“This event is particularly special because it’s the first event of this caucus,” a congressional staffer told DefenseScoop on the condition of anonymity ahead of the meet-up.

The new group was originally launched in September 2024 by Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Two months after that [we sort of went] into a ‘lame duck’ Congress. So, the intent here is to essentially kick-start the caucus again — and to generate buzz there. We’re also going to be recognizing the new members [and use this as] a sort of recruiting tool for any prospective members who might want to join the caucus,” the staffer explained. 

The SDMC’s overarching mission is to promote defense investments and next-gen capabilities to deter and counter foreign adversaries. According to the staffer, an immediate topline goal for the lawmakers involved is to “get after” the process behind defense innovation.

“We as a government, as a military, need to move at the speed of relevance, which is to say, move at the speed of China. And with that comes an issue, not so much with a lack of innovation in our country — we have great innovators, but more so at the process that I guess disheartens innovators from staying within the defense industry,” they said. 

“So with this Congress, while still in its kind of nascent phases, I know it’s very important [for] Sen. Cramer to get after the processes, the bureaucracy … and kind of unleash that innovative spirit and mindset. That would be probably the biggest priority right now,” the staffer added. 

They confirmed that Cramer will not be in attendance on Wednesday, as he’s recovering in Bismarck, North Dakota, after slipping on ice and hitting his head over the weekend. He’s currently under doctor’s orders not to fly. 

“The senator’s bummed he’s missing it,” the staffer said, noting that he’ll be in close contact with co-chair Sen. Kelly about how it all goes.

DefenseScoop viewed a list of the more than 200 representatives from both chambers of Congress, different-sized companies and the Defense Department who RSVP’d to participate in person. Lawmakers from the Democratic, Republican and Independent parties — and notably several representing the House Defense Modernization Caucus — are expected to join the event.

Gen. James Rainey, who leads Army Futures Command, and Defense Innovation Unit Director Doug Beck were invited as “special guests” and will each provide remarks.

Members of Beck’s team told DefenseScoop ahead of the reception that he’s going to share new details about DIU’s high-level modernization aims for the next few years. Beck’s also likely going to spotlight some big-picture impacts, including that DIU has awarded nearly 550 prototype awards worth $2.4 billion — primarily to nontraditional vendors — to date.

On Wednesday, a second congressional staffer familiar with the plans also emphasized the dual role of caucuses on Capitol Hill.

“A lot of times caucuses are meant to be these public events that highlight good ideas, highlight good changes that can be made. And it’s a bit of a PR, it’s a PR platform. And then there’s the second part of caucuses that are meant to be idea factories — and so they can feed into the actual legislative work that’s going to get done in an NDAA. Obviously, caucuses are not official government organizations. So whatever comes out of this is meant to then be built into the work that we do in NDAA and other legislative vehicles,” they told DefenseScoop, referring to the annual policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

Both staffers suggested that moving forward, members of the new Senate caucus are keen to host more engagements that are open to the public. However, “what exactly that forum would be in the public space is still kind of being worked out at the staff level,” one told DefenseScoop.

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The two services have discussed how to keep their sixth-generation aircraft — the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform and F/A-XX, respectively — complementary, but they’re running two separate programs that feature different airframes and propulsion systems.

As they continue development work on the different aircraft, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said the Air Force and the Navy should consider areas of joint collaboration — similar to the Pentagon’s acquisition strategy for the F-35 Lightning II.

“I would ultimately like to see — and I’ve stressed this to the Air Force and the Navy — that when we consider what we’re going to build next is [to] do what we did with the F-35, with a caveat to that,” Kelly said Saturday during a meeting with reporters during the Reagan National Defense Forum. “I think it helps if we can jointly build whatever the next system is. I think that would be a positive thing.”

He didn’t elaborate on the “caveat” that he was contemplating.

The F-35 fifth-gen fighter jet was born from the Joint Strike Fighter program, an effort to develop a single family of aircraft to replace a range of legacy platforms for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — as well as for select international partners. The plane has multiple variants but all share the same basic design, avionics system, stealth technology and single-engine configuration.

The comments from Kelly come after the Air Force on Thursday announced it would defer a decision on the NGAD platform to the upcoming Trump administration. The service originally planned to award a contract for the aircraft by the end of 2024, but decided to pause the program’s selection process earlier this year due to risks posed by budget uncertainty and advancements in new technologies.

Meanwhile, the Navy is marching forward on its own sixth-gen fighter — currently known as the F/A-XX. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti told reporters in October that the sea service was in the process of source selection and is still committed to fielding the aircraft in the 2030s.

In a recent interview with Aviation Week, Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, director of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations’ air warfare division, emphasized that the F/A-XX is independent of the Air Force’s NGAD. Notably, the sea service’s aircraft will feature a different airframe and leverage a derivative-type engine — as opposed to the Air Force’s adaptive-cycle jet engine technology being developed through the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program.

When asked about the differences, Kelly said that the two services “should sit down and talk about it.”

As for NGAD, Kelly acknowledged that the Air Force made the right decision to pause the program and decide the best way to move forward, especially considering how quickly adversaries are developing new capabilities that can better detect and destroy U.S. military systems. 

“These high-value assets are going to be held at risk. And how are we going to best deal with it? Maybe it is a sixth-gen fighter,” he said. “I think some of this technology has advanced very quickly, so I do agree with the secretary of the Air Force that it is appropriate to kind of take a pause here and figure out what direction we should go.”

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