”

Timmons said that one improvement to DTS in the interim could be to give service members real-time updates or notifications on their itineraries and voucher approvals.

‘Legion of inefficiencies’

Watchdogs at the inspector general office and the Government Accountability Office have pinpointed that for 12 years in a row, the Pentagon failed to be in compliance for addressing improper payments in part associated with DoD travel.

“Due to a legion of inefficiencies, DTS generated nearly $1 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2016 through 2018, according to a 2019 [GAO] study,” Mace said in a previous letter to the Pentagon.

GAO also found that 16 of 25 major IT business programs experienced cost or schedule changes since January 2021.

“Cross-cutting agency reform is hard, especially at an agency as large and complex as the Department of Defense,” said Elizabeth Field, GAO’s director of defense capabilities and management, at the hearing. “DoD’s multi-year, multi-million dollar effort to replace DTS is just one example of unsuccessful attempts department officials have made to roll out new enterprise wide systems, or to fundamentally change how the department does business.”

Democratic and Republican lawmakers also called out the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Gilbert Cisneros, who was specifically invited to testify but did not appear at Wednesday’s hearing.

Cisneros issued the May 24 memo that pulled the plug on MyTravel, though it was a joint decision by defense offices, Register said.