This will be the eighth mission for the Boeing-built space plane, which has served as an on-orbit, experimental testbed for emerging technologies being developed by the Pentagon and NASA. The platform is designed to conduct long-duration flights before returning to Earth, where it can be repurposed for future missions. The system has already spent more than 4,200 days in space, according to Boeing.

Personnel are currently preparing the vehicle — which will fly with a service module — for another launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, according to a press release issued Monday. Mission partners for OTV-8, as the effort has been dubbed, include the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Silicon Valley-headquartered Defense Innovation Unit.

The service module will expand capacity for laser comms demonstrations, per the release.

Laser communications demos in low-Earth orbit “will contribute to more efficient and secure satellite communications in the future. The shorter wavelength of infrared light allows more data to be sent with each transmission,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman wrote in post on X.

“We’re also demoing the world’s highest performing quantum inertial sensor ever used in space. Bottom line: testing this tech will be helpful for navigation in contested environments where GPS may be degraded or denied,” he added.

According to Boeing’s press release, the mission will include the first in-space demonstration of a “strategic grade” quantum inertial sensor.

“OTV 8’s quantum inertial sensor demonstration is a welcome step forward for the operational resilience of Guardians in space,” Space Delta 9 Commander Col. Ramsey Hom said in a statement. “Whether navigating beyond Earth-based orbits in cis-lunar space or operating in GPS-denied environments, quantum inertial sensing allows for robust navigation capabilities where GPS navigation is not possible. Ultimately, this technology contributes significantly to our thrust within the Fifth Space Operations Squadron and across the Space Force guaranteeing movement and maneuverability even in GPS-denied environments.”

The launch date is targeted for Aug. 21, according to Saltzman.

During the space plane’s most recent mission, which started in 2023 and wrapped up earlier this year, efforts included experimenting with operating in new orbital regimes, testing space domain awareness technologies and investigating radiation effects, according to officials.

For the mission before that, the X-37B spent a whopping 908 days in orbit.

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Like the Navy, the Air Force years ago chose to integrate its intelligence function — known as the 2 — and its communications and network function, known as the 6, into the A2/6, led by a three-star general. It also added cyber to that portfolio, resulting in an official title of deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and cyber effects operations.

This week the Air Force broke the 6 function away from the 2 on the Air Staff, creating the AF/A6 deputy chief of staff for warfighter communications and cyber systems, in what the service calls one of the most significant reorganizations in over 30 years.

The office will be led by Maj. Gen. Michelle Edmondson, who most recently was senior advisor to the undersecretary of the Air Force.

“Our mission is to ensure warfighters have the reliable, secure communications they need to succeed in a complex and contested environment,” she said. “We’re building an enterprise that connects people, systems and decisions at the speed required by today’s operational demands.” 

The new AF/A6 will serve as the functional authority and management for warfighter communications and cyber operations.

The move had been telegraphed for about a year, with officials explaining it was designed to elevate the role of operational communications and cyber needs within the force, providing a dedicated general officer, typically a three-star, to advise senior leaders.

The office will help the Air Force operate in and through cyberspace and compete against the growing threats presented by China and others, officials have stated in the past, given core missions are vitally dependent on secure and resilient communications, and require a deputy chief of staff singularly focused on that.

In future fights, U.S. communications networks are expected to be attacked and stressed by adversaries.

“We created the A6 to ensure communications and cyber systems are available, secure and aligned with warfighter priorities,” Gen. David Allvin, chief of staff of the Air Force, said. “This office will help us focus resources and oversight where it matters most — supporting the mission in contested environments.”

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The department is conducting market research to inform its pursuit of new radios, antennas and datalinks that can be integrated into drones for commandos to conduct swarm ops.

Via a new pre-solicitation issued Wednesday, officials aim to better understand vendors’ capabilities to provide “Dynamic multi-domain communications capabilities/services within, and/or to, a sUAS swarm in contested and denied environments” and “Data relay (ranging in size and complexity from simple status messages to full motion video) to/from stations inside denied and contested environments.”

The Defense Department expects to begin integrating and fielding these types of capabilities in 18 to 30 months, according to the document. To meet those timelines, officials are interested in items with high technological readiness levels and manufacturing readiness levels.

The program office is encouraging responses from non-traditional vendors and companies that can offer “novel or unconventional approaches” to enable the multi-domain communications and data relay capabilities for Group 2 and/or Group 3 drones, which are on the smaller end of the UAS spectrum.

“There is an expectation to field additional platforms beyond the initial effort. Should [the U.S. government] field initial operational systems, conceivable upgrade cycles could follow regularly. USG may replace any component or integrator during such cycles to maximize operational capabilities with best-in-class technologies,” officials wrote.

U.S. Special Operations Command’s “SOF Renaissance” strategy document, which was re-released in February, noted that “collaborative and autonomous unmanned systems” are an important element of the organization’s modernization plans.

“AI and uncrewed systems are changing warfare through increased automation and autonomy. This leads to more precise targeting and reduced risk to human personnel,” officials wrote. “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 decision-making and situational awareness.”

These types of capabilities will enable commando teams to “punch far above their weight,” according to SOCOM.

“Using artificial intelligence to enhance warfighter performance and decision-making further enables new lightweight precision weapons and uncrewed systems to expand SOF’s lethal and non-lethal capabilities,” officials wrote.

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The commander-in-chief has said he expects Driscoll to be a “disruptor and change agent” at the Pentagon as secretary of the Army.

In a list of advance policy questions from senators ahead of his confirmation hearing Thursday, the nominee was asked if he believes the Army should exploit commercial off-the-shelf solutions to meet its requirements.

“Wherever possible, and as required by Federal Acquisition Regulations, the Army should purchase non-development and COTS solutions to meet requirements. Some capabilities require the Army to undertake independent development, but many of the Army’s most pressing needs: small-unmanned aerial systems, counter-unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare systems, and communications gear have already been developed,” Driscoll wrote in his responses.

He noted that he’s worried about the ability of the U.S. industrial base to provide sufficient military stocks to fully support American warfighters.

“Additionally, our technological edge is shrinking. The Army needs to accelerate its modernization and better prepare our forces for the advances in drone and autonomous warfare the world has witnessed in Ukraine,” he wrote.

Driscoll suggested that the service’s test-and-evaluation requirements for non-developmental items would depend on the operational need and the urgency of the capabilities.

“Some commercial products and non-development items should move immediately into the field without testing or with minimal testing because the Army currently has no existing capability. In other situations, the Army can thoroughly test non-developmental and commercial items because the operational need is less dire,” he told lawmakers.

He noted that if confirmed, he will evaluate the service’s ability to test and evaluate software and other tools that require “rapid transition.”

Driscoll, an Army veteran, was recently a senior adviser to JD Vance, who’s now serving as Trump’s vice president. He also worked in venture capital and private equity.

“As a former Soldier, Investor, and Political Advisor, Dan brings a powerful combination of experiences to serve as a disruptor and change agent. Dan graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in three years to join the fight with the U.S. Army. After completing U.S. Army Ranger school, Dan deployed with the 10th Mountain Division as a Cavalry Scout Platoon Leader in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in December. “Dan will be a fearless and relentless fighter for America’s Soldiers and the America First agenda.”

A full Senate confirmation vote for Driscoll hasn’t been scheduled, but he’s expected to get the thumbs up from lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Trump has nominated John Phelan, a businessman and co-founder of MSD Capital, to be secretary of the Navy and Troy Meink, a senior leader at the National Reconnaissance Office to serve as secretary of the Air Force. Their confirmation hearings haven’t been scheduled.

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In the middle of establishing a Marine Air Traffic Control Mobile Team, the small unit was forced into defensive positions to protect its area. As the old adage goes: Every Marine a rifleman.

Fending off three “red cells,” the unit was able to defend its area and successfully establish communications for those in the Aviation Ground Support Operation Center who perform combat engineering, logistical support and airfield operations.

In a future operating environment, such as the island chains in the Pacific, smaller, more dispersed units will be tasked with defending their areas while establishing communications nodes to enable operations for the air wing.

Such was the scenario at the Lightning Strike, an exercise that took place in October at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that sought to test the communications squadron in Marine Air Control Group 38’s ability to establish 15 communications nodes, as opposed to the eight nodes they were responsible for in the past – in addition to meeting the mission-essential tasks of the unit.

Much like the rest of the military, the Marine Corps is evolving the way it operates as part of an overall shift from 20 years of counterinsurgency operations to so-called great power competition. The National Defense Strategy names China as the “pacing threat,” and with that, the armed forces must alter how they are structured to counter a sophisticated military in a complicated region that is dominated by vast seas, enormous distances and numerous islands.

As part of the Marine Corps’ Force Design and its commandant’s planning guidance efforts, the Corps’ wings are shifting from mostly static bases to launch aircraft, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a hub-spoke-node model moving forward. This means forces will be spread out and dispersed across the battlespace, likely on several islands, and as a result, the control group — which is responsible for establishing communications and command and control capabilities for aviation elements in the field — must alter its operating concept to support these dispersed air units as well.

Lightning Strike “also had to be evolving the comm squadron to support the Marine Aircraft Wing, based off the way the Marine Aircraft Wing is being employed in support of Force Design 2030. If the wing is now being employed more for a hub, spoke and node model, and more distributed, then the comm squadron has to be able to do that as well,” Lt. Col. Brian Kerg, commander of Marine Wing Comm Squadron 38, said in an interview.

Officials explained that Lightning Strike was a way for the unit to signal to the commandant that it understood the planning guidance and force design.

The exercise sought to examine, with current programs of record and tables of equipment, if the comm squadron could support the communications the wing demands. Many of the legacy programs of record are not only clunky to drag around the battlefield — such as VSAT Larges that are vehicle-towed — but also can take a while to set up, tear down, establish communications and have limited throughput. As part of the exercises, forces were given several pieces of commercial off-the-shelf equipment to augment the programs of record that are not only more mobile but have several orders of magnitude more throughput, such as Starshield and Kymeta terminals, and also provide diversity of transport, a key tenet for future warfare if systems are jammed or blocked by the enemy.

“The way [the comm squadron’s] table of organization and equipment was written was not for that type of employment concept,” Col. Jason Quinter, commander of Control Group 38, said in an interview, regarding the legacy model for deploying. “What the squadron commander, Lt. Col. Kerg, is trying to figure out is: Do they have enough capacity to support the entire wing? … They’re spread out in 15 separate locations right now and they’re maxing out their equipment and their people to see if they can pull that off.”

Quinter believes the right mix of capabilities won’t necessarily be a major issue. Instead, he’s concerned with capacity, especially given the unit won’t be given more personnel but will be spread out more to establish 15 nodes, which means smaller units in the field.

“I’m pretty confident they have the right capability. Capacity is probably going to be the more important question … do they have enough people? Is the squadron big enough to be able to do that? I don’t know what the answer will be,” he said.

Testing comms Marines

The 2024 iteration marked the second of Lightning Strike, albeit a significantly larger one. Officials noted this year’s event was a slow build-up throughout the two weeks, described as a crawl, walk, run format.

Marines began the initial stages of the exercise using primarily legacy communications systems and adding more advanced systems including the commercial capabilities as the event progressed.

“That’s kind of the scenario that we painted was we didn’t have the Starshields and the COTS terminals in the first three days. We got up on services, we became [fully operational], and then we could tie in the COTS — both teaching the communicators how to do the old method but also the new method at the same time,” said Capt. Dakota Newsome, operations and executive officer for Bravo Company in Comm Squadron 38. “As we progress too, we realize that we need to have more throughput at some of these smaller sites. We used to send maybe single-channel radio out on some of these sites and that’s how they would have the feedback. But now, since we have these COTS terminals that we can start dropping and start enabling that NIPR, SIPR services at the lowest warfighter, like at the edge, like those edge devices can actually C2 back all the way to the” Tactical Air Command Center.

The various organizations throughout the exercise begin at the largest, most static — the Marine Air Group headquarters — getting more and more austere all the way down to a four-Marine team at the forward arming and refueling points with just a single-channel radio that can provide refuel aircraft in the field.

Establishing the 15 nodes not only provides more diversity of transport and more communications options, but, officials explained, it also allows for more purpose-built comms units.

“It also allows us to send out more nodes that do specific functions,” said Capt. Hipolito Ozuna, S3 alpha operations. “So everyone performs a specific function. What we do is we enable more of those specific functions to be able to be employed through our communication system. We’re able to essentially create more task-purpose nodes throughout” the event.

As part of force design and the changes within the Corps, the service is getting more organized comms platoons. In the past, when they would deploy, a unit wouldn’t necessarily know who they were getting, they just needed bodies and ranks without knowing what those people’s specialties were, officials said.

Now they have actual job titles for the platoons such as SATCOM operator or S6, for example, meaning the units are more task-purposed.

Events such as Lightning Strike allow these communications personnel to practice some of the skills they need to perform where they traditionally might not get many opportunities for such training.

“Our unit usually doesn’t do this type of stuff. In my MOS, for the last couple years, we sit in like a [combat operations center] and just pass basic information. This is a lot more upscale and it’s a lot of good training for my junior Marines. They haven’t gotten this type of training yet, which is good for them, whether it be passing, hey we need this patrol to go out with this bunch of people, rifles, whatever it may be, it’s good for them to be able to get that training now, so in case of a war to break out, we’re able to have them not on their toes, they’re kind of more relaxed and they understand. They’re very calm with the way they pass their traffic,” said Sgt. Brandon Froio, transmission systems operator supervisor. “I like this personally for my juniors because it’s high stress and being able to put them on their toes now, instead of when we’re out there actually in a fight that they’re going to screw up out there, I’d rather them screw up here and get the training they need to be able to go out there and be like, okay this is nothing. I’ve already done this for x amount of times, I got this, this is no problem.”

Another key aspect is the exercise provided an opportunity for Marines to test their military skills, defending their area to set up communications against an opposing force trying to contest them.

“We’re not just teaching the communicators how to communicate, but also how to do those mil skills. Right now, for example, they do have a recon patrol out, there is an enemy patrol en route here and they just got issued an order to actually go interdict that recon patrol. Not just understanding how to communicate, but also like, ‘Hey, there’s an enemy threat out there,’” Newsome said.  

In line with the tenets of force design, the expansion of 15 nodes and smaller teams will help enable the Corps as the so-called “stand-in” force, a vision the Corps has of being the forward presence for the joint force in theater as the eyes and ears. This means that Marines must be more professional and capable in these smaller teams to enable those comms while fighting off the enemy — something Lightning Strike allows them to hone.

‘Game-changing’ equipment

Officials explained that the unit was able to successfully go from eight to 15 nodes providing communications over a geographically dispersed area — seven nodes at Miramar, seven at Camp Pendleton over 30 miles away and a node at the unit’s headquarters.

Such an operational concept will be crucial not just for efforts the Corps has underway, but also for larger efforts spurred on by the Pentagon, such as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, which envisions how systems across the entire battlespace from all the services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically networked to provide the right data to commanders, faster. The word “combined” in the parlance of CJADC2, refers to bringing foreign partners into the mix.

“The short version on that is how can the DOD focus on every sensor to every shooter? That’s a great tagline and that’s the desire, that’s the outcome, but that overshadows or overlooks the architecture in the middle that allows every sensor to talk to every shooter, and that’s a big ask. Now you’re looking at Marines like these figuring out how that actually works and not just our communications networks we already have, but tying more sensors into that architecture and add that Marine Air Wing in particular, we have increasingly more and more sensors that allow for aviation command and control and control of aircraft and the content of the functions of marine aviation,” Kerg said. “You have some that are programs of record, you have some that are commercial off-the-shelf and they’re coming at a faster and faster pace and you have some that are experimental.

Kerg continued: “We’re putting an even greater load on the network … If we’re not managing [everything] correctly, then you may get a track, but it might not be target quality or you may not get a track at all. That’s where this all fits in, connecting every sensor to every shooter and our Marines managing the network in an exercise like Lightning Strike is what allows the MAW commander to fight that way … and to be able to support Force Design 2030, which allows us to fit our will with respect to the National Defense Strategy.”

Marine Air Control Group 38 is at the forefront of helping the Corps experiment with CJADC2 concepts, even constructing a CJADC2 lab. In fact, Quinter, who previously served on the Joint Staff’s J6 team when it was developing the overarching concept for CJADC2, wrote the concept paper for Project Dynamis, which ended up being adopted as the Corps’ approach to CJADC2.

“We’ve created our own JADC2 lab and we are experimenting at the speed of funding. Basically, we don’t have extra funding. Essentially, leveraging relationships and the people I’ve met over the last three years since I’ve been working on this and spending a little bit of [operations and maintenance] dollars to get after some stuff,” Quinter said. “Mostly what we’re able to get after are things that are where the Marine Corps is caught up to that particular technology and we’re in a place where headquarters Marine Corps is helping us.”

By utilizing commercial off-the-shelf gear, the units are able to be not only faster and more nimble on the battlefield but also support greater comms capacity, an enabler for the Corps and the joint force.

“We’re taking the latest and greatest in technologies, Starshields and other COTS equipment, and incorporating into the formations to see how we can employ them to become a little more lethal and more capable as a force,” Ozuna said.

Others explained that to establish some of the sites, such as the Marines Aircraft Group headquarters, one of the largest, it initially took almost three days. But with Starshield, they were up in under 12 hours.

Officials have also in the past described capabilities such as proliferated low-Earth orbit satellite communications – such as Starlink – as game-changing technologies and said it’s possible the results from the exercise could help inform future procurement.

At the end of the exercise, Marine Air Control Group 38 leaders walked away confident that the unit can support the Marine Air Wing commander by providing 15 nodes and closing every sensor to every shooter. They also learned lessons about deploying the squadron as a whole, as opposed to sending detachments forward.

Overall, the forces learned new tactics and operating procedures that will likely be incorporated into operations in the future and used to help shape the next iteration of the exercise.

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The DIANA initiative, which was launched in 2022, was set up to boost cooperation on emerging technologies and foster a far-reaching innovation network. It’s particularly focused on supporting startups and other players in the high-tech sector that are working on dual-use technologies.

The number of related tech accelerator sites across the multinational network will jump from 11 to 23, and the number of test centers will increase from 90 to 182, the alliance announced Thursday. New hubs are expected to come online in the coming months.

After the expansion — which is intended to enhance the alliance’s capacity to support companies and other participants as they develop their tech — there will be DIANA locations in 28 nations.

“They will focus on solving some of our biggest defense and security challenges and sharpening our technological edge in areas ranging from artificial intelligence and cyber to 5G, hypersonics, and autonomous systems,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels Thursday, according to a press release.

NATO picked the first DIANA cohort late last year, selecting 44 organizations out of more than 1,300 applicants after an evaluation of their proposals. They were tasked with addressing challenges related to undersea sensing and surveillance, secure information-sharing and energy resilience. Each firm was expected to receive 100,000 euros to help pay for expenses as they develop their solutions.

“I think it’s a really interesting example of how you can use an organization like NATO to reach out beyond the traditional defense sector,” a senior NATO official told reporters in December during a Defense Writers Group meeting in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They will now be working with DIANA’s mentors to really develop their projects,” the official said. “That’s the first time around. And the whole system is set up in a way that is very dynamic. And so it’s going to be learning from this first cohort of innovators and refining every year … The system is built in a way that we will adjust and upgrade and innovate with every single cohort.”

Finland — which officially joined NATO last year after the country applied for membership following Russia’s 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine — will host an accelerator site and two test centers, the nation’s Ministry of Defence announced Thursday. Sweden — which also sought to join the alliance following the Russian invasion — officially became the newest member of NATO last week, opening up opportunities for Swedish companies to participate in DIANA.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland will set up an accelerator in Otaniemi in collaboration with Aalto University and the University of Helsinki, which will initially focus on next-generation communications as well as quantum tech. The new test centers — which will be located at the University of Oulu and the Otaniemi office of VTT — will be geared toward cyber-secure communications, quantum, space and 6G network technologies, according to a release.

“Digital communications systems play a vital role in modern warfare. Investing in different kinds of test environments and pursuing international research and development cooperation are central to verifying the military usability of new technologies. We have a high level of expertise and a tradition of long-term investment in communication network and quantum technologies. Finland’s active involvement in DIANA opens up new opportunities, reinforces the technological and industrial base of Finland’s defense and improves the security of the Alliance through national top expertise,” Finland’s Minister of Defense Antti Häkkänen said in a statement.

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The capabilities are being modernized with NSA cryptographic standards, which the agency is mandating across the Department of Defense.

Marine Corps System Command has already fielded over 4,000 of the platforms since October 2023, with tentative plans to complete fielding of new radios and upgrading existing systems in fiscal 2025, according to a spokesperson.

The tools will be issued to units throughout the Marine Air Ground Task Force and supporting organizations. The spokesperson said the technologies will initially be fielded according to current tables of equipment reflected in the Total Force Structure Management System. Replacement is being prioritized for units that possess radios that can’t accommodate required updates.

Software-defined capabilities allow for them to be rapidly updated, enabling forces to keep pace with current threats.

“The closest analogy to our current transition in radio technology is akin to moving from the era of flip phones to the advanced world of smartphones,” Richard Sessions, program manager for Communications Systems, said in a statement. “In the past, we were limited to purchasing radios with fixed capabilities and had to replace them with newer models as technology evolved. Now, we’re shifting towards acquiring highly adaptable hardware radios that are not just modular but also capable of supporting new waveforms, marking a significant milestone in our communication capabilities.”

Moreover, the Marines say that not making these updates would result in the systems becoming obsolete in the future.

“These systems offer upgrades to current tactical radios operating in a broad range of the ground and air communication spectrum,” the spokesperson said. “The flexibility offered by software defined radios allow easier upgrades through product improvements and hosting of a wider range of capabilities. These radios now offer enhanced situational awareness, communications network resiliency, improved size, weight, and power attributes, and increase overall effectiveness.”

According to the Corps, these upgrades are also in accordance with Force Design, the service’s broad modernization effort to ensure it stays ahead of rapidly evolving threats.

Marines need redundant systems that have multiple paths for communication in the event they are jammed or are operating in a congested signal environment, which is anticipated in future conflicts against sophisticated adversaries. Multi-channel, software-defined systems are expected to enable the flexibility and redundancy required for dealing with those types of challenges.

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So-called blue force tracking allows units to keep tabs on the whereabouts of other friendly forces on the battlefield for command and control.

Project manager for mission command within the Army’s program executive office for command, control and communications-tactical released the request for information Nov. 16. It asks vendors to describe recent experience within the last three years and capabilities providing certain requirements for LEO.

The effort is part of the Army’s network modernization efforts as it moves to improve communications both within the tactical sphere and all the way back to the enterprise level. The service has been undergoing a multiyear effort it describes as the unified network, which merges the prior tactical and enterprise instantiations into a singular entity in which troops can access data all over the world regardless of theater or echelon.

The next-generation blue-force tracker capability, called Mounted Mission Command-Transport, will provide improved situational awareness and command-and-control message delivery as well as satellite communication capabilities by increasing resiliency and integrating additional communications pathways, according to the Army. That program is scheduled for low-rate initial production in fiscal 2025 and full-rate production in fiscal 2026.

The RFI is part of market research the Army is conducting to help inform possible technical advances in the commercial sector and integration with LEO capabilities. The notice will cover modules inside the new MMC-T transceivers as well as commercial constellations readiness that could support blue-force tracker transport as part of the overall Mounted Mission Command program.

Specific characteristics highlighted in the notice include, among others, user terminal size options, can terminals operate on the move, do they include proprietary software and can terminals support multiple constellations.

The Army wants resiliency when it comes to position, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities. The service desires tech that doesn’t rely on GPS for the ground terminal to function, the RFI noted.

Responses are due Dec. 22.

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INDUS-X, which was officially launched with great fanfare in June at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is a new collaboration effort focused on more closely linking the national innovation bases of the two countries and facilitating the joint pursuit of emerging technologies with military applications. In particular, it aims to accelerate the U.S. and Indian militaries’ acquisition of commercial tech and assist startups.

On Tuesday, senior officials from the Pentagon and the Indian Ministry of Defence held the first virtual meeting of the partnership’s Senior Advisory Group. It was led by DIU Director Doug Beck, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia Lindsey Ford and Anurag Bajpai, India’s joint secretary for defence industries promotion, according to DOD spokesperson Lt. Col. Martin Meiners.

“Participants discussed ongoing initiatives to drive innovation and equip both countries’ armed forces with the capabilities they need to defend a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Meiners said in a statement.

“DIU and iDEX announced topics for the first two joint challenges, focused on undersea communication and maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Aligned with the Roadmap for U.S.-India Defense Industrial Cooperation, the challenges provide for start-ups in both countries to develop technological solutions for shared defense challenges, culminating in financial awards for the most promising technology along with potential procurement opportunities,” he said.

The challenges will open later this month for participation from startups, according to Meiners.

“In addition to the work that we’re doing on the gov-to-gov side, the reality is a lot of where the real transformational opportunities are taking place right now when it comes to technology cooperation is in our respective private sectors, where both the United States and India are really leading in terms of innovation. So we’re looking at ways as a Defense Department that we can go beyond just the routine gov-to-gov cooperation and really bring some of the cutting-edge commercial and dual-use technologies being developed on both sides more rapidly into our respective systems,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters during a background briefing in June prior to the INDUS-X kickoff.

ISR, undersea domain awareness, munitions, air combat systems, mobility and logistics are areas where the two nations are looking to fast-track co-development and co-production efforts. Other areas of cooperation could include AI, space, cyber, quantum and additive manufacturing, according to officials.

Last week, Pennsylvania State University and IIT Kanpur organized an online meeting of U.S. and Indian officials, members of industry and academia to discuss innovation ecosystems related to “emerging domains” such as artificial intelligence, space and cyber, Meiners noted in his statement Tuesday.

“Obviously AI and its applications for defense institutions and for militaries is something that’s certainly evolving very quickly,” a senior U.S. defense official told DefenseScoop during the briefing in June to preview the INDUS-X launch. “I think the initial conversations are very focused on how we see the applicability of artificial intelligence for our respective defense institutions and militaries [and] what do we do to promote responsible and transparent use of that technology in the future? And that includes discussing everything from how these technologies could be employed on the battlefield and things that are far more mundane — like how do you use artificial intelligence in a lot of the backend processes that you have in bureaucracies that are as large as ours?”

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The State Department has submitted a proposal on behalf of the U.S. government to the Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (CITEL) asking to open up the 3300-3400 MHz band of the spectrum to 5G mobile services within the Americas, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder announced Monday during a press briefing. The regional group will debate and rule on the proposal at its upcoming meeting in May.

“By State Department submitting this proposal, the U.S. government is seeking to protect critical operations and capabilities while also [allowing] use of the 3300-to-3400 megaband, or megahertz band, for 5G mobile services by countries that wish to do so,” Ryder said.

The piece of the spectrum up for debate is a mid-band radio frequency, which ranges from 600 MHZ to 3.5 GHz. While the qualities of the mid-band spectrum are ideal for 5G mobile services, the Pentagon and other government agencies already use many of the frequencies in the mid-band for their own capabilities. 

Which technologies use specific frequencies of the spectrum are often classified, but the U.S. military broadly uses the mid-band spectrum — including the 3300-3400 MHz band discussed in the State Department’s proposal — for both communications and radar capabilities, said Joseph Kirschbaum, director of defense capabilities and management at the Government Accountability Office.

“Over time, DOD has been trying to figure out which systems they might be retiring that might — in turn — open up the potential for shared spectrum use. But for capabilities that aren’t going away anytime soon, and as more of the mid- and high-bands are in question due to 5G and whatever is coming, it is harder for DOD to ensure that what they do use is free from congestion,” Kirschbaum wrote in an email to DefenseScoop.

The United States’ proposal to CITEL includes a number of protections that safeguard the Pentagon’s assets already using this portion of the spectrum. These include a requirement that “protects global radiolocation service above other radio services in the 3300-3400 MHz band in the Americas region, thus requiring other commercial users in the band to protect global radiolocation operations,” a Defense Department spokesperson told DefenseScoop in an email. 

In addition, the proposal “ensures that countries in the Americas region obtain agreement from neighboring countries before a 5G system is brought into use” and “requires additional studies on technical and operational measures to assist countries in the Americas region with the coordination of 5G and other commercial wireless technologies and DoD radar systems operating in neighboring countries,” the spokesperson wrote.

The growing demand for commercial and federal 5G services have sparked debate across the U.S. government on how to best allocate the electromagnetic spectrum between the government and service providers, or how to share it. The Defense Department is due to submit a study to Congress on the practicability of sharing portions of the spectrum at 3100-3450 MHz by the end of September.

If accepted by CITEL, the proposal would then be considered at the November 2023 World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC-23), a conference bringing together nations around the world to review and revise Radio Regulations, which govern the use of the radio frequency spectrum.

The proposal would permit countries in the Americas to adopt rules for 5G in this band and other wireless technologies if approved by WRC-23, the Pentagon spokesperson said. Within the United States, the proposal “does not prevent” U.S. spectrum regulators from adopting sharing solutions if they are determined feasible by the ongoing study, the spokesperson added.

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