Douglas A. Macgregor's Blog, page 13

With daily drone incursions over bases, NORTHCOM takes aim through Falcon Peak

DESTIN, Florida — Flying hundreds of feet in the air against a clear blue sky, the small drone barreled toward a defended position, its profile similar to other unmanned systems that have evaded authorities on US installations. But this drone wouldn’t return to its sender: soon after its detection, defending personnel dispatched their own drone that smashed into the encroacher, sending both plummeting back to earth.

That’s life for a drone during Falcon Peak, a second-year exercise hosted by US Northern Command in late September to hone counter-drone prowess at domestic military facilities. Despite concerted efforts by the US government to defeat unmanned threats, their incursions into US military installations are increasing, according to NORTHCOM head Gen. Gregory Guillot. 

“We’re between [about] one and two incursions per day” at DoD installations, Guillot told reporters during a roundtable here. A NORTHCOM spokesperson later told Breaking Defense there were 230 drone incursions reported over military installations between September 2023 and September 2024, which jumped by 82 percent to approximately 420 sightings reported over roughly the same period the following year.

Whatever the cause of the increase — and Guillot noted, “I don’t know if the problem’s worse, or we have more systems out there that can detect them” — that kind of major jump is bound to get a response from the Pentagon.

Drone incursions over domestic bases have been a top problem for officials following mysterious unmanned flights over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in late 2023 and other high-profile sightings, prompting widespread scrutiny over why many installations seem powerless to stop them. The issue, officials have said, is that typical counter-drone technologies are not safe to use in civilian airspace, a problem compounded by a byzantine set of rules for installation self-protection. 

Hence the Falcon Peak effort, where the government has called up industry to offer its very best solutions that can detect, track and defeat small drones in ways that maintain the integrity of civilian airspace. Similar to the first Falcon Peak, held last year at the foothills of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, this year’s event used testing ranges belonging to Eglin Air Force Base on the beaches of Santa Rosa Island in Florida. 

RELATED: Nets, jamming and ‘cyber scalpels’: Pentagon weighs homeland counter-drone tech in mountain tests

“What we learned last year at Falcon Peak” between the DoD and industry is that “we’re pretty good at detecting UAS [unmanned aerial systems] of all types and sizes,” Guillot said. “Our ability to track them once we’ve detected them, especially through maneuvers and altitude changes was okay, not great. And then our ability to defeat them was poor, especially if it was only in a non-kinetic means.” 

The good news? Guillot then said that based on results from this year’s Falcon Peak, it’s clear there’s been significant improvement in all three areas. 

Like last year, Guillot said his general observation is that most drone incursions on US military installations are probably just hobbyists who don’t know the rules. Still, officials have said apprehended drone operators, like a Chinese national who flew a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base late last year, pose national security threats too. (Guillot said officials have yet to establish a link between drone overflights and a foreign government.)

“So majority, I think, are hobbyists that are in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there’s enough of the others that has me concerned,” he said. 

Industry Brings Its Kit

Over the course of several days, NORTHCOM ran hundreds of incursion scenarios to test industry’s counter-drone mettle, with some culminating in “pretty complex” events that involved multiple drones, various flight profiles and even internal navigation technologies that don’t emit signals, according to NORTHCOM Deputy Test Director Jason Mayes.

“They were successful in some, not successful in others,” Mayes said on the Falcon Peak sidelines, adding that it would take time to fully analyze results.

Guillot said his “focus area” for the event this year was low-collateral kinetic defeat, as demos last year using non-kinetic tools — think jamming or hijacking a drone to commandeer its controls — showed that the approach has limitations. More traditional kinetic weapons also pose a risk to bystanders, prompting the need for a solution that can take down a drone with minimal threat to others in the area. 

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Paladin counter drone system, consisting of a shotgun mounted on a drone, on display at Falcon Peak. (Michael Marrow/Breaking Defense)

The smashing intercept viewed by Breaking Defense was performed by Anduril’s Anvil drone, one element of a broader package of capabilities offered by the company that NORTHCOM selected to serve as the command’s first “flyaway kit.” The kit, according to a NORTHCOM presentation shown to Falcon Peak attendees, includes the Anvil, a trailer-mobile radar and camera tower, an electronic warfare system called Pulsar, an infrared sensing system dubbed SkyFence and command and control (C2) software through the firm’s Lattice platform. 

The Falcon Peak event “was an opportunity to continue the learning and the refinement of how we deliver that system, how we train the teams that are going to use it [and] how we provide them with the tools that they need to be able to operate that kit on their own,” Parks Hughes, Anduril’s senior director for air defense, told Breaking Defense at the AFA conference in September, days after Falcon Peak concluded. “It’s always valuable to test the system against a variety of threats.”

Other vendors, like Anduril, brought along comprehensive solutions. But some firms brought individual pieces of the puzzle to show off. 

Norwegian firm Squarehead Technology, for example, brought along an acoustic sensor called Discovair. Acoustic detection has recently grown in popularity since many drones now no longer emit electronic signals, and can instead only be sensed by physically listening for features like rotors.

The Discovair device “allows you to sort of listen to everything at once, in all directions. And if it doesn’t sound like a drone we just throw it out,” Knut Torbjørn Moe, Squarehead’s vice president of defense, told Breaking Defense at the company’s Falcon Peak booth. A key thing to get right is eliminating false positives, he said, noting that “it’s becoming clear to everybody” that technologies like acoustic detection are “needed to be able to fight back against” newer drone threats. 

The small American company Thalrix was also present at Falcon Peak and brought along a camera system called Sentinel. According to CEO Justin Luce, the low-cost camera rings in at about $20,000 for daytime operations and $30,000 for a version that can perform both day and night monitoring. The system, roughly the size of a shoebox and weighing four pounds, can detect the smallest drones, also known as Group 1, about one and a half kilometers away. 

“The main thing for us is, as we’ve seen the price of the effectors and the weapon systems come down, we haven’t seen the price of detection” similarly decline, Luce told Breaking Defense at the company’s Falcon Peak booth. “So our goal has just been getting the cost of our systems down as low as possible, and then putting it out there, testing it and seeing how low can we get this price point.”

Similar to others, Thalrix has its own C2 system, but like in the spirit of Falcon Peak — where Guillot said a top goal was vendors being able to connect different systems together — Luce said the company advises integrating the Sentinel with other companies’ software.

“We recommend any of the existing C2s, as opposed to throwing our own in the ring,” he said. “Because there are already so many options. No need to add another one.”

Authority Challenges

Beyond technical limitations that prevent facilities from halting drone incursions, policy plays a big role both in determining who can respond to drone flights and how. 

Some DoD installations like special operations and nuclear facilities are expressly permitted under US law to take measures to defend themselves against unmanned threats, but others are not. The issue is currently being sorted out on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers weigh a legislative proposal submitted by the Pentagon earlier this year [PDF] that would broaden the category of facilities that are permitted to defend against drones and enforce perimeter security, among other changes. (Thanks to a bipartisan amendment, the Senate’s version of the Pentagon’s annual defense policy bill that passed late Thursday includes changes sought by the department, though the provision will need to make it into a final version of the legislation and signed into law.)

Mayes said too that Pentagon officials are working to centralize and streamline relevant information on the topic, and that installation commanders have the ability to take out a drone that they deem as a threat to life or critical assets. “So there’s definitely engagement criteria that have to be met. We can’t just shoot anything down just because it’s over our installation,” he said. 

RELATED: After mysterious incursions, NORTHCOM updates counter-drone procedures

Engaging drones further requires coordination with the Department of Transportation, chiefly through the Federal Aviation Administration. Heeding a call by Guillot, NORTHCOM was tapped last year to serve as a homeland DoD “synchronizer” for counter-drone authorities, meaning that the command leads all interagency coordination on the issue. 

“It gives us a lot of ability to go out and drive standardizing responses where necessary,” Guillot said of the synchronizer role.

Falcon Peak’s focus on low-kinetic intercepts appears to be due in part to the regulations required for intercepting drones. Wary of shooting into a civilian-trafficked sky, some officials have talked about using tools like lasers to defeat drones, though Mayes said that more learning is needed. 

“I think we’re moving forward, but it’s a very, very slow process,” Mayes said, pointing to potential collateral effects like a laser disrupting a satellite in low earth orbit. “I think there’s a pathway to get there, but where we’re at in that yet, I’m not really sure.” 

Through its new counter-drone leadership, NORTHCOM is also responsible for deploying the Anduril-supplied flyaway kit where necessary. Under a framework outlined by Guillot, if installations are having trouble repelling unmanned incursions, NORTHCOM can come to one’s aid by deploying the kit within 24 hours. The command aims to field up to three kits — one each on the East and West Coasts and one in Alaska — that could come with different features provided by other vendors. 

“I think 24 hours is fast. Obviously we’d like to be faster,” Guillot said.

Anduril’s Anvil drone effector, left, sits next to a drone it disabled during a demonstration at the US Northern Command Falcon Peak event on September 18, 2025. (Michael Marrow/Breaking Defense)

According to Mayes, the flyaway kit currently comes with about a half dozen Anvil interceptors, which can carry other means of defeat like spoofing a signal. (The Anvil that took down the target drone was also reused from a previous event, so some may be able to take out multiple targets depending on how they’re used.) Estimating the kit’s cost at up to $12 million depending on configuration, Mayes described it as a stopgap measure to fill a need that the military services are ultimately responsible for satisfying. 

“The systems aren’t cheap, so there is a budget aspect of that,” he said. 

The 24 hour window is needed to not only deploy the kit, but also to provide adequate time to coordinate its use with the FAA. 

Asked whether this approach was sufficient to stop a Spiderweb-type operation, where Ukrainian forces stunned the world by destroying Russian air assets deep behind front lines using armed drones launched from trucks, Guillot emphasized a surprise attack will ultimately fall to an installation to defend themselves first. 

“One thing that we’re doing is we’re working with the services and the combatant commands to try to replicate that and use some of our existing systems to see if they’re sufficient for the type of thing that we saw over there,” he said. “But not just to solve last month’s problem, but to think, how are they going to evolve and make sure that we stay ahead.”

Army Flight School Next: A new way to train the next generation of aviators

New global threats require new ways of training helicopter pilots, and the US Army’s Flight School Next program aims to do that through procurement of a new flight-trainer for pilot candidates plus associated ground training.

Bell has been training helicopter pilots since the 1940s and has established itself as a global leader in training civilian and military pilots to safely operate Bell aircraft in demanding mission environments. Today its versatile Bell 505 helicopter is one of the preeminent training platforms.

Bell has worked with various customers to develop training programs utilizing the Bell 505 and leveraging the company’s expertise as a trainer and as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). As the US Army takes a critical look at its Initial Entry Rotary Wing curriculum through its Flight School Next program, Bell’s decades of experience with training will be a critical enabler for its proposed solution.

Breaking Defense discussed Bell’s training experience and proven platform with Joseph Decapite, senior manager of flight training, Bell Training Academy, and Matthew Dorram, capture lead, Flight School Next. 

Breaking Defense: Bell is well known for manufacturing helicopters, and we’ll discuss the Bell 505, but first let’s share your background in training and what Bell is providing its customers currently.

Decapite: Bell’s been doing training for decades for both pilot and technical training here at the Bell Training Academy in Fort Worth, TX, where we instruct them through classroom lectures, flight training devices and aircraft that complement each other.

Joseph Decapite, senior manager of flight training, Bell Training Academy.

In addition to our Bell Training Academy, we also established training facilities in Valencia, Spain and Singapore. We’re always looking at opportunities around the world where we can bring training to the local customers. We look at options for that through what they call “certified training facilities.”

With our current customers, they’re sending some of their customers or students to the Bell Training Academy. They’ll come for initial classes, which are anywhere from a five to 10-day course depending upon the model and the mission they’re training on. 

The Bell 505 is one of our most in-demand training aircraft. When training customers on the aircraft they can come in, learn the systems of the 505, then move to the flight training device (FTD), where we drive home what was taught in the systems class so they can effectively and efficiently troubleshoot emergencies in the aircraft. We continue the training by introducing them to the aircraft, allowing them to execute the checklist they learned from the FTD, as well as go over emergency procedures, basic maneuvers and full-down autorotations.

What is special about Bell’s approach to training?

Decapite: It all starts in the classroom. We use 3D interactive courseware. In the past, if someone asked me a question in a systems class, I’d have to go back a couple of PowerPoint slides to show them. Now I can rotate the object in front of them on the screen, I can take it apart in front of them in exploded views on the monitor. It makes learning more interactive, and our customers get a much better understanding of the aircraft systems.

When that module is completed, now they can walk out into our 20,000-square-foot technical training hangar and get their hands on the actual parts. If you’re like me, I’m a tactile learner – you can explain to me, but once I get my hands on the parts I understand it much better.

We also have the flight-training devices because we want them to learn the basics of the checklist, make sure they thoroughly understand that we want to go through all the emergency procedures. That’s very important because you can’t reproduce all the emergencies in the aircraft. You can do all of them in the simulator. There are some key ones in the 505 that we want to make sure we show them.

Our approach to training is now evolving with things like virtual and mixed reality systems.  We’re working with our sister company TRU Simulation+ and they’ve developed the 505 Veris™ VR Flight Simulator. That’s a key training asset because it will be a large cost savings for our customers. It’s going to minimize how long it takes them to learn how to hover; by doing that it will reduce the cost of the training and capitalizes on training time in the aircraft.

What is Bell currently doing with its military customers?

Decapite: Specifically with the 505, we’re seeing a lot of military organizations train with this platform including the Republic of Korea, Jordan, Jamaica Defense Force and many other countries’ militaries. We’re working with them to help develop or support refining a training program that is designed to support the establishment or enhancement of their aviation units. As the OEM, we’re able to help get them information and make changes to the aircraft that are necessary to support their particular operations. So, we have much more capability here at Bell that we can bring to the table to support those customers.

Currently we’ve got 36 instructors here in Fort Worth. Of those 36, 70 percent are military veterans. So, we’ve got a lot of military experience. They have experienced the type of training military pilots go through, which helps them with the training we execute.

To highlight some of the things we’ve done with the different military organizations, four years ago, the US Navy was having some challenges with the execution of autorotations, so we went out to Whiting Field in Florida and conducted training for them. We did a train the trainer course for their Helicopter Instructor Training Unit to impart some techniques.

Tell us about customized training solutions Bell has offered for customers. How does the Army’s Flight School Next Benefit from this?

Decapite: We get a lot of questions from our foreign military customers because they come here thinking they signed up for an initial or refresher course, and then when they get here, they realize that there’s a lot more that we can help them with.

After seeing this, they start asking for more tailored training. Since they may not know the airframe that well, we frequently get asked questions like who’s going to test the aircraft, what tools are required, and what needs to be in place when they get to their home country? These are the types of things that we can help them with in our maintenance test-pilot course.

We’ve seen that they ask for left-seat pilot in command courses. Primarily we instruct them while they’re in the right seat. We are able to tailor our training to enable them to get the frame of reference from right seat to left seat so that when they’re with their students, they’re comfortable with that.

After that, they’ll often ask us to come to their sites and help them establish their course, help build their syllabus, get them up and running with a Safety Management System (SMS). We’ll do whatever we can to tailor the training to meet the needs of our customers and help them establish or enhance a military training organization.

Matthew Dorram, capture lead, Flight School Next.

Dorram: For Flight School Next, Bell is actively designing a custom-tailored approach. We’re pulling all of our best practices from our previous experience with established training programs and tailoring things to what we think the US Army specifically needs – bringing modern technology and the things that Bell does well that Joe talked about. We’re going to apply that to a custom solution for the US Army.

Pilots have been training in helicopters for decades. How can it be done better?

Decapite: What we have noticed is as aircraft evolve and automation becomes more popular, it’s easy for pilots to not give their fundamental skills the attention that they should. When they start having emergency procedures where they lose some of the systems in the aircraft and that automation is not working for them anymore, they’re challenged in flying the aircraft.

That’s the beauty of the Bell 505. It’s a very basic aircraft; it’s a fantastic trainer. It’s very simple, and when I mean simple, there’s very few switches in the cockpit, the circuit breakers aren’t located in there, instead they are in the aft fuselage. It’s easily started and it handles well for basic piloting skills. Then, once it gets time to move into things like basic instruments or advanced instruments, and to reduce pilot workload, they have a Garmin autopilot system they can turn on so they can focus more on the instrumentation or conducting approaches in the helicopter.

The automation you mentioned contributes to students not having enough experience in autorotations, for example. Explain.

Decapite: One of the things we teach frequently is performing successful autorotations; we still conduct full-down autos. It’s very important for students who will be flying an aircraft that in the event they have an engine failure, they have the survival skills necessary to safely get that aircraft on the ground, protect them and any passengers they might have on board. Additionally, ensure each aviator has the confidence to recover an aircraft.

We do that through repeated autorotations in our practice area. What we’re trying to primarily teach them is energy management of the rotor system and give them the tools that they’re going to need in their toolkit so that in the unlikely event the engine does quit, they have all the options available to them to safely get that aircraft on the ground.

We’ve gone away from, and I know some people don’t like hearing this term, the cookie-cutter auto, where it was 100 percent 60 knots ball centered. Wherever that takes you, that’s where you’re going. We want them to use things like their main rotor RPM (Nr), which essentially is the energy in the rotor system. We want them to utilize that to hit a specific spot that they’re targeting because no one knows when and where this engine’s going to quit, and we want to be able to land in a small, confined area if they have to without the engine providing power for sustained flight.

The Bell 505 helicopter is used extensively around the world, including in training programs for the US Army. (Photo courtesy of Bell Textron)

Final thoughts?

Dorram: Bell enjoys a rich history of training. We trained the first US Army pilots back in 1946. We’ve been training military pilots in different ways at different times for a long time. We have the luxury of being able to use all of the experience that the staff at the training academy does every single day. That becomes a critical enabler that will allow us to be ready to train the next generations of US Army pilots.

The Army is leading on unmanned aviation. Who will follow?

The US Army just did something bold: It announced a cut of 6,500 active-duty aviation billets over the next two years, about one-fifth of its entire aviation branch. This isn’t trimming fat around the edges. It’s a deliberate move away from manned helicopters and toward unmanned systems, with talent panels now deciding which pilots and crew will remain in cockpits, and which will transition into new roles.

The easy reaction is to mourn the change. After all, generations of aviators have carried the Army on their shoulders in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the harder, truer assessment is this: The Army is adapting to the new reality. Inexpensive unmanned systems and air defenses in Ukraine and Colombia have swatted multi-million dollar helicopters out of the sky. To keep buying and manning yesterday’s aviation fleet is to prepare for the wrong war. By cutting 6,500 billets, the Army has forced itself to invest in the future and forced the rest of the Joint Force to confront its own reluctance to do the same.

By moving quickly, the Army is signaling that they know that war has changed. Drones, autonomy, loitering munitions, and swarms will define the future battlefield, and the Army is getting ready to dominate it.

This is a tectonic shift. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll is proving that he is both bold in thought and action, and should gain credit internally with Secretary Pete Hegseth for actually following his directions to the service. But the Army’s decision should also serve as a challenge to the other military branches to let go of the past and embrace the future.

There are several reasons the Army is right to make a large shift towards unmanned systems.

Start with survivability: Ukraine has shown that rotary-wing aircraft are fat targets for modern air defenses and more importantly, drones can kill helicopters cheaply. Then add in scale, realizing that for every Apache, the Army can field dozens of small or medium unmanned aircraft.

Cost and human capital is another factor: Helicopter pilots take years and millions of dollars to train. As Ukraine and others are showing, drone pilots can be grown virtually overnight, at a time when the sustainment bill for manned aviation is crushing.

If The Army Can, Why Not Everyone Else?

These are not problems unique to the Army. In fact, these same challenges are spread across the other three branches to operate manned aviation.

Look at the Air Force. It is sitting on a pilot shortage of roughly 2,000 aviators that it cannot close, even as it clings to legacy aircraft and insists on keeping manned fighters at the center of its force design. At the same time, the Air Force is trying to stand up Collaborative Combat Aircraft, an unmanned loyal wingman that is not intended to displace manned aviation.  

Instead of admitting it cannot generate enough pilots, the Air Force is treating the shortage like a passing flu. The Army’s decision to cut 6,500 billets shows the opposite mindset: Own the problem, adapt the force, and move on. If the Air Force redirected its resources into unmanned aviation, it could close capability gaps far faster than it can ever fix its pilot shortfall.

The Marine Corps loves to present itself as lean and agile. But in truth, its budget is dominated by aviation. Depending on the year, 25 to 30 percent of Marine Corps readiness funding goes towards keeping aircraft flying. The CH-53K helicopter costs over $100 million per unit. The MV-22 Osprey, which has suffered repeated safety issues, is projected by GAO to cost between $7.5 to $9 million per year each for sustainment ($1.5 billion per year for 200 of them). For a service that prides itself on infantry-first warfighting, the Marines have allowed aviation to become their heaviest millstone.

If the Army can cut one-fifth of its aviation branch, surely the Marines can take a scalpel to a budget where aviation already outweighs infantry modernization. Imagine redirecting $10B of the CH-53K into unmanned drones, cheap reconnaissance systems, and loitering strike platforms that could actually survive in the next war.

The Navy has it worst of all. Its identity is tied to the carrier air wing, with squadrons of manned fighters projected from multi-billion-dollar floating airfields. Yet as I have argued before, naval aviation in its current form is a dead man walking. Chinese hypersonic missiles and long-range precision strike have turned aircraft carriers into sitting ducks. Betting the fleet’s future on short-legged manned fighters is folly.

And still, the Navy has not made the kind of trade the Army just made. Unmanned carrier aviation exists — look at the MQ-25 Stingray tanker or prototypes of carrier-launched drones — but progress is glacial. Budgets for unmanned sea vessels are crumbs compared to the billions poured into the F-35C. The Army’s decision should embarrass Navy leadership: If the ground force can cut 6,500 aviation billets, surely the Navy can cut squadrons of aviators and redirect those funds to unmanned ships and its sailing force.

Risks Worth Managing

None of this is easy. The Army risks losing generations of flight expertise. Soldiers who joined to fly may feel betrayed. And drones are not a magic bullet, vulnerable as they are to jamming, cyberattack, and attrition.

But the Army is not eliminating manned aviation entirely. Instead, it is beginning to strip away the illusion that manned platforms will remain the backbone of military aviation in perpetuity.

The Army has thrown down the gauntlet. It has shown that painful cuts are possible, that legacy communities can be trimmed, and that human capital can be reassigned. The question now is whether the other services will follow.

The Army’s decision to cut 6,500 aviation billets, over 20 percent of its branch, is one of the most significant adaptations any service has made since Ukraine exposed the vulnerability of legacy airpower. Driscoll and Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George deserve praise for courage. Now it is up to the other service secretaries to prove they too can face reality.

Ret. Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. He previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.

Chinese fighters intercepted Japanese surveillance planes during carrier exercise: Official

NAHA, Japan — China’s unprecedented deployment of two aircraft carrier groups this summer provided Japanese surveillance aircraft with a wealth of information about the ships, a Japanese official told Breaking Defense, though the People’s Liberation Army — Navy (PLAN) made sure it wasn’t too easy to gather.

As Japanese Kawasaki P-3C Orions were monitoring the flotilla that included the carriers Liaoning and Shandong in June, the planes were intercepted by PLAN Shenyang J-15 carrierborne fighters several times, according to Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Capt. Naoto Tabata. Tabata told Breaking Defense that one time the jets came as close as 45 meters (147 feet) from the surveillance birds and on two occasions the planes crossed the nose of the less-manuervable planes.

Though Tabata didn’t say, the move was likely a bid by the PLAN pilot to “thump” — using its wake turbulence to cause a jolt to the intercepted aircraft — the Japanese aircraft.

Regardless of the PLAN’s intimidation, Tabata said the close monitoring of the Chinese exercise enabled Japan to build up a comprehensive picture of the PLAN carriers during their voyage, and enabled the country’s Ministry of Defense to publicize a detailed report of Liaoning’s and Shandong’s movements between May 25 and late June. Japanese surveillance recorded more than 1,000 aircraft launches and carrier landings.

RELATED: Chinese military ‘directed’ by Beijing to ‘be increasingly provocative,’ Navy official says

The data on the carriers’ movements released by Japan also indicated the Liaoning sailed into the 200 nautical mile (230 mile) EEZ of Minamitori-shima, a Japanese island in the Western Pacific 1,800 km (1,118 miles) southeast of Japan.

“The June deployment was significant as it was the first time China has operated both carriers together, and went beyond the First Island Chain,” Tabata noted.

Tabata spoke during Breaking Defense’s visit to the base of JMSDF’s Fleet Air Wing 5 at Naha on the island of Okinawa early this month. Fleet Air Wing 5 is the southernmost of four operational maritime patrol squadrons of the JMSDF’s aviation arm based along the length of Japan.

“Our mission is the surveillance and information gathering on ships sailing near Okinawa, including the East China Sea. Furthermore, the 5th Air Wing operates aircraft flexibly as needed, maintaining a readiness to respond immediately to various contingencies,” said Tabata.

The recent buildup of China’s nascent carrier force has also meant that JMSDF ships and aircraft have spent more time monitoring the movement and operations of voyages by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) aircraft carriers.

OP ED: China’s carriers cruised past the Second Island Chain. What now?

Tabata declined to reveal how many hours the P-3Cs of the unit flew over the last year, although he said they spent at least eight hours on patrol a day, 365 days a year.

According to Tabata, the unit’s aircraft work also closely with the ships and aircraft of the JMSDF and other government agencies such as the Japanese Coast Guard during its routine patrols over waters that have in recent years become a hotbed of Chinese military and coast guard activity, particularly in the waters around the Senkaku islands that are also being claimed by China.

It has also meant that the JMSDF has allocated more assets to patrol the East China Sea, with a map of the patrol areas allocated to the JMSDF’s maritime patrol aircraft shown during a briefing for media showing significant overlap between the East China Sea patrol areas assigned to Fleet Air Wing 5’s P-3Cs and the Kawasaki P-1s of the JMSDF’s Fleet Air Wing 1 based at Kanoya in southern mainland Japan.

The JMSDF is in the process of replacing its turboprop-engined P-3Cs with the jet-powered P-1. It currently has 35 P-1s and 27 P-3Cs in service, according to figures provided to Breaking Defense by the Wing’s public affairs section.

No firm timeline has been set for Naha to receive its first P-1s however, with a training unit currently in the process of converting and Fleet Air Wing 2 at Hachinohe in northern Japan due to receive its P-1s before Naha will start its own transition to the new type, with Japan’s latest Defense White Paper flagging the acquisition of 19 more P-1s in the coming years.

With a European next-gen fighter program in doubt, what would an FCAS collapse look like?

BELFAST — This month key stakeholders in one of Europe’s most highly publicized and troubled defense projects, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), were expected to sit at a table and hash out their issues. But now such a meeting between German, French and Spanish officials has been put on hold, the latest stumbling block in a development path riddled with obstacles.

“The date of the trilateral meeting has been postponed,” a spokesperson from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence told Breaking Defense in a statement today. “The Federal Government continues to strive for the successful implementation of the project. We are in close contact with our French and Spanish partners to determine a new date for this meeting.”

The spokesperson declined to share the reason behind the postponement, but it comes amid political upheaval in Paris as French President Emmanuel Macron prepares to select a . The French Armed Forces ministry and Spain’s Ministry of Defense have not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

The delay comes amid troubles and recent eyebrow-raising comments from industry officials that have prompted fresh worry about whether the project will survive at all and, if it should collapse, what would happen to its participants.

According to three close observers of the program, FCAS is not quite dead, and may yet survive to fruition. But should it fail, the blow could strike Berlin much harder than Paris, as the French may have the capacity to push on to their own sixth-generation fighter program alone. As for Spain, there’s an open question.

“I think they [France] probably can” produce a future fighter jet alone, but “it will be expensive,” Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for military aerospace at the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank, told Breaking Defense.

As it is, the trilateral program is designed to deliver a replacement for Eurofighter Typhoon and Rafale fighter jets ready for entry to service in 2040. But the effort has routinely faced difficulty as far back as 2021 because of an uncomfortable partnership between Airbus and Dassault, with the latest power struggle between the two sides centering around the French manufacturer’s demand for greater control of the New Generation Fighter (NGF), the actual aircraft at the center of the FCAS family of systems.

An FCAS development timeline, shared by Airbus in 2022. (Airbus)

French-based Dassault CEO Eric Trappier has insisted that unless the company is made a “clear leader” for the program, FCAS will be condemned to failure, per Flight Global.

In June, an Airbus executive attempted to describe the problem from his firm’s point of view.

“Clearly, we have observed with this [1B] phase, difficulties in the execution and facing the problem there are different ways to look at it, different types of problem statements,” Jean-Brice Dumont, head of air power at Airbus Defence and Space, told reporters during a company media briefing at the Paris Air Show. At that time he also said that “connectivity, interoperability is a point of today” holding the program back.

Though the leadership dispute between Dassault and Airbus has been an open sore for months, the need to agree to a resolution is heightened by the risk of delay to FCAS Phase 2 — planned to go ahead next year, but with a contract still to be negotiated. The milestone is critical for industry to develop technology demonstrators covering the NGF, its engine, remote carriers, a “combat cloud” and sensors.

The End Is Nigh-ish, And France’s Options

Barrie said that he would be “hesitant” to write off FCAS “completely,” based on past European fighter programs having survived similar problems. But he added, there is a “risk” that with the current jockeying for position both politically and industrially, when one party “inadvertently” causes another to “throw toys out of the pram,” or walk away in frustration.

He added that political “optics” at the moment, are “lukewarm” in terms of enthusiasm for FCAS from both Germany and France — a scenario that can be interpreted in two ways: Berlin or Paris is attempting to bluff the other, or clear signaling that the program is in “serious trouble.”

Barrie explained, “Which of the two it is, I think we’ll only find out either when the program moves ahead or one of the countries walks away from it.”

A comment from Trappier in September has only added to the sense that a national partner could walk away. Asked whether France could build a next-gen fighter alone, he said simply, “The answer is yes.”

Francis Tusa, a UK defense analyst, noted that Dassault’s planned Rafale F5 upgrade and a notional F6 standard, would set a “pathway” for the aircraft to stay in service until 2060 if necessary. Additionally, he stressed that French engine manufacturer Safran’s deal to codevelop India’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) gives credibility to Paris’ capacity to move ahead with a future fighter program alone.

This photograph shows a patrol of Rafale jet fighters seen from the ramp of an A400M aircraft during a rehearsal for the annual Bastille Day military parade on July 14, near the Orleans-Bricy air base some 20 Km (13 miles) from Orleans, central France, on July 3, 2024. (Photo by GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP/GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images)

France “may well go solo because of the way that they work hand and glove” with local industry, typically not with other national partners, said Gary Waterfall, a former UK Royal Air Force air vice-marshal.

France could fund a future fighter on its own, the analysts said, in part by securing orders from export nations, especially potential customers in the Middle East.

Barrie pointed to the UAE, which has purchased 80 Rafale jets from France. “I’ve always kind of wondered … whether or not there’s a codicil in that agreement that said, ‘If you were minded to look at a combat aircraft program beyond Rafale, we might have a way to kind of put you in our sphere, on what we do next.’”

Similarly, Waterfall noted, “I think what they’ll [France] be looking for is to have a proliferation of Middle Eastern countries that they can bring along with them and have exports as a way to pay for the development and R&D of it.”

Berlin’s Barriers

Simply put, Germany’s options appear less favorable than those of France, according to the analysts.

Tusa pointed out, for instance, that local firm MTU Aero Engines lacks the experience of single-handedly developing a fighter jet powerplant. MTU is part of the Eurojet Turbo GmbH consortium that manufactures the EJ200 engine, equipped on the Eurofighter Typhoon. According to company literature it is also “developing, producing, and providing support” for the FCAS New Generation Fighter Engine (NGFE), in partnership with Safran and Spain’s ITP Aero.

“One has to understand, MTU has not been an engine prime, not even on commercial [aerospace programs] … for 40 to 50 years,” said Tusa. “To go from [making smaller component parts] to … complete a 90-100 kilonewton” thrust capable fighter jet engine, would be a hugely difficult task.

He also noted that if Berlin were to jump ship, it likely wouldn’t find dry land at the rival Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) project currently underway by Italy, Japan and the UK. It appeared clear just last month that GCAP players are at this late stage.

GCAP aims to replace UK Royal Air Force and Italian Air Force Eurofighters, as well as Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2 combat jets and is wedded to a 2035 entry to service date. Barrie said that because of “where GCAP partners are in terms of the program at the moment, what they don’t want to do is to start to have to renegotiate stuff, introducing somebody else at this point and then slow the program down.”

A Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) core vehicle concept on display at DSEI, London (Breaking Defense)

One alternative path that Germany could consider if FCAS fails and GCAP membership is closed off would be to buy GCAP future fighter jets off the shelf once early editions become available. If it “buys enough” GCAP aircraft down the line, local production could then be approved, claimed Tusa.

As a fallback option, Barrie floated the idea of Germany potentially gaining GCAP observer status, with the result that it could let Berlin put its “house in order.”

In this context, Germany would not be a full member of the program and would be unable to make any decisions, but instead benefit from cooperation with other partners. Although GCAP has not used the mechanism to date, Belgium was welcomed by FCAS as an observer nation in 2024 and continues to await full membership.

El futuro del FCAS en Espana

While the media gaze concerning FCAS has more often than not been directed at France and Germany, Spain will also be faced with tough decisions if the program collapses.

Madrid in August said it was not going to buy American-made F-35 fighter jets and would instead focus on the acquisition of Eurofighter Typhoons or FCAS fighters.

In September, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez signaled solidarity with Germany in relation to the FCAS industry workshare dispute between Airbus and Dassault, stressing that “conditions that had been agreed in advance” should be upheld, according to Belgian-based Euractiv.

Like Germany, it’s probably too late for Spain to try to jump to GCAP, Tusa said. Though he pointed to recent press reports suggesting Spain may consider buying Turkey’s KAAN next-generation fighter currently in development.

On what happens next for FCAS as a whole, should Paris, Berlin and Madrid, eventually sit down for talks, “I think that there will be resolution of some sort,” said Barrie.

US Army eyeing new sensors and shooters for Eastern Flank Deterrence Line

WASHINGTON — As European nations grapple with mounting incursions of Russian drones in the skies above, US Army forces there are ramping up plans to test new air defense tech and move ahead with the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line concept, according to an official. 

“We want to increase our ability to counter mass drone attacks. So how do we do that across an extensive line, really the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line?” 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command Chief Warrant Officer Brett Bernier told Breaking Defense Thursday.

“[But] countering mass one-way attack drones is only one part of an air defense challenge, we still have ballistic missiles and cruise missiles,” he later added. 

The evolving Eastern Flank Deterrence Line (EFDL) concept is a NATO strategy for enhancing deterrence by creating a unified, data-driven defense infrastructure. Bernier, who is focusing on new tech and ways of knitting that together, said that while there are Patriot, Sergeant Stout, and Avenger battalions available to defend the skies, much more is needed on both the sensor and shooter fronts. And they need to be “attritable, maneuverable and automated.”  

Today, the architecture is in “various stages” depending on the weapons system, he explained. Link 16, for example, is available to share data with NATO countries but proves “cumbersome” for maneuver forces that are outfitted with smaller weapon systems and across large swaths of land. 

“How do we have these smaller sensors, more attritable, produced at scale when we’re talking in the 1000s?” Bernier said. “If you’re looking at passive sensors or acoustic sensors … how do we integrate that at speed to be usable within the NATO-supported EFDL construct?”

When it comes to “effectors,” or weapons to be used to down incoming aerial threats, Bernier said the service needs cheaper options that may also be unmanned. One such item is a common launcher.

“If I had a launcher that I can place various munitions for long range, surface-to-surface fires, air defense fires, that provides me more flexibility as a warfighter,” Bernier said. “From a cost-effective standpoint, for the Army buying a piece of equipment, I now have a singular platform that provides me flexibility for the munition I put on.”

While such a launcher doesn’t currently exist in the Army’s inventory, the service is eyeing development of a Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher (CAML) in two sizes — a medium and heavy. CAML-M could potentially launch a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Family of Munitions, or the new Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) launcher with AIM-9X interceptors. For the larger CAML-H, a vehicle could foreseeably launch Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles or the Patriot Advanced Capabilities Three (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors.

While fielding such launchers is still years away, Bernier is eyeing a plan to try out developmental tech later this fall that may fit into the service’s EFDL concept as part of the Project Flytrap series.

Soldiers with V Corps in Europe have used Project Flytrap this year to test out an array of new counter-unmanned aerial systems. But for the next iteration, dubbed Flytrap 4.5, the service is expanding that lens to try out all tech that might fit inside the EFDL umbrella to include both sensors and shooters, Bernier explained.

More than 200 vendors, he added, applied to participate and that list has been whittled down to about 15 capabilities that are in various phases of development. Those selected will now head to Germany, to participate in Flytrap 4.5 from Nov. 10-21.

How to host a defense conference during a shutdown: AUSA 2025 preview

The annual Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference in Washington is the largest defense conference in the US — and there’s lots to talk about this year, as the Army is going through a major reorganization effort. But there is uncertainty about what the show will look like, as the government shutdown appears likely to impact attendance.

Luckily, Aaron Mehta and Carley Welch of Breaking Defense are here to help guide you about what to expect.

Make sure to check back everyday next week for wrap-up videos, photo posts and, of course, the best coverage of the AUSA 2025 conference around!

Senate passes $914B defense policy bill after resolving gridlock on amendments

WASHINGTON — The Senate finally passed its $913.9 billion version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill today, after lawmakers overcame a logjam on amendments that led to the legislation languishing on the floor for more than a month.

Senators voted 77-20 to approve the National Defense Authorization Act, moving the bill forward on a largely bipartisan basis.

Passage of the bill allows the House and Senate armed services committees to kick off the conference process, where lawmakers will hammer out a compromise between each chambers’ respective versions. The House passed its version of the NDAA last month.

Earlier this morning, SASC Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., announced that Republican and Democrat leaders had agreed to debate 17 amendments on the floor, with offerings split between the two parties, and urged the Senate to vote on the NDAA today.

“We simply cannot delay this process any longer,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Let me make it clear, if we do not bring this to the floor today, this matter will not have time for deliberation on the Senate floor, and we’ll have to basically pretend that we’re having a conference between House and Senate members, and a very small group of senators will have to write this bill and bring it to the floor for final passage. That’s not the way this ought to be done.”

During a so-called “vote-a-rama” on NDAA amendments this evening, Senate Republicans toppled an amendment that would have prohibited FY26 funds from being used to modify aircraft from a foreign government — a measure meant to prevent a Boeing 747 donated by Qatar from being converted into a new Air Force One aircraft.

“Retrofitting this foreign-owned luxury jet to make it fully operational will cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. That’s money that shouldn’t be wasted,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the amendment’s sponsor. 

Sen. Deb Fischer, who leads SASC’s strategic forces subcommittee, alleged that the scope of the amendment could impact the Air Force’s Survivable Airborne Operations Center program, which is using two Boeing 747s previously owned by Korean Air. 

Republicans also torpedoed several Democrat-led amendments seeking to limit National Guard deployments made without the permission of a state’s governor and to put additional guardrails on how the military works with law enforcement.

One spot of bipartisanship was the passage of an amendment — offered by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. —that gives additional authorities to the Defense Department to contend with drone threats over military installations.

“Hundreds of drones have been spotted in the vicinity of military installations over the past few years, including military-sensitive sites like Langley Air Force Base,” Gillibrand said. “But current laws give the Department of Defense quite limited authority to mitigate these threats, and the patchwork of interagency coordination required to address them leaves gaps that endanger our military bases and the men and women who serve there.”

Cotton added that the language would “close the gap in law [and] simplify military guidance” on the topic.

Senators also agreed to an amendment to extend an existing prohibition on B-1 bomber retirements until the end of FY30, which Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said would prevent a gap between the B-1’s sunset and the deployment of the B-21 Raider.

As the legislation now heads to conference, on the top of the agenda for HASC and SASC leadership in conference will be laying out final language on acquisition reform, the legislative priority for both committees this year.

Members of the conference will also have to address the difference in toplines between the two bills, as the Senate’s NDAA adds $32 billion more than the Pentagon’s budget request and the House version. While the NDAA does not obligate funding, its ultimate dollar figure could influence a forthcoming spending debate on whether to accept the higher defense topline backed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which added $22 billion on top of the department’s request.

GDLS to roll out drone-killer robot, tank-launched switchblades, more at AUSA

WASHINGTON — General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) is planning to unveil three new capabilities related to counter-UAS capabilities, loitering munitions and lower signature command posts at next week’s annual AUSA conference.

While not to fulfill a specific Army requirement, the product launches come as the company makes adaptations to further align with the sprawling Army Transformation Initiative, company executives told Breaking Defense.

“The capabilities that we’ll show at AUSA are complementary to the ATI efforts and have potential landing spots in Transformation in Contact units,” Geoff Norman, director of US strategy and growth, told Breaking Defense in a statement. “We’re locked in step with the Army, we’re fired up about the future, and I think what you’re going to see at AUSA really supports where the Army is headed.”

The Drone-killing TRX Leonidas

In an effort to bolster its counter-UAS portfolio, GDLS partnered with Epirus for the TRX Leonidas. The solution takes Epirus’ Leonidas high-power microwave (HPM) platform and mounts it on GDLS’ Tracked Robot 10-ton (TRX) unmanned ground vehicle, creating a platform designed to shoot down drone swarms, Scott Taylor, director of US business development at GDLS, told Breaking Defense. 

Taylor said the platform hasn’t been tested yet, but during a demonstration at Camp Atterbury in late August, Epirus’ HPM capability successfully shot down dozens of drones in front of the US Army and other “foreign allies,” while mounted on a trailer.

“They were able to do six different vignettes that involved this high powered microwave on a trailer, in that case, that knocked down a 49-drone swarm in a single pulse,” Taylor said. 

He added that the development of the TRX Leonidas isn’t part of a particular Army requirement and is being developed by both of the companies’ internal funds as the Army looks for an HPM solution that is smaller in size.

“Epirus’ partnership with General Dynamics Land Systems is an industry-leading collaboration that continues to deliver real results. Together, we are bringing world-first capabilities to market that directly answer the call of the Army Transformation Initiative,” Epirus CEO Andy Lowery said in a company statement. “The marriage of neo-primes and primes is how the U.S. defense industrial base can best ensure victory as the battlefield continues to rapidly evolve.”

Further, Taylor explained that GDLS’s TRX solution was actually developed for the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) competition. The competition has been scrapped twice, but will be revamped to , Breaking Defense previously reported. As GDLS works on creating an updated, cheaper solution to fit the new RCV competition, the company is using its TRX model to fill other capability gaps within the Army, Taylor said. 

“The senior Army leadership has said that it doesn’t work to keep it on a trailer in the long term solution, and they want to see what can be developed in robotic form factor. What you’re seeing is a pairing of that with an existing robot that we have,” he said. 

Switchblade Meets The M1A2 Abrams

The next capability GDLS will showcase is its Precision Effects & Reconnaissance, Canister-Housed (PERCH) technology that was created in partnership with AeroVironment. It is a modular kit that takes GDLS’ SEPv3 version of its M1A2 Abrams tank and mounts AeroVironment’s SB300 and SB600 switchblade munitions on top, Mark Hu, manager of US business development at GDLS, told Breaking Defense. It’s specifically designed for the company level or below.

PERCH, like TRX Leonidas, is not part of an existing Army requirement, but it’s something that the companies “are just very much aware of the need for,” Hu said. The companies showcased the capability earlier this month, with an Army leader present, which led to them being invited to showcase it at a demonstration at Fort Hood for the Machine Assisted Rugged Soldier autonomous breach exercise later this month. 

“It offers extended range, really, beyond line of sight capability for both reconnaissance and lethality, by allowing us to fire these switchblade munitions … from a tank,” Hu said. “If [the Army] decides to go with this, they would determine what level that they want to employ these at, but we envision it potentially for one or two platoons, and that gives the capability down at a much lower level. So that the unit, company or below, doesn’t have to rely necessarily on getting resources from [the] battalion or from the brigade [level] to get that kind of far reaching reconnaissance.” 

“Really what it does allow is an armored unit to take loitering munitions and get them far forward on the battlefield, yet they can remain in a covering, concealed position to fire those,” he added. 

The companies developed the PERCH rapidly, Hu said, as it took them seven months to take it from a concept to a prototype. 

AeroVironment did not respond to a request for comment regarding its partnership with GDLS for the PERCH solution. 

NEXUS For Next-Gen C2

Lastly, the company will be showcasing its Next-Generation Command and Control (NGC2)-ready Expeditionary X-domain Undetectable Stryker (NEXUS) vehicle. The NEXUS is an update to GDLS’ version of its Stryker Mission Command on the Move (MCOTO) vehicle that it revealed at last year’s AUSA. The vehicle was developed to provide a more mobile solution for command posts while also creating a solution that emits a lower electromagnetic signature, so soldiers are undetectable to the adversary.  

The former solution took GDLS’ Stryker A1 and modified it by adding a higher roof and transforming it into a hybrid-electric vehicle, among other modifications. However, the Army expressed concerns that the former model was too costly, so the company rebranded it into the NEXUS, Taylor said. To save costs, the new model does not have the hybrid-electric capabilities, although it does have some “improvements” to its battery technology that give the vehicle a longer battery life, Taylor added. 

“It uses core technology in the [Stryker] A1 without a lot of change up,” Taylor said. “It reduces the signature and thermal acoustic, but still maintains the best advantages seen previously in last year.” 

The NEXUS also is not part of an existing Army requirement, but the company will be testing the vehicle at the next Project Convergence exercise — an event where several vendors show off their contributions to NGC2 —  Taylor said. 

Australian Space Command considers ‘space control’ options: Senior officer

WASHINGTON — With the Australian Department of Defence working on an update to its 2024 National Defence Strategy, the country’s Space Command is considering its options for gaining “space control” capabilities, according to a senior military official.

“With space control, [we’re] looking at … how do we as Australia best contribute not only to the defense of Australia and our immediate region, but then also [to] a credible capability, cooperatively within a partnership?” Army Brig. Gen. Christopher Gardiner, space and cyber attaché at the Australian Embassy here in Washington, said on Wednesday.

“[T]hinking from my perspective, anyway, you might have terrestrial-based effectors. You’ll have sensors and other pieces that enable the contribution through that space mission area,” he told the US Air and Space Force Association in an online interview.

Space control is one of four key focus areas for Australian Space Command, Gardiner explained, along with space domain awareness, satellite communications (SATCOM), and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). The Defence Department last November made a commitment to invest $9 to $12 billion Australian ($5.9 to $7.9 billion) over the next decade to military space programs, he noted.

Further, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) last year put together Concept SELENE, a framework for space operations, Gardiner said.

“Concept SELENE is our space concept that sits within a broader concept framework. So, each domain has a concept that describes … how we’re trying to get after it: Use the domain, build resiliency,” he said.

“[W]ithin that, it actually recognizes that we don’t have enough resources to build that resilient architecture in a sovereign sense, we need to partner and we need to cooperate to generate the resiliency effect,” Gardiner elaborated.

Thus, he said, Australian Space Command is taking a page from the US Space Force’s approach to acquisition by first focusing on what commercial activities it can leverage, then looking to partners for capabilities it can share, and only lastly building its own space systems.

While Concept SELENE is not publicly available on the Defence Department website, the Royal Australian Army’s online journal for professional development, The Cove, has written a number of articles about its roles for the Royal Australian Corps of Signals.

A July 8 article, “Cert Cito Ex Astris: Workforce,” quoted the Concept SELENE’s core tenant as follows:

“The ADF will seek space advantage to enable freedom of action by temporally assuring access and disrupting or denying an adversary use of the space domain, as required.”

A Sept. 7 article, “Signalling the Future: Royal Australian Corps of Signals and the Next Century of Australian Space Power,” elaborated:

“Space control operations are becoming increasingly important to protect Australia’s freedom of action in space. This includes both defensive and offensive counterspace measures such as jamming, spoofing, or cyber disruption of adversary space assets (Swope et al., 2024, pp. 3-5). Signals personnel should therefore contribute to space order of battle development, signal propagation analysis, and cross-domain targeting effects planning. These roles are envisioned in the ADF’s Concept SELENE (Australian Defence Force, 2024) as necessary contributions to theatre operations and allied interoperability.”

While the effort to further flesh out ADF’s space control mission is a work in progress, Gardiner cited tangible progress on the other three space focus areas.

“Within space domain awareness, the achievement of the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability is excellent. When we start looking at how do we do ISR, there are other programs that are achieving exactly the need that that is required,” he said.

While Gardiner didn’t elaborate, back in 2022 Australia’s then-Defence Minister Peter Dutton said that the Defence Department had “committed to a broad range of cooperative satellite activities” with the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns and operates US ISR satellites.

Further, Gardiner said that with regard to SATCOM, “there’s a program that is invested with money.”

The Australian government took heat from its domestic space and defense industrial base in November 2024 when it canceled the ADF’s biggest ever space program, called JP 9102 — a $5.3 billion effort to build an encrypted military SATCOM constellation of three to five birds under a contract with Lockheed Martin. The constellation was to provide communications over the Indo-Pacific region.

However, in July, the ADF published a request for information (RFI) from industry regarding what appears, according to multiple press reports, to be a downsized replacement program, called SPA9102.

According to a July 8 article in Asian Military Review, the RFI states: “Defence has a need for a UHF-band payload in a GEO orbital slot within the field-of-view of Australia.” It also opens the door to solutions beyond a bespoke-built SATCOM network, asking industry about capabilities such as “hosted payload on a multipurpose platform, a network of small/nano satellites, or leveraging allied constellations with sovereign enhancements,” the article adds.

Gardiner said that the work on fleshing out future space capabilities is being done in tandem with the larger ongoing review of the April 2024 National Defence Strategy.

“Right now we’re in the middle of a National Defence Strategy review. So, in ’24 we had the current release, and we’ll receive our next in ’26,” he said. [I]t’s a robust process, so it goes through all of the implications and then, aligned with the Integrated Investment Program, tells us how we’re getting after that.”