“I’m sorry for everybody out there who champion some other high priority, some technical thing; it’s not that I disagree with those. But there has to be a first, and hypersonics is my first,” Griffin said at the McAleese/Credit Suisse conference Tuesday, in his first public comments since taking office 10 days ago.

The department will be looking to invest more in both offensive hypersonics capabilities and ways to defend against the threat, with new budget items likely to appear in the fiscal 2020 budget, Griffin said, adding that the goal is to leapfrog the work that China and Russia are doing in the hypersonic realm.

“I didn’t take this job so that we could regain parity with our adversaries. As I’ve taken to saying: ‘I want to see their hand and raise them one. I want to make them worry about catching up with us again,’ ” he said. “Any American, any ally or partner that we have who doesn’t see it that way, I don’t have time for you.”

The necessity, in Griffin’s mind, comes from the way hypersonic weapons can put at risk America’s ability to project power.

“When the Chinese can deploy [a] tactical or regional hypersonic system, they hold at risk our carrier battle groups. They hold our entire surface fleet at risk. They hold at risk our forward-deployed forces and land-based forces,” Griffin said.

“Without our ability to defend and without at least an equal response capability on the offensive side, then what we have done is we have allowed a situation to exist where our deployed forces are held at risk and we cannot do the same for them,” he continued. “And so our only response is either to let them have their way or to go nuclear. And that should be an unacceptable situation for the United States.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency budget for hypersonic weapons has increased steadily over the last two years, but more funding would inevitably be welcomed by supporters of the technology.

In FY17, Congress appropriated $85.5 million for hypersonics. That went up to $108.6 million in the FY18 request, a 27 percent increase.

And for the recently released FY19 request, the figure shoots up to $256.7 million — a whopping 136 percent increase, but still a fairly low figure by Pentagon standards.

In terms of hypersonic development, Griffin will have allies inside the Pentagon.

Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, said the pace at which Russia and China are “researching, developing, testing, delivering weapons systems” requires his agency to take the hypersonic threat seriously.

And Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also expressed concern over where the U.S. is on hypersonic technology development, although he noted that gap is not yet fatal.

“We have lost our technical advantage in hypersonics,” Selva said Jan. 30. “We haven’t lost the hypersonics fight.”

Specifically, Pentagon leaders are increasingly worried about hypersonic threats.

“The key challenge to U.S. national security and the security of U.S. friends and allies is the emergence of new threats designed to defeat the existing BMDS,” said Gary Pennett, the agency’s director of operations. “The potential fielding of hypersonic weapons capable of launching from any location would create significant sensor and interceptor capability gaps. This evolving threat demands a globally present and persistent space sensor network to track it from birth to death.”

To respond to this demand MDA is requesting $120 million in fiscal 2019 for hypersonic missile defense. While this is a small segment of MDA’s $9.9 billion budget, it is a significant increase in the agency’s funding for this area. For fiscal 2018, Congress authorized $75.3 million for MDA to initiate the development of a capability to counter hypersonic boost-glide vehicles and conventional prompt strike assets, as required by the FY17 National Defense Authorization Act Sec. 1687.

“MDA will execute a rigorous systems engineering process, identify and mature full kill chain technology, provide analysis and assessment of target of opportunity events, and execute near term sensor and command and control capability upgrades to address defense from hypersonic threats,” the agency’s budget book reads. “This effort will execute the Defense Science Board’s recommendations to develop and deliver a set of material solutions to address and defeat hypersonic threats informed by a set of near-term technology demonstrations.”

The budget request calls for spending $157 million in fiscal 2020, $142 million in 2021, $117 million in 2022 and $119 million in 2023. In all, the agency asks for $732 million through 2023.

To date only the United States and China are known to have tested hypersonic weapons, which are defined as weapons that travel at least five times the speed of sound. China’s DF-ZF, or WU-14, is believed to have been tested at least seven times since Jan. 2014.

However, it is difficult to determine if these tests were successful. According to testimony from James Acton, senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, even if the United States was able to track the launch of a hypersonic vehicle with infra-red sensors and early warning launch satellites, there may not be enough information to confidently determine if the test was a success or failure.

“[I]magine that China, unbeknownst to the United States, sought to land a glider within, say, 50 m of a target. If it actually missed by 10 km… China might consider such a test to be a failure or least only a partial success. However, the United States… might incorrectly conclude the test was successful because the glider had flown over the entire planned range,” Acton testified. Without knowing the specific goals of each test, it is extremely difficult to confidently label a test a success or failure.

If MDA, as Pennett suggests, works to field a persistent, layered space sensor network, tracking such tests in the future may become easier, and provide more insight into the Chinese hypersonics program.

Boeing’s experimental hypersonic weapon, the X-51 Waverider, has performed at least four test flights since May 2010. The Waverider set the record for longest hypersonic flight on May 1, 2013, flying for three and a half minutes at its top speed of Mach 5.1.

The THAAD deal was a core part of the $110 billion weapons sale offering presented by U.S. President Donald Trump during a May 20 visit to Saudi Arabia. The announcement Friday is a notification from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) and does not mean the deal is completed yet.

In June, Defense News was the first to reveal that the U.S. offer to Saudi Arabia included $13.5 billion for seven THAAD batteries, with an estimated delivery time of 2023-2026. Six launchers, with eight interceptors per launcher, generally make up a battery.

The package that cleared Friday would include 44 THAAD launchers, 360 interceptors, 16 THAAD Fire Control and Communications Mobile Tactical Station Groups and seven AN/TPY-2 THAAD radars, along with associated support equipment and training.

There is no timetable listed in the DSCA notification. Prime contractors for the system are Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company and Raytheon. The projected cost would be $15 billion, although the exact dollar figure and equipment totals can shift during negotiations.

As with all DSCA announcements, Congress now has a chance to review and block any foreign military sale. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said in June that he would look to block any weapon sales to Gulf Cooperation Council members over their row with Qatar.

However, Corker has since clarified that applies only to sales announced after June of this year, which means the Saudi package, having been announced May 20, would appear exempt. It is possible other members may raise objections.

Notably, the announcement comes just one day after Saudi Arabia announced it was buying the Russian-made S-400 air defense system in a move pundits believe could reflect Riyadh hedging its bets on its relationship with the U.S.

The grant is part of a two-year cooperative research agreement between Raytheon and the Army Research Laboratory’s Advanced RF Technologies Program. Both parties will work on Scalable, Agile, Multimode, Front End Technology (SAMFET) for the Next Generation Radar.

The Next Generation Radar “will enhance radar-reliant air defense and counter-rocket and -mortar system performance, particularly in portable configurations such as hand-held, vehicle-mounted and airborne deployments,” a Raytheon news release said. “Raytheon will work with ARL to explore new approaches for the design and fabrication of modular components that will fit into NGR’s open architecture, offering processing flexibility, agility and efficiency across radar bands.”

The GAO, as ordered by Congress, evaluated Defense Department reports on how it is improving its Ballistic Missile Defense System, designed to defend the homeland against possible threats from North Korea and Iran.

Though the Pentagon’s reports “described the benefits of MDA’s ongoing efforts to improve homeland missile defense,” the GAO found, “MDA faces risks and challenges pursuing these efforts.”

GAO states, for example, MDA has demonstrated “some” capability to defend against ballistic missile threats, “but several other key aspects necessary to prove it can defend the US homeland against the current ballistic missile threat have not been demonstrated.”

Some of the capabilities that still need to be demonstrated are intercepting a target representative of an intercontinental ballistic missile and performing a salvo intercept where two or more interceptors are used against a single target, the GAO report notes.

Vice Adm. James Syring, MDA’s director, told reporters last week the next intercept test for the the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system’s interceptors would be in November 2016 against an ICBM representative threat.

MDA’s key improvement plans include beefing up the amount of Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) within the GMD system from 30 to 44.

By the end of fiscal 2017 all 44 GBIs will be in place at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The agency is also investing in a Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) for the GMD system that will increase the performance of the current Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, which has struggled in testing. The EKV is a component of the GMD system interceptors designed to destroy targets in high-speed collisions after separating from the booster rocket. The RKV is expected to deploy in the 2020 time frame.

Beyond the RKV, the agency is in the early stages of developing a Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) that would enable the GBI’s to engage numerous and complex threats earlier in the flight trajectory.

GAO concluded that MDA is “relying on high-risk acquisition practices to achieve its goal of fielding 44 interceptors by the end of 2017,” adding the agency’s fielding goal is “highly optimistic” and is guided by an “aggressive schedule.”

MDA runs the risk of “undue concurrency” meaning it is starting production of its newest interceptors before conducting flight tests to demonstrate the interceptor works as designed, the GAO notes, adding the agency should delay production until after successful flight tests.

GAO recounts a six-and-a-half-year delay in the GMD program previously that came with a cost increase of $1.75 billion because MDA produced the current fleet of interceptors prior to key test events and test failures “exacerbated disruptions to the program.”

The MDA also had to design new alternate divert thrusters (ADTs) for the kill vehicle and while that may help the agency meet its fielding goals, GAO said the move “increases the risk for reliability issues going undetected before being delivered to the warfighter.”

The alternate divert thrusters were tested successfully in January. But “MDA does not intend to ‘hot-fire’ each thruster before integration — a test that verifies proper performance and workmanship,” GAO writes, and “as a result, the first time the ADT will be fired is in flight.”

GAO also predicts MDA will hit snags in its GMD flight test plan and will thus be “reducing the level of knowledge obtained prior to completing fielding.”

MDA plans to conduct three GMD flight tests from fiscal year 2016 through fiscal 2017.

Departing from its high-risk strategy with the first GBI interceptors, the MDA’s RKV production decisions are aligned with flight tests, which GAO credits as a “positive indication of MDA’s intent to improve its acquisition outcomes.”

But GAO is still concerned over possible challenges with the RKV’s contract strategy, industry collaboration efforts and schedule.

MDA is using a development and sustainment contract rather than conducting a competition for development of the RKV in order to deliver it sooner. Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are all a part of an industry team developing the new kill vehicle.

“MDA may experience challenges managing the inter-relationships and fostering an environment that is collaborative amongst contractors who may later compete for the RKV full rate production contract if sufficient safeguards and protocols are not put in place,” GAO writes.

The agency also wants to field RKV by 2020, which GAO deems “aggressive” considering it plans to use “less mature technologies that have only been validated in a laboratory or simulated environment.”

Additionally, the agency plans to use commercial off-the-shelf components not designed to withstand the harsh environment which kill vehicles operate and may have to work on hardening those components, GAO notes.

Email: jjudson@defensenews.com

Twitter: @JenJudson

Under an internal development project to enhance the Patriot system, Raytheon upgraded its main radar array with gallium nitride (GaN)- based, active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology, according to a company news release.

Raytheon reported completing several recent milestones, including finishing construction of the AESA main array structure, radar shelter, integrating receivers and a radar digital processor into the radar shelter, and testing the radar’s cooling sub-system.

The GaN-based AESA radar uses three antenna arrays mounted on a mobile radar shelter to provide 360-degree coverage. The main AESA array is a bolt-on replacement for the current Patriot antenna. The GaN-based AESA array measures roughly 9 feet wide by 13 feet tall. The new rear panel arrays are a quarter the size of the main array, and let the system look behind and to the sides of the main array to offer Patriot the ability to engage threats in all directions.

Raytheon is now building a GaN-based AESA, full-size, main panel radar array. Raytheon is “on track to have a full-scale main array prototype operational in early 2016—just 24 months after the company started building it,” the company said.

The agency, along with the US Air Force 30th Space Wing, the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense and US Northern Command, launched a long-range ground-based interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and was able to evaluate alternate divert thrusters in the new version of the GMD’s ground-based interceptor.

The GMD system is designed to protect the homeland from possible ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran.

The divert thrusters were redesigned to address fundamental problems experienced in the previous version of the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) – a key component of the interceptors designed to destroy targets in high-speed collisions after separating from a booster rocket.

The EKV struggled in tests and the acquisition plan for more ground-based interceptors – a total of 44 in California and Alaska – was threatened after interceptor test failures in 2010 and 2013. In the July 2013 test, the kill vehicle failed to separate from the booster rocket. In June 2014, however, the agency notched a successful intercept test, bringing its success record to four of seven tests and saving the program.

During the test Thursday, “a target representing an intermediate-range ballistic missile was air-launched from a US Air Force C-17 aircraft over the broad ocean area west of Hawaii,” MDA described.

An Raytheon-manufactured AN/TPY-2 radar in forward-based mode at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii detected the target and sent the tracking information to the battle management system. A Raytheon-made Sea-Based X-band radar, in the ocean northeast of Hawaii also identified and tracked the target.

The GMD system received the tracking data and identified a fire control solution to engage the target. The test also demonstrated technology to discriminate countermeasures carried by the target missile, according to the agency.

When the GBI was launched from Vandenberg, the kill vehicle performed “scripted maneuvers to demonstrate performance of alternate divert thrusters,” the MDA states. “Upon entering terminal phase, the kill vehicle initiated a planned burn sequence to evaluate the alternate divert thrusters until fuel was exhausted, intentionally precluding an intercept.”

Information from the test will be used to increase confidence of future intercept performance, the agency notes.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, the designer and manufacturer of the “liquid Divert and Attitude Control System (DACS) on the EKV, said in a statement that the successful test represents three years of “hard work and dedication” on design improvements made at the company’s Los Angeles site.

“On this flight, we validated key design improvements in the divert and attitude control system, demonstrating improved performance, reliability and producibility,” Michael Bright, Aerojet Rocketdyne vice president of missile defense and strategic systems, said in the statement.

Three companies are also in the midst of redesigning the GMD kill vehicle that can take out multiple warheads with a single interceptor, completing their first program planning reviews with the MDA in November, which marked a critical step toward determining key elements of the designs.

Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Boeing were all awarded $9.7 million contracts in August by the MDA to work on designs.

Email: jjudson@defensenews.com

Twitter: @JenJudson

SBIRS, designed to detect a nuclear missile attack, passed the Block 10 Integrated Test and Evaluation (IT&E) Readiness Soak. The 14-day test “demonstrated total system readiness and stability for IT&E start,” said an Air Force Space and Missile Center news release. “It included complete command and control and mission management of the full constellation, and full operational crew posture and execution of operations for the final dependability and maintainability assessment prior to IT&E.  This event not only tested total system readiness, but also demonstrated that operational crews have enough confidence in the system to run live operations.”

Block 10 consolidates operational command and control of Defense Support Program satellites, the Air Force said. It also improved missile warning and detection.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Wednesday said that President Obama has nominated Maj. Gen. Robert Williams to head the U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region-First Air Force (Air Forces Northern), at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

Williams, who is up for promotion to lieutenant general, pending Senate confirmation, would replace Lt. Gen. William Etter. Etter took control of the command in 2013.

Williams will serve under Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command.

Williams will be responsible for developing “contingency plans and conducting full-spectrum U.S. Air Force air and space operations in the continental United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” according to the Air Force’s description of the position.

He is currently serving as the office of military cooperation chief, senior defense official and defense attaché-Kuwait, U.S. Central Command, U.S. Embassy, Kuwait.

Email: opawlyk@airforcetimes.com

Twitter: @Oriana0214

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters that the relationship between the US and the Republic of Korea remains “iron-clad,” a phrase he used four times when discussing the US willingness to protect its longstanding ally.

He also said the U.S. would “consider every possible option that should be considered to further the defense of South Korea.”

However, just how far the U.S. is willing to go is unclear.

Media reports Thursday cited a South Korean official as saying Seoul has requested the United States deploy strategic assets to the peninsula. Unsurprisingly, both Cook and State Department spokesman John Kirby were reluctant to address that directly.

“I’m not going to get into a list of options on the table, but this is something that is an ongoing discussion that we have on a regular basis already with the South Koreans,” Cook said. “In light of recent events, [the U.S.] has only stepped up the contact that we’re having with the South Koreans and the communication we’re having to make sure that they are assured, other allies in the region are assured that everything is being done to ensure the sanctity of the alliance and our commitment to South Korea moving forward.”

Kirby said he was not aware of any such request, noting it would go through military channels initially.

“It’s not just about being there, it’s about being ready and they are ready. And of course, there are other assets in the Asia-Pacific region elsewhere that we could draw upon if needed,” Kirby noted.

Unsaid by Kirby is that even non-regional strategic assets can be quickly deployed if needed. In March 2013, an American B-2 stealth bomber flew from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri over South Korea and back in what officials at the time publicly  said was a show of force to Pyongyang.

Another potential option would be to position Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems on the Korean peninsula itself, something that has been discussed before. As with the strategic option, Cook did not rule it out as something that could occur in the future.

“We have not had formal consultations on the THAAD system with the Republic of Korea; no decisions have been made on a potential deployment of the THAAD to the Korean peninsula,” Cook said, before noting “this is part of a larger discussion that we’ll continue to have with South Koreans about capabilities and about the alliance moving forward, but there’s been no formal discussions about THAAD deployment.”

Historically, the U.S. has chosen the path of non-military options – in part because the specter of combat on the Korean peninsula would result in massive loss of life and property not just for both Korean nations, but their Pacific partners as well. While the Pacific is known for its distances, Seoul rests less than 50 miles from the DMZ, Tokyo is just 800 miles from Pyongyang and China shares a border with the DPRK.

The goal appears to once again use economic and political factors to defuse a North Korean fueled crisis.

Asked about potential sanctions on North Korea, Kirby said, “The United States has in many cases unilateral sanctions and I’m certainly not going to rule anything in or not at this point. … I think that you can safely assume that US decision makers are considering a wide range of potential options here and I won’t speculate about what they will be.”

Notably, Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the State Department that he had discussed the issue with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and the two sides agree that “there cannot be business as usual” following the DPRK’s weapons test.

While there are signs that relations between North Korea and China have frayed since Kim Jong Un’s ascension to the North Korean leadership, China has historically been the patron and protector of the Kim family. If Beijing is willing to work with Washington on a solution, Kerry indicated, it would be welcome help.

“On the first trip that I made to China, when I raised the issue of the climate negotiation that resulted in China joining with us, I spent most of that trip and most of that time on North Korea,” Kerry said.

“Now China had a particular approach that it wanted to make and we agreed and respected to give them the space to be able to implement that, but today in my conversation with the Chinese I made it very clear, that has not worked and we cannot continue business as usual,” he added.

Whatever actions the Obama administration takes, it may need to make them quickly to stay ahead of Congress.

On Capitol Hill, US House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce rapped the Obama administration’s response to the test as “weak and inadequate” in a joint statement Thursday.

They pledged the lower chamber would take up a bill that would restrict, if enacted, North Korea’s access to hard currency and take other measures to block and seize assets related to nuclear proliferation, illicit activities, and human rights violations “that are the hallmark of the Kim regime.”

Joe Gould in Washington contributed to this report

Email: amehta@defensenews.com

Twitter: @AaronMehta