A stated goal of Replicator, a signature project of Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, is to accelerate production and field thousands of “attritable autonomous” systems across multiple domains by August 2025 to help the U.S. armed forces counter China’s military buildup. The Defense Innovation Unit, which falls under the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), is supporting the effort.

Last week, the department announced that it had secured about $500 million for this fiscal year to move forward with tranche one, and it’s requesting an additional $500 million for fiscal 2025.

As DefenseScoop has previously reported, the first tranche includes kamikaze drones, unmanned surface vessels and counter-drone systems. Pentagon officials are already looking ahead at the second tranche, which is intended to help the services field additional platforms and supporting technologies such as command and control, autonomy and other software that are intended to boost the overall effectiveness and collaboration of these systems.

“One of the things that that has been underscored in this committee is that OSD-led efforts have a clear path to be fielded at scale, which is really the responsibility of the military services. Drones or other innovative capabilities just can’t be bought — they [also] need to be incorporated into the tactics and the procedures for how the military services prepare and fight … as well as being maintained and modernized,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing on Thursday.

She asked DOD acquisition leaders who were testifying whether there is sufficient rigor to ensure that efforts like Replicator and other OSD-spearheaded efforts have robust transition plans that include how the services are going to employ, field and maintain systems at scale.

“By asking the question, senator, you’re actually making a really, really important point. The services lead on fielding at scale and organize, train and equip. Not OSD — not OSD. And so what’s really, really important is much beyond the technology and the widget, is what we call DOTMILPF — the doctrine, the training, the operations. Otherwise, it just doesn’t really matter,” Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante replied.

To be successful, the services need to be ready to sustain capabilities that are cranked out in large numbers, he noted.

Doug Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief, has applauded the Replicator initiative for putting the service in a better position to accelerate its new LASSO program with the production of more Switchblade 600 drones, which are manufactured by AeroVironment.

During Wednesday’s hearing, he noted that Replicator is tightly coupled with an official Army program, which gives it a clear path for scaling.

Nickolas Guertin, the acquisition chief for the Department of the Navy, said the sea services are supportive of Replicator, but it’s not just a matter of scaling production.

“We actually brought two Navy and one Marine Corps projects to the first tranche of Replicator in partnership with OSD, and … that partnership is critical to fielding at scale,” he told lawmakers.  “One other aspect to that is when we’re looking at these kinds of initiatives, we want to make sure we carry forward the sustainability and support work to make sure that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, guardians can actually use this stuff in a reliable way when they need to in a fight.”

The Navy is pursuing multiple types of unmanned surface vessels via Replicator, including through a partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit via DIU’s Production-Ready, Inexpensive, Maritime Expeditionary (PRIME) commercial solutions opening. Contracts are expected to be awarded this summer.

Additionally, Anduril’s Wide-Area Infrared System for Persistent Surveillance (WISP) counter-drone technology was tapped for ramped-up production in association with efforts put forth by the Marine Corps’ Ground Based Air Defense program.

The 2024 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, which Congress passed in March, included a provision that requires the Pentagon to brief Congress on the concept of operations, updated spending profiles and requirements for sustaining each system — through fiscal 2029 — that’s been selected to receive Replicator funding.

In a call earlier this month, DOD officials acknowledged that the Pentagon has a lot more work to do now that funding has been secured for moving ahead with the first tranche.  

“That includes continuing to refine the concept of operation and employment for these capabilities; accelerating the experimentation timelines for individual capabilities, but also the collective portfolio to make sure that we are adequately testing and experimenting the mass effects that that we hope to achieve,” a senior defense official said during the background call with reporters.

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Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante hinted at follow-on efforts during an exchange with Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday regarding Defense Department initiatives to expedite the fielding of innovative technologies.

“The Air Force’s ARRW system is the only hypersonic weapon that the DOD has successfully tested so far. And yet the DOD currently has no plans to move the program forward. Why is that?” Banks asked.

“Let’s just say that there is a plan. It’s not something we can talk about in this open session. But we’d like to talk. We’d be happy to come over and brief you in a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility where classified information can be viewed and discussed],” LaPlante replied.

Additional funding for ARRW would breathe fresh life into a project that many thought would be coming to an end. The service’s fiscal 2024 budget request included about $150 million for research, development, test and evaluation for the system, but the documents suggested it would wrap up after that.

It’s unclear, based on LaPlante’s comments, if follow-on work for boost-glide systems would fall under the ARRW program or a new program with a different name.

Last year, after a test that was deemed unsuccessful, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the service was more committed to a different weapon known as the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) — an air-breathing system that will use a scramjet engine for propulsion.

ARRW, developed by Lockheed Martin, is a boost-glide missile that uses a rocket motor to reach hypersonic speeds. The Air Force has launched the weapon from a B-52 bomber during testing.

The service had two ARRW tests slated for fiscal 2024, and one of them was conducted in October.

Hypersonic missiles are designed to fly faster than Mach 5, be highly maneuverable and have unpredictable flight paths, which would make it difficult for traditional air defense systems to intercept them. They are a top modernization priority for the Pentagon. The Air Force, Army and Navy are all pursuing different variants.

In December, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Andrew Hunter told DefenseScoop that the service hadn’t closed the door on further pursuit of boost-glide weapons.

“There are different approaches to delivering hypersonic capability. And we have not ruled out any of those approaches for the Air Force in the future,” he said in an interview.

However, Hunter didn’t disclose whether additional funding will be included for ARRW or follow-on work in the next budget submission.

“The rapid prototyping program is continuing [in fiscal 2024]. It’s been accomplishing flight tests, which has definitely been adding to our capabilities in the hypersonic realm. It adds to our understanding of … the capabilities that industry can provide, as it has provided under ARRW. And also adds to our ability to do test of hypersonic capabilities, which is really actually quite a key thing because the nature of hypersonic systems is they create a demand signal for a lot of new test capabilities, which we’ve been able to demonstrate with ARRW. And there will be more testing on ARRW in ’24,” he said.

More information about the fate of the program and other advanced weapons will be revealed when the service releases its fiscal 2025 budget request in the coming weeks.

“We don’t have anything additional to provide at this time,” an Air Force spokesperson told DefenseScoop Thursday in response to questions about LaPlante’s comments and future plans for ARRW.

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The Defense Department’s Chief Technology Officer and Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Doug Bush are set to meet with experts from AeroVironment at the facility while they are in California for the annual Reagan National Defense Forum.

AeroVironment produces a variety of uncrewed platforms, including small- and medium-sized unmanned aerial systems, robotic ground vehicles and loitering munitions like the Switchblade family of kamikaze drones.

U.S. Army units have been training with and employing AeroVironment UAS, and the service has purchased multiple variants of Switchblade systems, which are one-way attack drones that are designed to destroy their targets by crashing directly into them.

The Biden administration has also committed to arming Ukraine with hundreds of Switchblades to deploy against Russian forces, and it’s been considering a recent capabilities request that Israel submitted for assistance to defeat Hamas that includes 200 Switchblade 600s.

While sources confirmed to DefenseScoop on Tuesday that the three senior Pentagon officials would be engaging with AeroVironment staff at the Simi Valley plant, they would not speak to the nature of this visit — or verify what’s on the discussion agenda. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

Shyu, LaPlante and Bush are expected to meet with other DOD technology providers while on the West Coast, as well.

“We have no details to provide regarding possible senior leader engagements at this time,” a Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

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Current and former leaders from the three nations broadly discussed how and why they’re pursuing this and other joint collaboration on unmanned aerial systems and other emerging combat technologies at the ComDef 2023 conference, which took place nearby in Arlington, Virginia.

“The geo-strategic circumstances in the Indo-Pacific are changing more rapidly than we anticipated even a few years ago. And that has meant that we have had to do more together — more with the U.S. as our major military ally — then we’ll have other partnerships in the region, particularly with countries like Japan. And so, what’s happening is as China continues to rise, the region is adjusting to that. It’s adjusting to the economic power of China and it’s adjusting to the military power of China,” Australia’s former Ambassador to the U.S. Arthur Sinodinos said at the event. 

Each of the nations share unique and expanding military partnerships with one another, which are largely based on and influenced by their common interests in the Indo-Pacific region. For instance, four prototype, medium and large U.S. Navy drones recently transited the Pacific Ocean from their homeport in California to 7th Fleet headquarters in Japan — integrating with other platforms and Japan-based units, along the way — as part of the Integrated Battle Problem 23.2 exercise.

In a new fact sheet detailing many elements of America’s and Australia’s envisioned “next-generation of innovation and partnership,” officials confirmed that the allies “welcomed additional efforts to increase trilateral cooperation with Japan, including Australia’s future participation for the first time in the YAMA SAKURA exercise in 2023 and KEEN EDGE exercise in 2024, both in Japan.” They also noted that they’re now considering other new trilateral activities with the Japanese military specifically associated with unmanned aerial systems.

“Our cooperation will enhance interoperability and accelerate technology transfer in the rapidly emerging field of collaborative combat aircraft and autonomy,” officials wrote.

They also further spotlighted the U.S. and Australia’s commitment to jointly develop and operate collaborative combat aircraft, also known as CCA drones.

Over the next five years, the U.S. Air Force plans to spend more than $6 billion on its CCA initiatives as it pursues robotic wingmen for next-gen fighter jets and other manned aircraft. And it’s working with the Navy to ensure there’s connection and a common architecture with the sea service’s CCA efforts. Australia is also paving the way for its own robo-jets, and informing America’s quest.

In response to questions from DefenseScoop on Wednesday, White House and Pentagon officials did not provide further information about what the deepened, trilateral cooperation on drones might entail — or if it would all unfold via the U.S. military’s existing CCA projects.

“Although we have no additional details or information to provide at this time, we look forward to future trilateral and bilateral cooperation with our Australian and Japanese allies — and continuing to ensure the development of critical technologies and capabilities that support our shared security objectives,” Defense Department spokesperson Jeff Jurgensen told DefenseScoop.

During his keynote at ComDef 2023, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante told the audience to expect further international discussions and agreements promoting technology acceleration and integration between the United States and its partners in the months to come.

“You’re going to see more of those — whether it’s with Japan, whether it’s with Australia or with European countries — you’re going to see more co-production, co-development and co-sustainment,” he said. 

In a separate keynote at the event, Kyosuke Matsumoto — director general for the Department of Technology Strategy, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency that’s under Japan’s Ministry of Defense — also noted that his nation aims to advance cooperation with the United States regarding research and development for drones. A focus is particularly being placed on coordinating communications, data flows and sensors. 

“All systems need to be interoperable,” he said.

Updated on Oct. 26, 2023 at 2:10 PM: This story has been updated to include comments from Defense Department spokesperson Jeff Jurgensen.

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Details of the aid were included in a fact sheet about U.S.-Australian bilateral cooperation that was released Wednesday by the White House while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Washington to meet with President Biden and attend an official state dinner.

“As part of our continuing, coordinated actions to assist Ukraine, Australia announced its intention to provide $13 million in military support to Ukraine,” according to the fact sheet. That includes 3D printers “which can be deployed near the frontlines with a primary focus on the rapid production of critical repair parts for a variety of armored platforms,” it noted.

Counter-drone equipment, de-mining equipment, and an ultra-lightweight X-ray unit that provides high-quality imaging for medical care are also part of the package.

The United States has already provided seven large 3D printers to Kyiv among a slew of other military assistance, according to U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante.

“Logistics really matters, sustaining really matters. And we are doing that right now with Ukrainians and learning a lot. Because it’s interesting what you have to do when you can’t send your own U.S. citizens into the country to keep the equipment going. We have to do it by tele-maintenance, we have to do it other ways. And of course, Ukrainians are going wild on advanced manufacturing, whether it’s additive or subtractive manufacturing. We’ve given them … seven industrial-size 3D printers,” he said Wednesday during remarks at the ComDef 2023 conference in Arlington, Virginia.

LaPlante has previously said the systems are about the size of a U-Haul truck.

“We’re not talking boutique little 3D printers. We’re talking gigantic industrial-size 3D printers and the technical data packages — which is the intellectual property, the detailed designs for them to print stuff. So, we’re learning so much and we also will have to think about it when we design and develop our systems,” he said at ComDef.

The seven systems that the U.S. is providing through its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding are WarpSPEE3D printers manufactured by SPEE3D, which has its global headquarters in Australia and additional locations in the United States and Europe, according to the company.

The technology can build parts that weigh up to 40 kilograms and with a diameter of up to 1 meter by 700 millimeters high, according to a production description.

Members of the firm traveled to Poland to train Ukrainian military personnel on how to operate those systems in the field, the company said in an Oct. 4 release.

Brandi Vincent contributed reporting from the ComDef 2023 conference.

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The newly delivered equipment will allow Ukraine to up its game with additive manufacturing to generate spare parts for its battlefield forces, Pentagon acquisition chief William LaPlante said Friday during a think tank event in Washington.

The United States and other nations have been supplying Kyiv with vehicles, drones and a slew of other weapons and technologies since Russia invaded last year.

“Ukrainians were initially 3D printing their own parts before they even had the tech data packages. And as [Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment] Chris Lowman says, ‘When your country is under existential attack, intellectual property laws are just mildly interesting.’ So, but we’ve cleaned that up, we’ve gotten them — with other countries — gotten them all the tech data packages,” LaPlante said at the Center for a New American Security.

“Then we just finally last month we got them these industrial-size 3D printers into country. And this last week, we trained them on it … I mean, we’re talking like a truck size that the Ukrainians have finished training on. It’s going right in theater and they’re printing all their repair parts. You know, I mean, it’s just remarkable what they’re doing and it’s changing the ballgame, of course,” he said.

The 3D printer equipment is about the size of a U-Haul, according to LaPlante.

During a panel earlier this week at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber conference, LaPlante highlighted additive manufacturing as a technology that excites him because of the opportunities it provides for production and sustainment.

“Additive manufacturing and 3D printing is real, and it’s real as a capability for us to use on our weapon systems. That was not the case 10 years ago. People were talking about it but frankly it wasn’t credible, it was boutique. That’s not true anymore,” he said, noting that the tech is being used in industry to produce parts for things like aircraft engines and cars.

“What’s interesting about it is not just that you can do things fast, you can [also] produce things that we could not produce otherwise. And what’s happening of course and we’re seeing it in Ukraine is it’s also changing how sustainment is done. Ukrainians right as we speak are 3D printing parts and firing pins for the M777s [howitzers] and getting them right back into the fight,” LaPlante said. “And yes, we made sure the Ukrainians had the proper IP. Because it was just mildly interesting to them … about having the proper IP when they were at war. But yes, they’re doing it properly.”

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The vision for Replicator was unveiled last month by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. But there are questions as to whether vendors can produce enough systems to meet her goals.

“It depends what is actually selected. And I think that one of the criteria of whatever the approach that’s gone through should look … at the production capacity — and not just the capacity, but how close we are to production,” Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante told reporters Tuesday during a meeting at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber conference.

“There are some capabilities that, you know, some things that can go into production very fast,” he said. “I’m not … ruling out one [type of system] or the other, but you should look at that as well. And as you formulate the program … you look at the state of the technology, you look at the simplicity or the complexity of it, you look at the ability to produce it and in what numbers. And then the key thing for me [is] the price point … Whatever the number is announced, what is it going to cost per round if you take away the non-recurring [cost]? Because that’s — all those are the things that matter. And so you look at all of them together in a systems approach, and you select the way forward.”

Hicks has said that Replicator, which is not an actual program of record, will leverage platforms across multiple warfighting domains that are “small, smart, cheap.”

“We think we got the production capability going. We have a lot of work going on [with these technologies] across the department. This is really about unifying those efforts and scaling them up,” according to Hicks.

The Pentagon is looking to work with a variety of vendors, LaPlante noted, including non-traditional contractors, startups, small businesses and academia.

“We need everybody,” he said.

However, the Pentagon needs to send strong demand signals if it wants to attract innovators.

“If I’m a business and I want to invest in something that may make a line of business enduring, I have to have a market, I have to see a market there. That’s what is very important. What is the market in the DOD? It’s the warfighter or it’s the suppliers. That’s the market. So I have to come up with something that is compelling for that marketplace and that there’s a business case that it will go into some degree of production,” LaPlante said.

“We have to help people understand the market that we need. And then the second thing is we have to fund the market. Okay. That’s why I say in there all the time: production, production, production. If I’m an investor or a startup, I want to see where is this thing gonna go to scale? Is it just a prototype that’s going to be done? That’s why when [Air Force Secretary] Mr. [Frank] Kendall talks about CCA [drones] or the deputy talks about Replicator, do you notice they say the numbers? Because if I’m out there, I want to see that,” he added.

CCAs, or “collaborative combat aircraft,” are unmanned systems enabled by artificial intelligence that both the Air Force and Navy are pursuing to serve as robotic wingmen for manned fighter jets and to perform other missions.

Kendall has stated that the Air Force is planning for 1,000 CCAs. The service aims to spend more than $6 billion on the program and related projects over the next five years.

Navy officials have said they’d like the sea service and the Air Force to be able to control each other’s drones depending on operational needs.

During a meeting with reporters at the AFA conference on Monday, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Andrew Hunter suggested the departments could work together on potential requirements and acquisition strategies for collaborative combat aircraft.

“I’ve heard the Navy say that we’re a little ahead of them on some of that, which is an assessment I would agree with. But in terms of cooperation, absolutely, absolutely. I think what we have found, as we’ve worked with our Navy colleagues on CCA is there’s a tremendous opportunity for us to work together and move. We’re both extremely interested in doing so. And we can’t probably proceed at the pace that we need to proceed at and intend to proceed at without leveraging some of their investment, which they’ve been generous in saying that they’re very happy to work with us. And vice versa. I think they can substantially accelerate the progress and pace of their efforts by leveraging some of what we’ve done,” Hunter said.

On Tuesday, DefenseScoop asked LaPlante what his office plans to do to prevent the services’ CCA efforts from going off the rails.

“Ultimately, for everything we try to make sure that the acquisition strategies are solid. And I work with my component acquisition executives to do that. So in this case it would be Mr. Hunter, and I have complete confidence in Mr. Hunter in cost, schedule and performance,” LaPlante said.

He noted that his A&S office conducts integrated acquisition program reviews for a variety of projects.

“There’s three legs to the process,” he explained. “There’s acquisition, there’s requirements and then there’s funding. Okay. What we’ve done in these in these reviews is we have the Joint Staff validate requirements. For all of these, let’s say unmanned systems, including CCA, we then take more or less the same set of programs and look at them across acquisition, look at them and say what’s missing, and look at things like interoperability, data links, commonalities that are good and not — and make sure that … we’ve thought through the kill chain across the services.”

He continued: “And so there, then we find things like, oh, we need … another common waveform that’ll work between CCA and something else. That’s where it comes out. And then we’ll make that happen. So that’s sort of how we do that job. We want the innovation and the uniqueness of the services, but we want the benefit of the kill chain and the joint fighting approach.”

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Via RDER, the Defense Department is funding various technology prototypes — that notably fill capability gaps identified by combatant commanders, the Joint Staff and the services — at an accelerated pace. The Pentagon is investing hundreds of millions to back the nascent effort, with the ultimate aim of fielding new tech that can meet the needs of military personnel much faster than it notoriously has.

“We’re taking the lessons learned from [the war in] Ukraine and we are incorporating that into our strategy in the next highly contested fight. One of the things that we have been doing, which we don’t talk about too much publicly, is incorporating those lessons in terms of what we need to drive in terms of the technology and how we can leverage the commercial side. And one of the key things that we’re doing is a Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve,” Shyu said during a panel at the Aspen Security Summit.

She explained that the RDER team recently planned out a precise scenario chosen by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, then worked closely with the Joint Staff and combatant commanders to determine the specific capabilities that would be required to fight in that particular scenario. 

Officials then pinpointed companies that were delivering such technologies that were “already at a prototype stage” and ripe for experimentation, and hosted an industry day to connect the businesses with representatives from all parts of the military. Shyu said more than 500 people attended the event.

The RDER team and their military stakeholders selected some of the top solutions from there. “And in the May time frame, we leveraged the National Guard to literally conduct a week-long experimentation, and we provided feedback to the small companies” regarding their products, she explained.

“All that equipment is going to a Northern Edge exercise,” Shyu continued. And “from that exercise, this fall” her team will create a list of all the top technologies demonstrated that make sense for expedited fielding.

Northern Edge is a massive event that happens twice a year — usually around Alaska — where assets and service members from across the military branches operate in a realistic threat environment. The second event in the 2023 series, which is ongoing and will wrap up July 21, marks the first time it’s unfolding in other areas around the Pacific region. Shyu did not detail which of the exercises this year involved RDER prototype deployments.

Still, at the Aspen summit she also confirmed that she’s been working with Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante to generate “a number of rapid acceleration processes” as pathways to procure and fully field the best of the tech.

Shyu did not specify any of the technology focus areas the prototypes fit into, but in the past she has pointed to using RDER for resilient communications, joint command and control, contested logistics and “asymmetric” military capabilities.

“There’s one [prototype that a Marine recently] tested out. He said, ‘This is fantastic. I absolutely need this. I’m going to deploy.’ … He wouldn’t give us back the prototype. He literally took it and deployed with it. So that tells me that it’s great. There’s a demand signal for the product,” Shyu said. 

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The move comes as U.S. leaders are concerned about the vulnerability of GPS systems to attack or interference. Potential adversaries such as China already have a variety of counterspace weapons that could degrade or disrupt GPS satellites and associated systems and impede U.S. military operations.

Changes to DOD Directive 4650.05, which went into effect Tuesday, “assign PNT Oversight Council responsibility for oversight of alternative sources of PNT, in accordance with Section 2279b of Title 10, United States Code,” per the updated document.

The new guidance also alters the leadership of the oversight council by elevating the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering to a co-chair position alongside the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Pentagon’s positioning, navigation and timing enterprise has three primary tasks, according to the department, including providing and protecting the effective use of military GPS and other PNT services by U.S. and allied forces globally; preventing the effective use of PNT services by adversaries in areas of military operations; and preserving civil GPS services to non-combatants outside areas of military operations.

The influential PNT Oversight Council “serves as the principal unified and integrated DoD governance body that ensures the DoD PNT Enterprise functions meet national objectives, consistent with national policy and guidance, and that the mutually supporting systems, standards, and specifications continue to evolve to address emerging threats,” the directive states. It also “supports the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution process by prioritizing PNT issues and recommending resourcing options.”

Its oversight functions now encompass PNT performance assessments, vulnerability identification and mitigation, architecture development, resource prioritization and implementation of “diverse alternative PNT information sources to complement GPS use,” among other responsibilities.

The focus on diverse alternative PNT info sources was not included in the list of primary council oversight functions in previous versions of DOD Directive 4650.05.

A wide range of senior DOD officials make up the PNT Oversight Council. In addition to the three co-chairs, its other voting members include the secretaries of the military departments; undersecretary of defense for policy; the Pentagon’s chief information officer; undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security; director of the National Security Agency; and the commanders of U.S. Space Command, Strategic Command, Northern Command and Cyber Command.

Non-voting participants include the Pentagon comptroller; director of operational test and evaluation; director of cost assessment and program evaluation; and the directors of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.

The elevation of the undersecretary for R&E — a role currently held by Heidi Shyu — to a co-chair position on the council comes as the Pentagon is pursuing a wide range of new and next-generation capabilities, including for PNT, to better position itself for a potential great power conflict.

For example, one of Shyu’s 14 “critical technology areas” for her directorate is quantum science.

“Quantum sensors promise the ability to provide unprecedented accuracy in position, navigation, and timing,” according to her critical tech list.

On the PNT council, the undersecretary for R&E provides oversight and guidance for Defense Department investment in PNT research and development and emerging capabilities, and “informs and influences PNT program requirements based on the results of the knowledge acquired through technology forecasting, effective modeling and simulation, prototyping and experimentation,” according to the directive.

The R&E chief also reviews and oversees positioning, navigation and timing “research, system engineering, and developmental test, evaluation, analysis, and vulnerability identification (including cybersecurity vulnerability and mitigation) processes across the Military Services through oversight and management of PNT research and development activities among the Service laboratories, DoD research organizations, industry, and academia,” per the directive.

Among the other co-chairs of the council, the undersecretary for A&S oversees the acquisition of DOD systems using or providing positioning, navigation and timing capabilities and related performance standards for PNT systems, while the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff identifies PNT operational requirements and presents them to the council, according to the directive.

Those positions are currently held by William LaPlante and Adm. Christopher Grady, respectively.

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The Pentagon requested $359 million for the RDER program in fiscal 2023 to kick off the technology sprints. For fiscal 2024, it is asking for $687 million.

Focus areas include resilient communication, joint command and control, contested logistics and what Shyu refers to as “asymmetric capabilities.”

The department has received hundreds of white papers from industry as companies seek to get in on the action.

But it remains to be seen how well the Defense Department will be able to shepherd promising technologies associated with the RDER effort across the “valley of death” — a term used by the defense acquisition community to describe how promising research-and-development products and prototypes often fail to move into production and fielding.

“I have worked very closely with my counterpart, [Undersecretary] Dr. Bill LaPlante on the acquisition and sustainment side, so the prototypes that’s demonstrated as part of the RDER activity, if it proves out the utility … then what we will do is figure out multiple pathways to be able to go to rapid transition [and] get it into the hands of warfighters as quickly as possible,” Shyu said Wednesday during a panel at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.

On the sidelines of the conference, DefenseScoop asked Shyu if she and other Pentagon leaders have specific timelines in mind for “rapid” fielding of RDER capabilities.

“It depends on what we’re testing out,” she said. “If it’s software, it could be much, much faster, right. But if it’s a piece of hardware, somebody’s built a prototype, now you need to ramp up production [and officials have to figure out] how do we rapidly field that and does this company have the ability to scale, right? So all of that has to be worked. It’s case by case and Bill LaPlante is working” on identifying acquisition pathways.

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