In a press release and conversations over email, officials unveiled a new prize challenge for low-cost sensing technologies to enhance counter unmanned aerial systems and — in partnership with the Joint Counter-small UAS Office — a new solicitation for “low-collateral defeat options” that can be quickly integrated into existing C-sUAS programs of record across the joint force via the Replicator initiative.

“DIU’s low-cost sensing prize challenge combined with the LCD [solicitation] are a part of the overall strategic push to get after the toughest challenges and most pressing C-UAS problems identified by the warfighter,” David Payne, the unit’s C-UAS program manager, told DefenseScoop.

The new announcement marks the latest move associated with the Defense Department’s high-stakes — but hush-hush — Replicator effort. 

DOD leadership under the Biden administration established Replicator in August 2023 as a key military technology and procurement modernization initiative. At the time, it was billed as a strategic campaign to confront China’s massive, ongoing military buildup by incentivizing U.S. industrial production capacity and the DOD’s adoption of advanced warfare technologies en masse — through replicable processes — at a much faster pace than has been achieved before.

Tranches within the first capability focus area, Replicator-1, broadly encompass the purchase and making of loitering munitions and other technologies associated with all-domain autonomous systems. In September 2024, Pentagon officials revealed plans to prioritize the high-volume production of C-UAS capabilities through Replicator-2.

In DIU’s press release, officials wrote that Replicator aims to “deliver strategic capability and to build new innovative muscle for” DOD, and that the forthcoming solicitation aligns with the Trump administration’s recent executive order entitled “Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Industrial Base.” 

The solicitation will be open for submissions from industry through May 16. 

Officials also noted that the call for LCD capabilities is envisioned to supply the military with the “most effective defeat options” for increasingly complex and custom-built drones — and also “help to minimize risk to friendly forces, civilians, and infrastructure in the homeland and abroad.”

“North America faces a variety of non-traditional threats, and key among these is the use of small uncrewed aircraft systems operating near installations and critical infrastructure — addressing these threats is a top priority and essential task,” NorthCom Commander Gen. Gregory Guillot said in the press release. “Partnering with DIU to employ low-collateral defeat capabilities is one example of how we are developing the forward-looking capabilities and policies necessary to ensure a seamless and well-coordinated defensive enterprise.”

The call for capabilities will also build on other ongoing DOD technology-enabling efforts, including collaborative work with the United Kingdom.

A DIU spokesperson told DefenseScoop that this is the first time the unit launched a bilateral commercial solutions opening where the U.K. government’s Ministry of Defence was involved from the start. They also confirmed that this effort “is very much part of the new U.K. Defence Innovation organization that will officially be stood up in July.” 

“This is both nations leveraging the commercial sector to develop novel technology to solve a defense requirement,” the spokesperson said.

Regarding the separate prize challenge that DIU is also posting Monday, the official said that it seeks “to enhance the DOD’s [C-UAS] capabilities while addressing cost and scalability limitations associated with traditional radars, optical sensors, and radio frequency detection systems.”

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NORAD and Northcom chief Gen. Gregory Guillot revealed more details Thursday about widespread, recent incidents that highlight the drone problem.

“The primary threat I see for them in the way they’ve been operating is detection and perhaps surveillance of sensitive capabilities on our installations,” he said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “There were 350 detections reported last year on military installations, and that was 350 over a total of 100 different installations of all types and levels of security.”

High-profile incidents that were reported last year include UAS sightings at multiple bases in New Jersey amid a broader slew of public reports of mysterious drone activity in that part of the country. At the time, a senior defense official said the Pentagon was “frustrated” by these types of events.

Complicated regulatory structure and limitations on UAS countermeasures stemming from concerns about flight safety and privacy have created “significant vulnerabilities that have been exploited by known and unknown actors,” Guillot told lawmakers in written testimony for Thursday’s hearing.

Not all commanders have the authority to use weapons to defend their bases from these types of drone incursions. Only about half are considered “covered installations,” he told lawmakers.

Section 130i under Title 10 of U.S. Code pertains to protection of “certain facilities and assets from unmanned aircraft.”

“I would propose and advocate for expansion of 130i [authorities] to include all military installations, not just covered installations,” Guillot said during the hearing. “I’d also like to see the range expanded to slightly beyond the installation, so they don’t have to wait for the threat to get over the installation before they can address it, because many of these systems can use side looking or slant range, and so they could … surveil the base from outside the perimeter. And under the current authorities, we can’t address that.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the current arrangement “sounds crazy.”

“It doesn’t show a lot of common sense. I mean, base commanders at every base around America … have the authority and they have the capability to protect their perimeters. Say, if some terrorists got a dump truck and drove it through the front gate or were trying to breach the perimeter fence, we would expect base commanders to protect their base with force if necessary,” he said at the hearing.

He noted that he and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., are pushing legislation to give commanders the legal authority they need and the capability required to protect their bases from these kinds of incursions, “and then hold them accountable for doing so.”

Cotton said he hopes the legislation will be passed into law this year.

Officials are also concerned about drone activity along the southern border, including by drug cartels or other organizations and people.

Guillot added that he’d like 130i authorities to be expanded to allow “seamless exchange of data” about UAS activity with other agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department is taking steps to try to beef up its defenses.

Northcom and NORAD have shifted resources and personnel to establish a counter-drone operations branch within their headquarters.

In November 2024, Pentagon leaders directed Northcom to serve as DOD’s “synchronizer, integrator, and/or coordinator” of counter-small UAS activities within the continental United States and Alaska, Guillot noted in written testimony.

“This effort will require investment in robust and evolving mitigation technologies suitable for use in the United States, alignment with interagency and industry partners, and policy and statutory changes that balance safety, privacy, and defensive requirements,” he wrote.

A few months ago, Northcom and NORAD hosted counter-drone technology demonstrations at an event known as Falcon Peak in Colorado.

“Thanks to extraordinary support from the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Colorado National Guard, and many others, demonstration participants tracked and engaged live sUAS targets in complex, realistic scenarios over a number of days and nights within military Special Use Airspace. The demonstration provided important insights that the Commands and our partners will continue to build on,” Guillot wrote, noting that the next iteration of Falcon Peak is slated for this summer and is expected to include more vendors, participants and systems.

Last month, the Defense Department released a sources sought notice to industry about the event.

The gathering, dubbed Falcon Peak 25.2, will provide a venue for vendors to demonstrate the ability of their tech to detect, track, identify and defeat various small drones in the Group 1 and 2 categories “using LCD effects,” according to the notice. 

NORAD and Northcom will “provide, operate, and deploy UXS platforms capable of addressing cross-domain and previously unseen threat profiles, including low-emission and no-emission (dark) UAS. FP25.2’s intent is to observe the readiness of commercially available systems, specifically those with a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 7, 8, and 9, employed as part of an overall effort to unify military base Force Protection measures falling under the purview of” the commands, per the notice.

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Wednesday evening the Pentagon announced that Palantir landed a deal for its Maven Smart System led by the Army. On Thursday, company executives said the effort will significantly grow the user base and help the department’s Chief Digital and AI Office proliferate the technology to warfighters and pursue its vision for Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), which aims to better connect the platforms, sensors and data streams of the U.S. military and key international partners to improve decision-making, operational effectiveness and efficiency.

The IDIQ contract will help the combatant commands and the Joint Staff do CJADC2-related work, Shannon Clark, head of defense growth at Palantir, told reporters.

The tech is expected to facilitate battlespace awareness, global integration, contested logistics, joint fires and targeting workflows.

“This is taking what has been built in prototype and experimentation and bringing this [Maven system] to production,” Clark said. “The prototype began in 2021, we fielded that to a small set of users at each of these combatant commands. Now this is offering an enterprise capability with essentially no user limit at these combatant commands. So any individual that is focused on some of the workflows that [the technology is designed to aid] … will have access to the platform. That’s one of the things we’re so excited about, frankly, is because this means that an intel analyst or a user that’s doing work in the field has access to this platform, as do the combatant commanders themselves.”

Work under the new contract will initially cover five U.S. combatant commands: Central Command, European Command, Indo-Pacific Command, Northern Command/NORAD, and Transportation Command. The tech will also continue to be deployed as part of the Defense Department’s Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), according to Clark.

“Users are going to span everyone from intel analysts and operators in, you know, some of the remote island chains across the world to leadership at the Pentagon. It’s going to reach thousands of users across the globe,” Clark said.

The company will be working with other vendors and U.S. government partners to integrate their technologies with Maven.

“We will be partnering with them to help integrate other AI capabilities, not just what Palantir brings to the table. So they will be able to build on all the data integrations that Palantir is doing, build on the pipelines and the applications within the platform or other platforms through open APIs and our ontology software development kits,” Clark said. “We want to be able to integrate with any data system, any new AI capability that the government procures and wants to be part of this ecosystem. So, you know, should tomorrow a new sensor come online, should … a new AI capability come online, we want to be able to integrate with that.”

The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office also awarded Palantir a $33 million prototype other transaction agreement “to rapidly and securely” onboard third-party vendor and government capabilities into a government-owned, Palantir-operated data environment, according to a CDAO release that went out Thursday afternoon.

The Maven system and the data environment will support the Defense Department’s plans for the Open Data and Applications Government-owned Interoperable Repositories (Open DAGIR) initiative that was announced Thursday.

The first task order under the $480 million Maven contract is worth $153 million. The funding will go toward licenses to deploy the company’s software, according to Clark.

“This task order kicks off on June 1 … Those licenses will be made available immediately to all those users,” she told DefenseScoop during the meeting with reporters. “That’s the beauty of commercial software. The beauty of the product that we built is that we can get it up and running in days and weeks, not months and years.”

The Maven tech can integrate data from a variety of reporting systems — such as satellite imagery, signals intelligence, electronic intelligence, human intelligence, or other sources — across multiple domains to provide users with better situational awareness of friendly and adversary forces. That info can be displayed for commanders and other personnel via easy-to-use maps and dashboards, Andrew Locke, DOD enterprise lead at Palantir, told reporters.

The system can also “layer in” AI capabilities, such as computer vision models that scan imagery and look for objects of interest.

“For the user, they can go immediately from kind of that tip and cue that something of interest is there and actually nominate, you know, targets from the platform. So, you know, when we think about the integration of AI into these workflows, it is very much like humans involved in the process … They’re providing their unique subject matter expertise to verify that, you know, what AI maybe suggested is there is actually there. And then go from that into what you know the next stage of a process might be,” Locke said.

That could include what he called a “targeting nomination workflow.”

“In this case, you can either nominate a single target or multiple targets. We help to augment the user where we take all the metadata associated with those detections and kind of package that in the … format that they’re familiar with as part of the target nomination. As they do that, that would then transition to a separate capability that we’re providing across target management where nominated targets would then pop up right into a board … And for a staff, they can really optimize a process, take like their standard operating procedures that are unique to that organization and then code that in software,” he explained.

Data from social media could also be integrated into workflows if the U.S. government asked for that, he suggested.

“On our side, [we’re] really agnostic, you know, to the data sources. And really no technical limitation,” he told DefenseScoop during the meeting with reporters.

Palantir will defer to the Pentagon in terms of providing specifics on the actual social media sites or programs that they might want to pull from, he noted.

“But basically … if the government were to be using a sort of AI to initially run off of social media, whether that’s computer vision against images or videos that are in posts, or some type of like geolocation or, you know, natural language processing, you know, over keywords … then we would provide, like, the integration of whatever those social media sources potentially look like. And then … move that into classified networks, and then provide that sort of information in conjunction with the other data sources that we’ve integrated on the government’s behalf,” Locke said.

Updated on May 30, 2024, at 5:20 PM. This story has been updated to include information about an other transaction agreement awarded to Palantir and the Pentagon’s Open DIGAR initiative.

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Broadly, a data-as-a-service platform is a cloud-based solution the specializes in data management, analytics, and other data-related capabilities.

One of the awards to Palantir was a $58 million firm-fixed-price contract for a solution for Air Force headquarters.

“This contract provides for automatic data ingestion with data across the Department of the Air Force that continually push personnel, equipment, planning, health, and other readiness data sources into their common data foundation. This readiness information is a critical component of [headquarters]-wide decision-making and data analysis,” according to the Pentagon.

A second contract, valued at $33 million, is to assist the department’s space-focused organizations.

“This contract provides for mission-critical Space situational awareness and [command-and-control] capabilities to operational users at the National Space Defense Center and the Combined Space Operations Center through the furnishing of commercial software licenses. This contract also provides for support to enable the platform to ingest Special Access Program data,” per the DOD announcement,

The National Space Defense Center (NSDC), located at Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado, supports U.S. Space Command’s Joint Task Force-Space Defense. It’s focused on enhancing the military and intelligence community’s ability to rapidly detect, warn, characterize, attribute and defend against threats to the nation’s critical space systems.

“The NSDC directly supports space defense unity of effort and expands information sharing in space defense operations among the DoD, National Reconnaissance Office, and other interagency partners,” according to the joint task force.

The Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC), based at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, executes operational command-and-control of space forces “to achieve theater and global objectives,” according to the Space Force.

A third contract, valued at $19 million, is for work to support U.S. Northern Command — which is a geographic combatant command — and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Both Northcom and NORAD are headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, and have the same commander.

This contract “provides for the Command and Control Center to ingest data into the platform from across functional and geographic domains to support ongoing planning and operations for Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” according to Thursday’s announcement.

Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) is a Pentagon initiative that aims to better connect the U.S. military’s many sensors, shooters and networks.

All three contract awards announced Thursday were the result of sole-source acquisitions, with Space Systems Command serving as the contracting activity. All the work is slated to be completed by June 15, 2024.

“We appreciate the government’s continuation of our support to deliver operational mission critical needs and we look forward to working with them,” Palantir said in a statement to DefenseScoop.

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The launches are continuing in the wake of several recent shoot downs of unidentified “objects” flying over North America by U.S. fighter jets launching AIM-9X air-to-air missiles. Those incidents occurred just after a suspected Chinese spy balloon traversed much of the United States over several days before eventually being downed off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4.

About a week ago, the official Facebook page of Eglin Air Force Base announced that the 96th Operations Group planned to release red weather balloons in the Feb. 11-20 time frame from Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

“Each day balloons will be released … to collect weather data for a Naval Post Graduate School research project to understand the physical interaction between the lower atmosphere and the upper ocean,” per the post.

Defense officials are taking steps to make them more easily identifiable.

“The balloons are red to ensure they are visible and easy to spot. We also notified the public to ensure they were aware they might see balloons in the sky from Feb. 11 to 20 for a Naval post-graduate school research project to ensure they knew the balloons were not connected to current events … The local FAA has been notified about the flight plans,” an Air Force spokesperson at Eglin told DefenseScoop in an email Friday.

The plan is to send up at least two per day, but additional launches may be added “depending on the weather conditions, science requirements, and airspace availability,” the spokesperson noted.

The platforms are small — just three feet in diameter — but “may expand as they ascend.”

North American Aerospace Defense Command recently changed its radar filters to better detect small and slow-moving systems, which may have contributed to the recent detections and downings of the unidentified objects, NORAD and other officials suggested.

The altitude of the red balloons that are being launched from Florida will vary because they’ll float with the wind, according to the Air Force spokesperson at Eglin.

“In general, we expect them to travel 40 – 60 km down-wind, but they can go higher and further. They may change directions at different levels because of the direction change in the wind,” the spokesperson said.

DefenseScoop is still trying to learn whether the balloons are equipped with electronic transponders to aid with their identification.

Meanwhile, the three unidentified “objects” that were shot down off the coast of Alaska, over Canada’s Yukon and over Lake Heron, Michigan in the Feb. 10-12 time frame, may have been weather balloons, according to U.S. officials.

Officials said the decision was made to down the objects due to concerns about the potential risks they posed to commercial air traffic — and the possibility that they might have been surveilling sensitive military facilities could not be ruled out.

However, “the intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research,” President Biden said Thursday during remarks at the White House.

“We know that a range of entities, including countries, companies, and research organizations operate objects at altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious, including legitimate scientific research,” he added.

John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator at the National Security Council, said the objects that were recently shot down are not believed to have been owned by the U.S. military or other federal agencies.

“In checking with the FAA, they do not appear to have been operated by the U.S. government, so [we’re] pretty comfortable in ruling out that they were U.S. government objects,” he said during a briefing with reporters on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Biden has directed his national security team to recommend “sharper rules” for dealing with UFOs in the future.

The administration aims to distinguish between platforms that are likely to pose safety and security risks that “necessitate action” — such as downing them — and those that are benign.

Biden outlined several moves that will be taken which could lead to changes in how airborne objects are identified and dealt with. They include establishing a better inventory of unmanned objects flying in U.S. airspace and making sure it’s accessible and up to date; implementing further measures to improve the federal government’s capacity to detect uncrewed platforms; updating the rules and regulations for launching and maintaining unmanned objects in the skies above the United States; and leading a diplomatic push to establish “common global norms in this largely unregulated space.”

“These steps will lead to safer and more secure skies for our air travelers, our military, our scientists, and for people on the ground as well,” Biden said.

“But make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people, I will take it down. I’ll be sharing with Congress these classified policy parameters when they’re completed, and they’ll remain classified so we don’t give our roadmap to our enemies to try to evade our defenses,” he noted.

Meanwhile, recovery operations for China’s suspected spy balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, have wrapped up. The U.S. Navy used underwater drones to help locate the debris.

“U.S. Navy assets assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully located and retrieved debris from the high-altitude [People’s Republic of China] surveillance balloon shot down Feb. 4, 2023. Final pieces of debris are being transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in Virginia for counterintelligence exploitation, as has occurred with the previous surface and subsurface debris recovered. U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard vessels have departed the area. Air and maritime safety perimeters have been lifted,” Northcom said in a statement Friday.

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“I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours,” John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, told reporters during a press briefing Friday afternoon.

“The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object — and they did,” Kirby said during a press briefing at the White House.

The object was flying “inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters” and was “just off the very, very northeastern part of Alaska right near the Alaska-Canada border” when a fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command fired on it, he added.

The airborne system was first detected Thursday evening, and Biden gave the order to shoot it down Friday morning, according to Kirby.

Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed Friday that the object was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet off the northern coast of Alaska at 1:45 pm EST with an AIM-9X missile. It was originally detected using ground-based radar and identified by fighter aircraft.

Ryder told DefenseScoop during a press briefing at the Pentagon Friday afternoon that he had not seen images of it at that point, and he would not characterize the shape of the object. He said U.S officials did not know the origin of the platform.

Kirby would not describe the object as a “balloon” or assess its purpose, saying the U.S. government has limited information about what exactly it was and why it was flying over American airspace.

“We’re calling this an ‘object’ because that’s the best description we have right now. We do not know who owns it … whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately owned. We just don’t know,” he said. “We don’t have any information that would confirm a stated purpose for this object.”

The Defense Department will attempt to recover the debris, which officials said landed in frozen waters, to learn more about the system.

Ryder said drones will be used as part of the recovery effort and were headed to the salvage site.

Kirby noted that the object was “much smaller” than the alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over Alaska and the continental United States last week.

“The way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car” and it had “no significant payload, if you will,” he said. In comparison, the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina last week was about 200 feet tall and carried a payload that was about the size of a jetliner, according to NORAD and Northcom commander Gen. Glen VanHerck.

Unlike the balloon, the object that was shot down on Friday did not appear to be maneuverable, according to Kirby, adding that it appeared to be “virtually … at the whim of the wind.”

The Biden administration took criticism from Republican lawmakers and others for waiting days until the Chinese balloon was no longer over land to shoot it down last week. Kirby said the object that was downed Friday was traveling at a more dangerous altitude than the suspected spy balloon — which was flying above 60,000 feet last week — and it posed a potential threat to civilian air traffic.

“The predominant concern by the president was the safety of flight issue at that altitude,” Kirby said.

U.S. military personnel determined that the object was uncrewed before it was attacked.

“We were able to get some fighter aircraft up and around it before the order to shoot it down. And the pilots’ assessment was that this was not manned,” Kirby said.

However, the pilots weren’t able to learn much more about the platform.

“They worked really hard to try to get as much information as they could about this object. Given its size, which was much smaller, and the capabilities on the fighter aircraft themselves [and] the speed at which they were flying, it was difficult for the pilots to glean a whole lot of information — not like we were able to glean off … the balloon” last week, Kirby said.

With regard to whether the object was a surveillance platform, Kirby said: “We haven’t ruled anything in or out.”

When asked if the U.S. government was currently tracking any similar objects, Kirby said he was “not aware of any other tracks.”

However, on Saturday another so-called “high-altitude airborne object” was shot down by a U.S. F-22 over Canada’s Yukon territory, according to American and Canadian officials.

NORAD first detected this object flying over Alaska late Friday evening, according to a statement issued by Ryder on Saturday evening.

“Two F-22 aircraft from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska monitored the object over U.S. airspace with the assistance of Alaska Air National Guard refueling aircraft, tracking it closely and taking time to characterize the nature of the object. Monitoring continued today as the object crossed into Canadian airspace, with Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joining the formation to further assess the object.  A U.S. F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory using an AIM 9X missile following close coordination between U.S. and Canadian authorities,” Ryder said.

“As Canadian authorities conduct recovery operations to help our countries learn more about the object, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” he added.

Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau authorized the downing of the platform, according to officials.

“Earlier today, President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Trudeau on the unidentified, unmanned object in North American air space … Out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of their militaries, President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau authorized it to be taken down,” according to a White House readout of the call between the two leaders. They also discussed “the importance of recovering the object in order to determine more details on its purpose or origin.”

Meanwhile, recovery efforts are ongoing for both the object that was downed on Friday and the the colossal high-altitude Chinese balloon shot down last week continue off the South Carolina coast.

“Recovery operations continue today near Deadhorse, Alaska. U.S. Northern Command’s Alaska Command and the Alaska National Guard, in close coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement, are conducting search and recovery activities,” according to a statement issued Saturday evening by Northcom.

However, “Arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow, and limited daylight, are a factor in this operation, and personnel will adjust recovery operations to maintain safety. Recovery activities are occurring on sea ice. We have no further details at this time about the object, including its capabilities, purpose, or origin,” it added.

Meanwhile, off the coast of South Carolina, the U.S. Navy continues its efforts to locate and recover debris, with support from the Coast Guard and FBI.

“Sea states Feb. 10 permitted dive and underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) activities and the retrieval of additional debris from the sea floor. The public may see U.S. Navy vessels moving to and from the site as they conduct offload and resupply activities. Operations will continue as weather permits,” Northcom said in a statement.

Update: This story was updated at 7:45 PM on Feb. 11 to include information and statements about the shoot-down of another “object” on Saturday over Canada, and ongoing efforts to recover debris.

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Unsafe conditions at sea prevented explosive ordnance disposal teams from deploying the UUVs from a manned craft on Sunday, Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters during a briefing on Monday.

“Today they’re on scene as of 10 o’clock Eastern this morning,” he said.

“They went out in what’s called a rigid hull inflatable boat … to proceed to the area to utilize unmanned underwater vehicles, using side-scan sonar to further locate sunken debris,” he said. “And so we expect them to get on there and to do some additional categorization of potential threats such as explosives that may be [there] … hazardous materials that could be in [the balloon’s] batteries, etc. So we’re working very hard. I’d remind you this is an effort that’s in the open ocean ongoing in approximately 50 feet of water, and so we have to be very cognizant of the [sea] states, currents, etc. So we continue to move forward.”

VanHerck told DefenseScoop that he did not have enough information on hand to say what specific UUV systems are involved or how many of them will be deployed but the DOD may be able to provide that to reporters later.

“I’m not the expert … [but] I can assure you that it has photographic capabilities. It’ll have capabilities to emplace things such as inflatable devices and mapping sonar, those types of things,” he said.

Manned platforms including the USS Carter Hall and USNS Pathfinder are also involved in the search-and-recovery effort on the surface and undersea.

Using a variety of sensors such as sonar, the Navy is working to produce a detailed map of the debris field.

The U.S. government is eager to recover as many pieces of the suspected surveillance balloon as possible so they can be analyzed to glean intelligence about the system and its payload.

The debris field is expected to be approximately 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters — or about 15 football fields squared, according to VanHerck. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have cordoned off the area from civilian maritime traffic.

The giant balloon that was shot down was up to 200 feet tall. The payload that it carried was “a jet airliner type of size” and probably weighed “in excess of a couple thousand pounds,” he said.

Defense officials have said the decision was made not to shoot down the air vehicle over land as it was traversing the continental United States because of the risk of harm to people and infrastructure on the ground.

“From a safety standpoint, picture yourself with large debris weighing hundreds if not thousands of pounds falling out of the sky. That’s really what we’re kind of talking about. So glass off of solar panels, potentially hazardous material such as material that is required for batteries to operate in such an environment as this, and even the potential for explosives to detonate and destroy the balloon. That could have been present. So I think that would give you an idea of the perspective of the balloon and the decision-making process along the way,” VanHerck told reporters.

He said he couldn’t confirm whether the platform was carrying any explosives. However, “anytime you down something like this, we make an assumption that that potential exists. We did not associate the potential of having explosives with a threat to dropping weapons, those kinds of things. But out of a precaution, abundance of safety for not only our military people and the public, we have to make assumptions such as that,” VanHerck said.

Due to ocean currents, it’s possible that some debris may wash up on shore. The public should avoid contact with any of that material and immediately contact local law enforcement to take care of it, VanHerck cautioned.

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The DOD has “very high confidence” that the recently spotted platform is a spy balloon from the People’s Republic of China, the official told reporters during a call on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

In a statement on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said: “The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.”

He added: “Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”

The existence of the balloon was first reported by NBC News.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin convened a meeting of military brass — including the head of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command — on Wednesday to get their assessment, according to a senior Defense official.

“In this instance, President Biden was briefed and asked for military options. Secretary Austin convened senior DOD leadership yesterday even as he was on the road in the Philippines. There was a strong recommendation by the Chairman of Joint Chiefs Gen. [Mark] Milley and the commander of Northcom Gen. [Glen] VanHerck not to take kinetic action due to the risk to the safety and security of people on the ground from the possible debris field,” the official told reporters.

The official declined to disclose the size of the balloon.

“I’m not going to go into the exact dimensions [of it]. We did assess that it was large enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area. We had been looking at whether there was an option yesterday over some sparsely populated areas in Montana, but we just couldn’t buy down the risk enough to feel comfortable recommending shooting it down,” they said.

The platform has been monitored by multiple U.S. military assets and it will continue to be tracked. F-22 fighter jets were also previously mobilized as the situation evolved, according to the official.

“The intent of this balloon is for surveillance, and so the current flight path does carry it over a number of sensitive sites,” the official said.

China has other intelligence collection assets, such as satellites, that are also capable of spying on the U.S.

“Currently we assess that this balloon has limited added value from an intelligence collection perspective. But we are taking steps nevertheless to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information. We’re also tracking what abilities they could have in gaining insight and continue to monitor the balloon as it is over the continental United States,” the official said.

U.S. government personnel have been in contact with Chinese officials about the incident.

“We have made clear we will do whatever is necessary to protect our people and our homeland. So if the risk profile that I described earlier, if that changes, we will have options to deal with this balloon,” the senior Defense official said.

DefenseScoop asked the official if the Pentagon had a policy for engaging these types of systems.

“As it relates to do we have a policy — the answer is yes, we do. And most importantly, we also have sufficient authority given to us to take action under Title 10 against unmanned aerial systems, of which this balloon would be a part. So, we think we have all the authorities we need to do anything that we need to do to protect the American people, and we’ll continue to do that,” the official said.

This is not the first time that a Chinese balloon of this type has flown over the continental United States. It has happened “a handful of other times over the past few years,” including before the Biden administration took office, according to the official.

However, “it is appearing to hang out for a longer period of time this time around, more persistent than in previous instances. That would be one distinguishing factor,” the official said.

In their most recent review of U.S. military and government sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, officials confirmed that 163 reports were eventually characterized as balloon or balloon-like entities.

“I’m not going to go into the exact nature of the technology, [but] I don’t think that the payload on this [Chinese balloon] is — I wouldn’t characterize it as revolutionary,” the senior Defense official told DefenseScoop. “I think the thing that is different is the altitude, and of course, the willingness to put it over the continental United States for an extended period of time. I think that’s the biggest difference here.”

In a statement issued on Friday, a China Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed that the balloon belongs to China, but claimed that is is being used for “research” and “meteorological purposes.”

“The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure,” the spokesperson said in a statement posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s website.

Updated on Feb. 3, 2023: This story has been updated to include a statement from a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson about the balloon.

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Communications is a capability gap in the Arctic that needs to be addressed, Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, noted Thursday during a videoconference with reporters at the Pentagon.

He and Adm. Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, are currently in Alaska to meet with allies and partners at forums such as the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable and the Arctic Symposium.

VanHerck noted the benefits of being able to “fuse together that network of allies and partners and the capabilities that they bring.”

However, “we do have work to do … such as additional communications capability above 65 North to give us the ability to command and control” forces, he added.

Satcom can be challenging at higher latitudes due to limitations in the coverage that satellites in geostationary orbit can provide in those areas.

“We’re currently undergoing testing with a couple of companies — OneWeb and Starlink as well — for some additional communications capabilities in the Arctic at this time,” VanHerck said.

The companies have satellite constellations in low-Earth orbit that can provide data and voice communication capabilities.

“The [Defense] Department has been gracious enough to give us funding to provide terminals. We have some terminals in locations in the Arctic that we’re currently evaluating their viability and their capability to provide the command and control that we need from a tactical level in the Arctic for ongoing operations all the way to the strategic level,” he said.

He added: “I’m gonna go visit one of those companies when we’re done here today and take a look at what they offer for us … and how much they’re moving forward. I look forward to continuing to partner with the department throughout this testing to increase our communication capabilities.”

He did not identify which company he planned to visit.

VanHerck said he expects the testing to be completed before the end of the year.

The next step would be to integrate the terminals on platforms and within communication nodes such as command posts and operation centers, to allow U.S. military forces to better share data and information, not only among themselves but also with allies and partners, he said.

Adm. Richard said Strategic Command, which oversees U.S. nuclear forces, also has requirements for command-and-control and situational awareness in the Arctic.

“The ability to go accomplish the mission perhaps in a new and better way is something that we’re very alert to. And the idea that we have these commercial capabilities that would enable us to accomplish the mission in a new and better way compared to simply recapitalizing what we’ve done in the past, I think is very exciting. And both Glen and I are looking at opportunities to do that,” he told FedScoop during the briefing.

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The Pentagon is pursuing new space-based sensors, communications systems and other capabilities to improve situational awareness. But it needs AI to better crunch and share the data it collects.

“This year’s budget, I think, moves the ball down the field with regards to domain awareness. We’ll be able to hopefully field over-the-horizon capabilities, which will give us more standoff distance than what we currently have today. But we also need to take that domain awareness — the sensors that we have today and any potential new sensors — and share that data and information, and utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to make that data and information available sooner than we have in the past to decision-makers,” Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), told the Defense Writers Group.

Northcom is an American combatant command whose area of responsibility encompasses North America.

NORAD is a joint U.S.-Canadian organization tasked with aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning for North America, including the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles.

“I don’t have what I need as far as artificial intelligence and machine learning to give the [needed] decision space to the president, the secretary of defense, the chief of the defense staff in Canada, the minister of defense and the prime minister in Canada,” VanHerck said.

AI and ML are needed to create more deterrence options and enable “decision superiority,” he said.

The U.S. homeland faces growing threats including from hypersonics and cruise missiles that could be launched from Russian or Chinese ships and aircraft. In the future, adversaries could even base cruise missiles on container ships disguised as civilian vessels, he said.

“The urgency is there in my mind,” VanHerck said.

NORAD has a “pathfinder” program that aims to better use information that’s available today through radars that are part of the North Warning System that stretches across Canada and Alaska.

“We only process about 2% of the data [but] the system actually has capability to give you a lot more domain awareness. And so what we’re doing with the Pathfinder program is … we’re taking the raw data — 100% of the information — and fusing that and using artificial intelligence and machine learning and distributing that information to gain time and space, if you will,” for decision-makers, he said.

But that’s not sufficient, according to VanHerck.

“What I’m focusing on is a global look across all domains and fusing data and information,” he said.

NORAD, Northcom and the other combatant commands have been conducting a Global Information Dominance Experiment (GIDE) to demonstrate the benefits of using AI to enhance global collaboration among U.S. forces. Four such experiments have already been held.

The experiments demonstrated that artificial intelligence and machine learning technology can detect changes in an adversary’s military posture — such as the movement of platforms or weapons — fuse that information and alert U.S. forces, according to VanHerck.

“We’re not creating new data. We’re taking machines that can take existing data, analyze it faster, and alert you to it so you can create deterrence and defense options if you need to,” he said.

Now that the four GIDE experiments have wrapped up, VanHerck hopes that Pentagon leaders will grab the baton and forge ahead with the technology.

“Candidly, we’re not moving fast enough for me. We can’t apply what I say are industrial age, industrial base processes to software-driven capabilities. In today’s environment, the department has to change to fundamentally go faster,” he said. “We can’t utilize what I would say are legacy development processes where we do everything in serial.”

He continued: “I think we’re ready to field some of these capabilities, specifically when you’re focused at the operational to strategic level where what we’re trying to do is give increased decision space to our nation’s most senior leaders” so that they have more time to take action to deter adversaries or defeat their attacks.

Providing those capabilities would reduce the probability of a successful attack on the U.S. homeland and strategic deterrence failure, he said.

“This is something I’m very passionate about and something that we have to move forward with sooner than later,” VanHerck said.

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