The move comes amid a broader modernization push by special ops forces and the Defense Department to add new digital tools and robotic platforms to their arsenal.

In a new subsection for “Advanced Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence,” the amended BAA for technology development noted that SOF is keen on “modular, open integration” of cutting‐edge solutions incorporating AI and machine learning to enable enhanced autonomy in unmanned systems.

“Specific areas of interest include but are not limited to agentic AI and vision language action (VLA) models to achieve more sophisticated autonomous behaviors like adaptive learning; neural radiance fields (NeRFs) for 3D scene representation and navigation; generative AI for simulation and data augmentation; advanced automatic target recognition (ATR) algorithms with edge node refinement and autonomous model retraining; advanced machine learning operations (MLOPs) to support data management, model training, validation, and monitoring,” officials wrote.

They noted that proposed solutions need to be designed with well‐defined interfaces and adherence to open standards to promote interoperability and integration into existing architectures.

Earlier this year, the command re-released its “SOF Renaissance” strategic vision, which observed that innovations in AI, autonomous systems and cyber tools are reshaping warfare and enhancing targeting and strike capabilities.

The document calls for commando forces to be early adopters of these types of technologies. SOCOM has been on the cutting-edge before as an early DOD user of the Maven Smart System, for example.

“The distinction between optimizing and generative AI is crucial and will be a game changer. Swarms of low-cost drones and remote explosive devices, using AI and autonomy, blur traditional human-machine boundaries on the battlefield. SOF must also use these systems to improve decisionmaking and situational awareness,” officials wrote in the strategy.

Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, the current commander of Joint Special Operations Command who’s been nominated by President Donald Trump to be head of SOCOM, said the use of innovative drone capabilities and tactics in places like Ukraine and the Middle East have ushered in a “revolution in military affairs.”

“The changing, accelerating pace of technology, the ubiquitous information environment, and the advent of man-machine teamed autonomy on the battlefields of the world today are absolutely changing the character of warfare … in our very eyes,” Bradley said last week during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He added that legislative proposals such as the FORGED Act and SPEED Act, and other initiatives to reform DOD acquisitions and speed up the fielding of new tech, are “critical to allowing us to use the innovative spirit of our operators to be able to capture those problems and opportunities we see on the battlefield and turn them into new man-machine teamed approaches.”

The amendment to the BAA comes just two weeks after the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office announced the award of $200 million contracts to multiple vendors for “frontier AI” projects.

“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,” CDAO Doug Matty said in a statement accompanying that announcement. “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.”

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During a keynote address at the AI+ Expo in Washington hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project, which brought together some of the biggest companies in the tech sector as well as smaller vendors with more niche capabilities, Caine suggested legacy systems and old ways of doing business won’t be sufficient for maintaining military superiority in the future.

“Peace in our nation will not be won by the legacy systems that we’ve had or the legacy thinking. It will be determined by the entrepreneurs and innovators and leaders, both in government and out of government, that create overwhelming strength. It will be won by our breakthroughs in AI, cyber, autonomy, space, energy, advanced manufacturing, data, compute, you name it. And we need your help with this,” he said.

New capabilities can improve command-and-control systems, decision-making, mission execution and survivability, he noted. However, the Pentagon needs industry to scale new technology to the point that it becomes a “strategic differentiator.”

U.S. adversaries are sharing tech and intelligence, enabling them to field advanced capabilities faster, he warned.

“And on our end, the barrier for entry for technology, for disruptive tech, is low, but the barrier to government business is high, frankly, too high. And yet, the changing nature and character of warfare is happening right before our eyes. We’ve seen examples of that, most recently as this weekend” when Ukraine attacked Russia’s strategic bombers with cheap drones, Caine said. “We’ve got to go faster, my friends. And that’s mostly, in many cases, on us in … the government. Together, though, we’ve got to be focused on fighting the next war, not fighting the last war, and we need entrepreneurs both in the private sector and in government.”

He added that the Defense Department needs to “do some work” to improve the requirements process and be “better buyers.”

“I know this from my time in the private sector where I tried to sell things to the government when I was an entrepreneur. It’s hard,” Caine said.

He has previously touted his experience in the private sector, including at his confirmation hearing.

After retiring from the military and before his return to service to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Caine was a venture partner at Shield Capital, an advisor for Thrive Capital and a venture partner at Ribbit Capital, among other roles.

The chairman noted that reform efforts are already underway at the Defense Department.

In recent years, the Pentagon has tried to expand its acquisition ecosystem by attracting non-traditional contractors and encouraging investors to back startups working on defense-related technologies.

In his speech Wednesday, Caine pointed to progress made by organizations like the Silicon Valley-headquartered Defense Innovation Unit, which has outposts in major tech hubs across the country and works with nontraditional tech vendors via commercial solutions opening contracting mechanisms.

“We’ve got to drastically scale that capability and that culture inside the joint force, the entrepreneurial culture, which I believe is one of America’s great tools. We’ve got to change our willingness to accept risks, and we’re going to do that,” he said.

The chairman noted that he needs to make sure the joint force is integrated across the globe within the combatant commands and among the services.

“We’ve got to connect them with our interagency allies and partners, including founders and funders, and scale that capability in order to meet the challenges that we need to,” Caine said. “We can do more.”

Caine is a former F-16 pilot who has held a variety of roles throughout his military career, including with the active-duty Air Force, National Guard and the special operations community.

When it comes to relying on advanced tech at the tactical edge, resiliency is key for mission success, he noted.

“My time as a Special Forces officer taught me that two of one thing is [only] one, and one of one thing is none. So we’ve got to be able to build resilient technology [so] that if the power fails or something like that, we’re still capable of doing it,” Caine said.

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The proposed funding is part of a broader $150 billion reconciliation bill unveiled Sunday that’s intended to boost spending on U.S. military capabilities and border security.

“This legislation represents a generational upgrade for our nation’s defense capabilities, including historic investments in new technology,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said in a statement. “This is about building the future of American defense, achieving peace through strength, and ultimately deterring war.”

If the bill is passed, sizable investments would go toward kamikaze drones — also known as one-way attack drones or loitering munitions — that are designed to destroy their targets by crashing into them. U.S. Army and Marine Corps leaders are gung-ho about acquiring these types of capabilities after watching their heavy use in Ukraine and other conflicts.

The legislation would pump $1 billion into expanding the kamikaze drone industrial base, provide $50 million to accelerate delivery of one-way attack unmanned aerial systems with “advanced autonomy,” and allocate $145 million for the development of AI capabilities to enable one-way attack UAS and naval systems.

An additional $500 million would be allotted to “prevent delays” in the delivery of “attritable autonomous military capabilities.” The bill did not identify specific systems that lawmakers are concerned about facing potential delays.

The legislation also includes $1.1 billion in funding to expand the small UAS industrial base.

More money would go toward uncrewed maritime platforms, including about $1.8 billion for expansion of medium unmanned surface vessel production; $1.5 billion for expansion of small USV production; $1.3 billion for expansion of unmanned underwater vehicle production; $250 million for the development, production and integration of wave-powered UUVs; and $188 million for the development and testing of “maritime robotic autonomous systems and enabling technologies.”

Another $174 million would be invested in the development of a Test Resource Management Center robotic autonomous systems “proving ground.”

Pentagon officials are also keen on acquiring new capabilities to defeat adversaries’ drones, and the reconciliation bill includes funding for those types of tools.

The legislation would allocate $250 million for the development, production and integration of land-based counter-UAS programs; $200 million for the development, production and integration of ship-based counter-drone programs; and $350 million for the development, production and integration of non-kinetic counter-UAS programs. The term “non-kinetic” in U.S. military parlance generally refers to weapons that aren’t projectiles or missiles, such as electronic warfare, directed energy, or cyber capabilities.

“This legislation is a historic investment of $150 billion to restore America’s military capabilities and strengthen our national defense,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said in a statement. “Our military’s resources have declined over the years … Our defense industrial base has weakened. America’s deterrence is failing and without a generational investment in our national defense, we will lose the ability to defeat our adversaries.”

The HASC is slated to hold a markup session for the reconciliation bill Tuesday. The legislation will subsequently be sent to the House Budget Committee.

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The one-step call for proposals falls under AFRL’s Autonomous Decisions, Algorithms, and Modeling multiple authority announcement that was released in March.

“The objectives for the program are to develop new algorithms for tracking and sensors resource management, modifying existing algorithms, conduct experiments to measure effectiveness of combat identification (CID), integrate with other CID algorithm improvement efforts, and simulate scenarios to measure algorithm performance,” officials wrote.

In U.S. military operations, combat identification of objects on the battlefield may include friendly forces, enemy forces, non-combatants or other entities. It’s used to support engagement decisions for the employment of fires.

A more detailed statement of objectives for the SOUP program hasn’t been publicly released because it contains controlled unclassified information. Interested vendors must request it from the Air Force.

However, officials have broadly described the technical areas of focus for the Autonomous Decisions, Algorithms, and Modeling multiple authority announcement, which include multi-domain sense making, sensing autonomy, sensing and effects analysis, multi-sensing knowledge, and sensing management.

To boost “multi-sensing knowledge,” officials aim to “provide techniques for timely, high confidence behavioral and physical knowledge generation from denied and difficult targets using multiple sensors, domains, and types to include algorithm development across multiple distributed, homogeneous and heterogeneous sensors. Efforts will commonly include data association, entity detect/track/ID, information fusion, contextual reasoning, training with limited measured data, data/performance modeling, and scenario specific algorithm performance assessment,” as well as the “application of machine learning techniques to address technical challenges in contested environments,” according to the announcement.

AFRL also intends to explore ways to improve sensing management across ISR, strike, electronic warfare and cyber “mission effects chains.”

“These efforts include techniques to manage sensor data flow through collection, communication, and reasoning for processing and dissemination; to generate anticipatory responses; sensor resource planning, allocation, and scheduling; and control flexibility across multiple distributed sensing capabilities. Efforts will focus on technologies including sensing interface/architecture development and assessment, experimentation, sensing decision-making strategies, representation, sensing data and knowledge management, cross-mode sensor management and registration, distributed processing, and joint inference and control,” officials wrote.

The AFRL initiatives come as the Defense Department is looking to make its ISR enterprise more effective and efficient through the integration of new AI tools that optimize system employment and reduce cognitive and physical burdens for human operators and analysts, via autonomous capabilities and decision-making aids.

The estimated program cost for SOUP is $3 million, and the anticipated award date is July 25, according to the solicitation.

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Anduril describes its new Copperhead technology as a “high-speed, software-defined family of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) built for delivery by autonomous systems.”

The munition variant has been dubbed Copperhead-M.

“Despite the rapid advances in autonomous vehicles across air, surface, and subsea domains, torpedoes aren’t built at scale and production remains frozen in Cold War-era designs. Current systems are expensive, slow to produce, and tightly coupled to legacy platforms like nuclear submarines and warships. In addition, the U.S. and its allies need far more autonomous, quickly-deployable subsea systems that can integrate with the existing manned fleet and expanding fleet of autonomous subsea, surface, and air vehicles,” the company stated in a press release.

Anduril’s new platform comes in two models — the Copperhead-100 and Copperhead-500 — with different payload capacities.

The 100 model has a 12.75-inch diameter vehicle that’s about 2.5 meters in length and carries 100 pounds dry weight, while the 500 model is 21 inches in diameter and carries roughly 500 pounds dry weight. The top speed for both systems will be more than 30 knots, according to Shane Arnott, vice president of programs and engineering at Anduril.

The hull form is more square-shaped than a traditional torpedo which will make it easier to produce, Arnott told reporters ahead of the official announcement.

“Our production system is aimed at being able to produce very high hundreds to thousands of these systems a year,” he said.

Anduril already builds unmanned submarines, such as the Dive-XL, that the company says will be able to carry “dozens” of the smaller Copperhead-100Ms or “multiple” Copperhead-500Ms.

The contractor also envisions the new torpedoes being air-launched from cargo planes or large drones. An unmanned aerial system in the Group 4 category could carry the Copperhead-100. Because of its heavier weight, a Group 5 UAS would be needed to carry the Copperhead-500, Arnott said.

He noted that the Copperhead uses the company’s Lattice software platform.

“Given our products are software defined with Lattice means that as the threat evolves, we can upgrade our seeking technology so as the threats move and change their signature, etc., we can move with it and at the pace of relevance with just software upgrades alone,” he said.

Anduril is touting the Copperhead-M as a more cost-effective means of attacking adversaries’ unmanned underwater vehicles and uncrewed surface vessels.

Arnott declined to say what the unit cost of the Copperhead will be, but suggested it would be “a fraction” of the cost of existing torpedoes such as the Mk 48.

“As the fight’s changing, subsea is getting much more populated, particularly with enemy UUVs and USVs. It doesn’t really make sense that you would expend a Mark 48, for instance, on an enemy … UUV or a USV, where that munition actually costs multiple times the cost of the UUV,” Arnott said.

He told DefenseScoop that customers would be able to determine how autonomous the Copperheads will be in terms of selecting their targets.

“The systems are set up very similar to out other uncrewed systems, where you can give it parameters that are very much controlled by the customer or by the operator on what the engagement criteria are. So within parameters that are set by the operator, the robot can make decisions on which of the targets that it addresses,” he said.

Last week, Anduril also unveiled a new undersea sensing network capability called Seabed Sentry, which the company says can be deployed by autonomous underwater vehicles.

The contractor describes the tech as “AI-enabled, mobile, undersea sensor nodes networked together for persistent monitoring and real time communication,” that can “sense, process, and communicate critical subsea information at the edge.”

The systems have an endurance of “months to years” and a depth rating of more than 500 meters, according to Anduril.

The technology leverages Lattice software platform and, like the Copperhead, is designed to be deployable by unmanned underwater vehicles, such as the contractor’s Dive family of uncrewed submarines, according to a press release.

Arnott suggested Copperheads will be able to exchange data with their launch platforms, Seabed Sentry nodes and each other.

“The overriding software that sits on top of that is Lattice … that gives the ability for all of those systems to talk to each other,” Arnott said.

“We utilize acoustic technologies as well as some optical in order to talk under the waves. We’ve spent a lot of time in our software making sure that we can deal with the extremely low bandwidth that you get subsea. When you’re in the air domain, it is very easy to communicate, the laws of physics are much kinder to you. But we have spent a lot of time dealing with both low power but also the ability to pack a lot in very, very thin bandwidths, in order to enable that collaborative capability, which is central to all of our subsea products that we’re now going public with across a number of different segments here,” he said.

Anduril has been testing Copperhead and expects to move into production later this year.

“We are in the water with the Copperhead at the moment. We are working through finalization of that before we head into production,” Arnott told reporters.

The unveiling of the technology comes as the Navy is pursuing Project 33 and other initiatives to add more unmanned platforms and firepower to the fleet in preparation for a potential war against China in the Indo-Pacific in the coming years. The service has already been experimenting with using maritime drones to launch loitering munitions.

Arnott declined to say whether the company already has a U.S. military customer for Copperhead-M.

“We cannot talk publicly about who we’re working with on the government side,” he told reporters. “We can’t talk to the contracts.”

He noted that Anduril funded the initial development of the technology with its own money.

Anduril is expected to display the Copperhead system at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference this week.

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A senior committee staff official involved in the meeting briefed a small group of reporters Thursday about key issues the stakeholders’ referenced. They also shared new details about the bipartisan group’s six-month plan to influence major government reforms targeting capabilities transfer and acquisition options.

“[HFAC Chairman Rep. Brian] Mast and his fellow members of the committee on both sides of the aisle have long recognized the impact that the delays and lack of transparency associated with our current foreign arms sales process has on national security and our ability to boost interoperability with our partners,” the official said.

Mast, R-Fla., launched the task force in late March with Reps. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., and Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., at the helm.

America’s existing mechanisms for foreign military sales are seen by many as lagging behind global demand.

“In recent years, our allies must often choose between waiting on the U.S. for needed defense capabilities — or potentially looking elsewhere, at the expense of U.S. influence and strategic priorities, domestic defense manufacturing and American jobs,” the senior committee staff official told reporters.

The new group aims to build on progress led by a similar congressional “TIGER” team and task force that operated in a prior session, which the official noted put forward multiple policy and lawmaking recommendations, including some that were advanced to the committee.

“This time around, obviously, we’ll be working on a report that will further legislative and policy goals. And we’ve had initial engagements with the [second Trump] administration and we are waiting for the executive order, as well,” the official said. 

As they suggested, reports have recently surfaced that President Donald Trump’s new appointees are exploring an executive mandate that would ease certain rules that govern U.S. military equipment and service exports. 

“I think we’ve seen an extra ‘wind in the sail,’ in terms of what has been something that Congress has been involved with, that’s linked up with the administration,” the official said.

They noted that the new task force aims to expand upon some of the momentum Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz helped influence during his tenure serving in Congress and on that previous TIGER team in 2024. 

Beyond reporting and resources to help stakeholders “digest” any forthcoming executive orders, the team also hopes to pave the way for interdepartmental memorandums and other instructions or guidance for agency leadership.

“It’s fair to say this will be a pretty broad look. If we were to have this effort 10 years ago, maybe autonomous [systems] wouldn’t be as big of a focus, but I think it’s emblematic of an issue that needs additional attention as technology has advanced … [and this] challenging weapon sales process isn’t able to keep up with cutting-edge advances in technology that support the warfighter for ourselves and that of our allies,” the senior committee staff official told DefenseScoop.

In America, domestically produced defense assets and services that are delivered to foreign countries are regulated by Congress. These transactions generally entail either government-to-government sales (Foreign Military Sales, or FMS) or Direct Commercial Sales (DCS). 

“I will also quickly mention that the Trump administration is laser-focused on getting the FMS and DCS process where it needs to be — and President Trump has put the right people in the right positions to make that happen,” the official said.

They added that the new task force is “taking a wider view” compared to efforts led by Waltz and others during the last session, by focusing on reforms across both FMS and DCS.

Lawmakers who participated in Wednesday’s engagement heard insights and recommendations from nearly two dozen attendees. The official noted the industry participants were broadly “representing DOD primes, innovative startups, small arms manufacturers.”

Regarding main themes from the confab, the official said: “First, the foreign arm sales process as it stands today is overly complex, lacks transparency and poses significant risk to American competitiveness, to our national security and that of our allies. Second, charting an effective path forward will require bipartisan and interagency buy-in. Lastly, it’s safe to say that each participant recognized the urgency for making reforms to the process and ensuring America can get the right weapons to our allies and partners as fast as possible.”

Going forward, the task force will “continue to hear from those on the frontlines of this issue,” the official told reporters.

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Under the three-year, $86 million deal, the contractor will serve as SOCOM’s “Mission Autonomy Systems Integration Partner,” according to a press release.

So-called “collaborative autonomy” capabilities are on the command’s technology wish list.

The organization’s new strategy document, dubbed “SOF Renaissance,” notes that special ops forces must be early adopters at the Defense Department of innovations in areas such as AI, autonomous systems and cyber to enhance irregular warfare capabilities in complex operating environments.

“AI and uncrewed systems are changing warfare through increased automation and autonomy. This leads to more precise targeting and reduced risk to human personnel. The distinction between optimizing and generative AI is crucial and will be a game changer. Swarms of low-cost drones and remote explosive devices, using AI and autonomy, blur traditional human-machine boundaries on the battlefield. SOF must also use these systems to improve decisionmaking and situational awareness,” officials wrote in the document.

The command wants a variety of uncrewed systems for the air, land and sea domains. Officials are even eyeing robotic platforms that can operate in multiple warfighting domains, such as “multi-domain” micro drones and “Drone in a Box” technologies.

“To achieve the benefits of affordable enterprise capability, operators must be able to task teams of diverse, multi-domain autonomous systems to work together and execute a given mission. This requires mission autonomy software capable of integrating and coordinating multiple vehicles’ control systems, sensors, weapons, and other payloads to synchronize effects on the battlefield,” Anduril stated in a press release announcing the new contract award.

The company is touting its AI-enabled Lattice platform as an enabler of the autonomy software infrastructure that will give commandos the tools to interact and wage war with “teams of diverse autonomous systems” and deliver “coordinated mass effects.”

“As the Mission Autonomy Systems Integration Partner (SIP), Anduril will support USSOCOM in developing their infrastructure, enabling them to integrate, test, validate, and deploy government-owned and commercial mission autonomy software and enabling technology across their robotic platforms,” per the release.

The company plans to “prove out” software in the coming months via a series of demonstrations and integration events ahead of operational fielding.

This isn’t the first time that Anduril has been tapped by the Defense Department to provide these types of capabilities.

Last year, the company was one of three firms selected by the Defense innovation Unit to provide tools to facilitate “the automated coordination of swarms of hundreds or thousands of uncrewed assets across multiple domains in order to improve their lethality and efficiency.”

Anduril is offering its Lattice tech for that effort, which is supporting the Pentagon’s Replicator autonomous systems initiative.

“While these [unmanned] systems are valuable as single agents or swarms of like systems, they are most resilient and effective when they operate in combined teams that can collaborate with other types of systems across domains. Resilient C2 and collaborative autonomy vendors will enhance the effectiveness of these systems by providing user interfaces, collaborative autonomy architectures and software, and network orchestration,” DIU officials wrote in a release when the awards for the Autonomous Collaborative Teaming program were announced last year.

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The SECNAV is the top civilian responsible for leading the Department of the Navy, which also includes the Marine Corps. Phelan, a businessman and co-founder of MSD Capital, was nominated for the post by President Donald Trump.

Ahead of his confirmation hearing last month, Phelan told lawmakers that he planned to push for more investment in uncrewed systems and enabler technologies — such as autonomy, mission systems and communications — for manned-unmanned teaming by the Navy and jointly with the other military services.

He’s coming into the job as the sea service is pursuing a “hybrid fleet” and trying to accelerate the fielding of robotic platforms to counter China, including via Project 33. The Marine Corps is also pursuing collaborative combat aircraft via its Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer-Portfolio (PAACK-P) program, as well as loitering munitions.

Phelan also noted the need for a variety of counter-drone tools, informed by recent Navy efforts to thwart attacks by the Houthis and protect military and commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Some defense officials have said the military needs cheaper options for shooting down inexpensive adversary unmanned aerial systems.

“The Red Sea engagements provided valuable lessons. While cost exchange ratios are a useful metric against low-cost threats, they don’t encompass the full complexity of naval warfare. I fully support a Captain utilizing the most effective means available to eliminate threats and protect their multibillion-dollar ship and crew. However, we must provide them with a wider variety of reliable options beyond their current limited and costly solutions. If confirmed, I will prioritize expanding development of layered ship defense capabilities, including guns, directed energy, loitering munitions, and other innovative technologies,” Phelan wrote in response to advance policy questions from senators.

The Marines are also gung-ho about counter-drone tech, having recently awarded a $642 million contract to Anduril to deliver, install and sustain a family of systems to protect its installations from small UAS.

Phelan also weighed in on digital threats that the department is confronting expressing his view that the top cyber challenges facing the Navy are securing defense critical infrastructure and weapon systems, increasing cyber force readiness and executing critical modernization efforts.

“Removing legacy information technology, modernizing cryptography, implementing zero trust, and hardening classified networks all contribute to modernizing the Department of the Navy. Importantly, the readiness of our military and civilian workforce is critical for achieving our priorities in cyberspace. It is my understanding that the Navy and Marine Corps have made notable progress in strengthening cybersecurity and resiliency in operational technology environments and in improving the readiness of their personnel in the Cyber Mission Force [overseen by U.S. Cyber Command],” he wrote.

“Additionally, the Department of the Navy recently delivered the first fully validated implementation of a true Zero Trust architecture in the Department of Defense. If confirmed, I will expect the [Navy’s principal cyber adviser] to work closely with the Chief Information Officer and Navy and Marine Corps stakeholders to drive tangible outcomes in these areas,” he told lawmakers.

The department is also placing greater emphasis on information warfare, which includes intelligence, electronic warfare, cyber, cryptology and networks, among other areas.

Phelan told senators that, if confirmed, he would request a detailed briefing on the Navy’s “information dominance” capabilities and determine resourcing, workforce and innovation priorities to integrate into the joint force’s modernization efforts.

“If confirmed, I will empower the Naval Information Warfare Community to recruit, retain and promote the most skilled and qualified Sailors to train and conduct integrated fires to effectively deter and combat threats to our Nation. These actions align to the Department of the Navy Cyber Strategy which calls for effective sequencing and synchronization of non-kinetic effects to generate decisive advantages,” he wrote.

Phelan — who has no previous military experience — will take the helm of the Navy as the Pentagon is in the midst of DOGE reviews, hiring freezes and efforts to reduce the DOD’s civilian workforce by more than 50,000 people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently issued a memo giving service secretaries the authority to request and authorize certain exemptions to the civilian hiring freeze. Last week, the department released another memo with a list of more positions that are eligible for exemptions.

“Congratulations John Phelan on being Confirmed as the 79th Secretary of the Navy!” Hegseth wrote in a post on X Monday evening. “Looking forward to supporting our warfighters together.”

In a statement, Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) President and CEO Eric Fanning said the new SECNAV’s “business acumen will infuse the Navy with a strategic approach to expanding our fleet to meet deterrence needs across the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific,” adding that his “commitment to readiness, effectiveness, and efficiency aligns seamlessly with our industry’s priorities. We look forward to collaborating with Secretary Phelan to ensure our Sailors are equipped with the finest equipment in the world.”

Phelan’s confirmation marks the latest success by the Trump administration in filling high-level posts at the Pentagon.

On March 14, the Senate confirmed Stephen Feinberg as deputy secretary of defense to serve as the Pentagon’s No. 2 under Hegseth. Trump’s pick for Army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was confirmed in late February. And earlier this month, Katie Arrington was appointed acting Pentagon CIO.

However, other nominees for high-level Pentagon jobs have yet to be confirmed, such as Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Troy Meink as Air Force secretary, among others.

It’s also uncertain who will be the next chief of naval operations working alongside Phelan to lead the sea service. Last month, Trump fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti as CNO and hasn’t nominated a replacement. In the meantime, Adm. James Kilby, vice chief of naval operations, is performing the duties of CNO.

Other key nominations for senior positions that have yet to be confirmed include Michael Duffey to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer; Emil Michael to be undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, a role tasked with fostering next-generation military capabilities and overseeing critical technology areas; and Elbridge “Bridge” Colby to be undersecretary of defense for policy, among others. A confirmation hearing for Meink, Michael and Duffey is scheduled for Thursday.

Updated on March 25, 2025, at 9:50 AM: This story has been updated to include comments from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and AIA President and CEO Eric Fanning.

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The two companies announced this week that they have progressed to the second phase of the Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV) program, beating out Integrated Solutions for Systems and Leidos Dynetics for the follow-on agreement. The effort initially looked to create an inexpensive air vehicle to test new capabilities and subsystems, but now the ETV prototypes are expected to become the baseline architecture for a future palletized munitions platform.

The down-select follows an initial award in April 2024, when DIU announced it was partnering with the Air Force’s Armament Directorate on the ETV program and had awarded contracts to Anduril, Zone 5 Technologies, Leidos Dynetics and Integrated Solutions for Systems. 

The vendors were first tasked with developing and flying an air vehicle that featured an open systems architecture to enable subsystem integration, as well as proving industry could rapidly build and scale production of the platform, Steve Milano, director of Anduril’s strike and air dominance sector, told a group of reporters Monday on the sidelines of the annual AFA Warfare Symposium. Companies were also required to prioritize commercial off-the-shelf parts to reduce supply chain bottlenecks and keep the platforms affordable, according to DIU.

The next phase — expected to last around six months — is “intended to not just iterate on the existing design of that platform, but also demonstrate some of the network collaborative autonomy,” Milano said.

Anduril conducted a successful flight test of its offering for the program — the Barracuda-500 autonomous air vehicle — in September 2024, the company announced Tuesday. The test demonstrated a “successful vertical launch from a cell designed to emulate palletized employment from air-lift aircraft, autonomous navigation and flight for over 30 minutes, successful capture of a GPS coordinate target identified in Lattice and autonomous terminal guidance to the target,” according to a statement from Anduril.

Zone 5 Technologies’ ETV prototype is a system called Rusty Dagger Open Weapon Platform, which “has rapidly demonstrated mature system capability and quickly transitions towards scaled production and mission readiness,” the company said Wednesday in a statement. “Rusty Dagger has successfully performed end-to-end mission demonstrations, including palletized launch, pylon launch, long duration missions, and high accuracy terminal engagement.”

One mission set that DIU and the Air Force are eyeing for the ETV platform is the Franklin Affordable Mass Missile (FAMM) program, which seeks a palletized munition that can be deployed in large quantities via air drop from cargo aircraft.

Milano explained that once the second phase of the ETV program concludes, it will transition into “a formalized requirement to go after a capability set, and that capability set is answered by a program of record called FAMM.”

Anduril’s flight tests in 2025 will demonstrate simultaneous vertical launch of multiple Barracuda-500 vehicles, in-flight communications and how the company’s autonomy stack can enable collaborative autonomous flight, according to an Anduril press release. The company will also produce the air vehicles to prove out the platform’s ability to be rapidly and affordably manufactured, it noted.

The Air Force is also pursuing a separate effort to use the ETV platform for its Extended Range Attack Munition program, intended for foreign military sales to Ukraine, according to a report from Aviation Week. However, the status of the program is unknown due to the pause in military assistance to Kyiv. At the same time, the ETV program was selected for the Defense Department’s Replicator initiative, which aims to rapidly field thousands of small drones in the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s ongoing military buildup. 

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If confirmed, Phelan — a businessman and co-founder of MSD Capital — would take the helm of the department as it pursues new drones and a “hybrid fleet” of manned and unmanned systems, among other modernization efforts. Service leadership is also in flux in the wake of Trump’s firing of Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti last week.

“I understand that the F/A-XX next-generation [fighter] aircraft, offering significant advancements in operational reach and capacity within contested environments, is intended to enable Carrier Strike Groups to outpace adversaries while maintaining naval air dominance. I also understand the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force are collaborating closely to ensure interoperability through shared enabling technologies like autonomy, mission systems, and communication architectures. This collaborative approach, encompassing both manned and unmanned platforms, including Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), will maximize operational effectiveness and flexibility across the services,” Phelan wrote in response to advance policy questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee ahead of his confirmation hearing Thursday.

“In my view, aligning technology development and operational requirements will ensure the Services are poised to fully leverage next-generation unmanned systems, ultimately enhancing capabilities and long-range mission effectiveness,” he added.

The Pentagon envisions highly autonomous CCA drones serving as robotic wingmen to manned fighter jets or performing separate missions. The Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force are each pursuing their own variants, which they hope to field in the coming years. The Air Force is widely seen as being ahead of the other branches in their pursuit of these types of platforms.

The Navy also aims to develop and field a next-generation manned fighter jet, currently referred to as the F/A-XX, that it hopes to field in the 2030s. An Air Force decision about the future of its manned, next-gen stealth fighter program— which was part of the Next Generation Air Dominance initiative — was postponed late last year amid the transition in presidential administrations.

Phelan told lawmakers that he would advocate for “smart investments” in the Navy’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, highlighting the need to foster industry competition, including non-traditional contractors, with the aim of driving down costs, accelerating timelines and maintaining the Navy’s technological superiority.

He also noted that he would prioritize “timely” modifications to Nimitz-class aircraft carriers for unmanned system integration.

Defense officials have expressed a desire to ensure interoperability between the services’ future crewed and uncrewed systems. Phelan — who has never served in the military — endorsed that idea in his comments to senators.

“I understand the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force are aligned on key enabling technologies, including mission systems, autonomy architecture, and communication and command architecture. This alignment ensures that both manned and unmanned platforms can operate effectively together, enhancing interoperability across branches. If confirmed, I will commit to continue collaboration with the other services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense to ensure that systems are compatible and ready to integrate seamlessly in joint operations, supporting interservice coordination and maximizing mission effectiveness,” he wrote.

The Navy isn’t just looking to field next-gen unmanned aerial systems. It’s also pursuing new unmanned surface vessels and unmanned underwater vehicles, as it works to build a so-called hybrid fleet of crewed and uncrewed platforms.

Accelerating the fielding of those types of systems to deter China in the Indo-Pacific was part of Franchetti’s Project 33 and CNO Navigation Plan, which she unveiled a few months before she got fired.

The Navy has also been playing a key role in the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative, which was launched during the Biden administration with the goal of fielding thousands of “all-domain attritable autonomous systems” by August 2025.

The sea service has also set up new organizations, such as Task Force 59 and robo-ship squadrons, to work through concepts of operation and other issues that need to be addressed.

Phelan didn’t refer to Replicator by name in his written comments to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but he suggested that he’s in favor of those types of efforts.

“The unique capabilities that unmanned systems bring to the naval and joint force are a tremendous force multiplier, and I believe the Department of the Navy should appropriately and adequately resource the right solutions and doctrine, organization, training, personnel and facilities that support these capabilities, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. There can be no dispute that unmanned systems are now very much part of the landscape of modern war,” he wrote.

“Also revealed is the rapid pace of innovation for these systems, as well as the rapid operational adoption of the evolving systems in battle,” he added. “If confirmed, I will thoroughly examine this issue to ensure the Department of the Navy investments are properly prioritized in this area by ensuring appropriate system selection through early, data-driven analysis. This will include championing joint investment in enabling technologies like autonomy, mission systems, and communications to guarantee interoperability across services and with coalition partners, for example through ongoing all-domain attritable autonomous systems efforts.”

Phelan is the second of Trump’s service secretary nominees during his second term to have a confirmation hearing. Earlier this week, Daniel Driscoll was confirmed as secretary of the Army. A confirmation hearing for Trump’s pick for Air Force secretary, Troy Meink, has not been scheduled.

Trump’s nominee for deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, also testified earlier this week.

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