ARLINGTON, Va. — A defense company in Hawaii has been tapped by the Office of Naval Research to develop an autonomous vehicle to deploy a fuel delivery system to support amphibious systems.  

Martin Defense Group LLC of Honolulu has been awarded a $15 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the development of an Amphibious Vehicle for Unmanned Surface Mobility, the Defense Department said April 6.  

“The AVUSM system provides the capability of autonomously delivering a lay-flat fuel line hose from a floating embarkment platform, through the surf-zone, to above a high-water mark line for fuel delivery in support of expeditionary advanced base operations,” the announcement said. “This is also known as a reach-to-the-beach capability. This contract provides for technology development and maturation with the objective of transitioning the technology/capability to Navy and/or Marine Corps acquisition programs.” 

Martin Defense also is the developer of the Manta Ray autonomous underwater vehicle for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Work expected to be completed by April 5, 2025. 

BELOIT, Wis. — Fairbanks Morse Defense has been awarded a contract by Newport News Shipbuilding to provide essential parts through Hunt Valve for the Ford-class aircraft carriers CVN 78–CVN 81, the company said April 5. 

The contract, valued at approximately $2 million, covers parts that will be delivered during the second and third quarters of 2022. Hunt Valve, acquired by Fairbanks Morse Defense in 2021, manufactures valves and electromechanical actuators for naval defense applications.  

Having traditionally been a naval engine supplier, Fairbanks Morse Defense has expanded into a single-source product and service solutions provider for the entire vessel. Over the last 18 months, the defense contractor has been acquiring a number of companies, including Hunt Valve, and currently offers a large array of best-in-class marine technologies, original equipment manufacturer parts and turnkey services for the entire vessel.  

“Every ship and every shipyard play a crucial role in advancing American interests and countering our rivals at sea. Fairbanks Morse Defense and our sub-brands are deeply committed to supporting our country’s critical naval operations with American-made OEM parts throughout the ship,” said Fairbanks CEO George Whittier. “In light of the post-pandemic supply chain challenges and uncertainty about the war in Ukraine, NNS is being extremely prudent by stocking the parts necessary.” 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The economic role U.S. ports play can’t be overstated because they are a vital resource, a Coast Guard official said in an April 6 panel discussion at Sea-Air-Space 2022.

“Twenty five percent of U.S. GDP and employment for one in seven Americans are generated because of port-based activity,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger, assistant commandant for prevention policy. “We also know this is a vital resource for our national security. It’s how we project power and [provide] humanitarian aid around the globe.” 

Tony Padilla, a senior adviser for maritime trade and development at the U.S. State Department, agreed on the importance of ports.

“International trade in our nation’s ports support the employment of nearly 31 million people, provide about $1.5 trillion in personal income and generate over $5.5 trillion in economic activity, thereby accounting for one quarter of the nation’s GDP,” Padilla said. “Many of our ports safeguard government owned vessels and commercial sealift vessels, so our military can project power abroad. Simply put, without seaports, our economy would be crippled.”

There’s also a dark side to ports that is difficult to monitor said Christopher Hickey, a senior systems engineer at the Naval Research Laboratory.

“There are about 250,000 ship tracks worldwide on a good day,” Hickey said. “But you have to add in the hundreds of thousands of dark ships — the ships not emitting AIS [automatic identification system] — that traverse the globe. While a fair amount of illicit maritime activity takes place aboard AIS-compliant ships, it is these dark ships, or dark targets, that typically pose the greatest threats.

“Domestically, the United States has long maritime borders that for the most part are not monitored on a 24/7 basis, creating a permissive environment that enables massive amounts of illicit goods and cargos to be imported and exported. Drugs. Money. Weapons. And, worst of all, the trafficking of people — all of this moving illegally across our maritime borders every day,” he said.

STAFFORD, Va. — BAE Systems has received task instructions from the U.S. Marine Corps to complete a study of incorporating Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle-Command, Control, Communication and Computers/Unmanned Aerial Systems mission payload on an Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) variant, the company said April 7.

Pending the results of the phase 1 study, the Marine Corps may pursue modification of an ACV to install the C4/UAS payload. This C4/UAS variant will provide the transformational technology Marines need to observe their surroundings, collect and integrate information, and sense new targets over the horizon. 

The ACV C4/UAS will feature a state-of-the-art battle management system and advanced sensing capabilities. Offering a substantial level of commonality with other ACV variants, BAE Systems will work toward a fully open-architecture approach, allowing for rapid technology refresh and upgrades, including seamless integration of future technologies and capabilities. This has the potential to provide the Marine Corps significant economies of scale in development and life-cycle management costs.   

“BAE Systems is dedicated to offering innovative combat system solutions to meet the multi-domain needs of the U.S. Marine Corps’ modernization efforts,” said John Swift, vice president of amphibious programs at BAE Systems. “Adding the C4/UAS variant to the ACV family of vehicles may offer development and life cycle cost savings. We look forward to continuing our commitment to the Marines’ ability to be unmatched on the battlefield.” 

The ACV is a highly mobile and proven solution capable of conducting rapid ship-to-objective maneuver, delivering enhanced combat power to the Fleet Marine Forces. The ACV was developed with teammate IVECO Defence Vehicles. 

BAE Systems has received two full-rate production contracts since the Marine Corps declared initial operational capability for the ACV family of vehicles program, which includes the ACV personnel variant (ACV-P) and the ACV command variant (ACV-C). The company is currently under contract to design and develop a 30mm cannon variant (ACV-30) and a recovery variant (ACV-R).  

ACV C4/UAS engineering, integration, and fabrication is taking place at BAE Systems locations in Stafford, Virginia.; San Jose, California; Sterling Heights, Michigan; and York, Pennsylvania. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced April 6 the president has made the following nomination:

Navy Vice Adm. Eugene D. Black III for reappointment to the grade of vice admiral, and assignment as deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans, and strategy, N3/N5, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C. Black is currently serving as commander, Sixth Fleet; commander, Task Force Six; commander, Striking and Support Forces NATO; deputy commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe; commander, U.S. Naval Forces Africa; and Joint Force Maritime Component Commander Europe, Naples, Italy.

The secretary of the Navy and chief of naval operations announced April 6 the following assignments:

Rear Adm. Daniel L. Cheever will be assigned as chief of staff, North American Aerospace Defense Command; and chief of staff, U.S. Northern Command, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Cheever is currently serving as director of plans, policy and strategy, North American Aerospace Defense Command; and director of plans, policy and strategy, U.S. Northern Command, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Rear Adm. Paul J. Schlise will be assigned as director, Warfare Development, N72, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C. Schlise is currently serving as director, Surface Warfare Division, N96, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

Rear Adm. Douglas C. Verissimo will be assigned as director, Maritime Operations, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Norfolk, Virginia. Verissimo is currently serving as director, Assessment Division, N81, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

Rear Adm. Dean A. VanderLey will be assigned as commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command; and chief of civil engineers, with additional duties as deputy commander for facilities and environment, Navy Installations Command; and deputy commander for facilities and environment, Marine Corps Installations Command, Washington, D.C. VanderLey is currently serving as commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific; and director, Fleet Civil Engineer, U.S. Pacific Fleet, with additional duty as fleet civil engineer, N46, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Rear Adm. Peter G. Vasely will be assigned as deputy director for joint training, J-7, Joint Staff, Suffolk, Virginia. Vasely is currently serving as special assistant to director, Navy Staff, Norfolk, Virginia.

Rear Adm. John F. Wade will be assigned as deputy commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Wade is currently serving as director of operations, J-3, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii.

Rear Adm. (lower half) Jeffrey T. Anderson, selected for promotion to rear admiral, will be assigned as director of operations, J-3, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii. Anderson is currently serving as commander, Carrier Strike Group Three, Bremerton, Washington.

Rear Adm. (lower half) Matthew J. Burns will be assigned as commander, Special Reconnaissance and Enabling Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. Burns is currently serving as assistant commander-operations, Joint Special Operations Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Rear Adm. (lower half) Thomas M. Henderschedt will be assigned as director, J2, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii. Henderschedt is currently serving as senior defense official and Defense Attaché – China, Beijing, China.

Rear Adm. (lower half) Lawrence F. LeGree will be assigned as deputy commander, Joint Interagency Task Force-South, U.S. Southern Command, Key West, Florida. LeGree is currently serving as assistant chief of staff (J-3), Joint Forces Command, Naples, Naples, Italy.

Rear Adm. (lower half) William P. Pennington, selected for promotion to rear admiral, will be assigned as chief of staff, U.S. Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. Pennington is currently serving as deputy commander, Tenth Fleet, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.

Rear Adm. (lower half) Philip E. Sobeck will be assigned as director, Strategic Plans, Policy, Logistics, J-5/4, U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. Sobeck is currently serving as commander, Logistics Group, Western Pacific; and commander, Task Force Seven Three, Singapore.

Capt. George E. Bresnihan, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as director, Logistics Directorate, J-4, U.S. Africa Command, Stuttgart, Germany. Bresnihan is currently serving as chief of staff, Naval Supply Systems Command, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Capt. Matthew Case, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as commander, Naval Medical Forces Atlantic, with additional duties as director, Tidewater Market; and chief of the Medical Service Corps, Portsmouth, Virginia. Case is currently serving as executive assistant to the surgeon general of the Navy, Washington, D.C.

Capt. Carey H. Cash, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as chaplain of the Marine Corps; and deputy chief of chaplains of the Navy, N097B, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C. Cash is currently serving as commanding officer, Naval Chaplaincy School and Center, Newport, Rhode Island.

Capt. Adan G. Cruz, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as deputy director, Political-Military Affairs (Middle East), J-5, Joint Staff, Washington, D.C. Cruz is currently serving as deputy, Combat Systems and Integration, N96, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

Capt. John E. Dougherty IV, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as commander, Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division; and assistant commander for research and engineering, Naval Air Systems Command (AIR-4.0). Dougherty is currently serving as major program manager, Program Executive Office for Tactical Aircraft Programs, Patuxent River, Maryland.

Capt. Keith A. Hash, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as commander, Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division; and assistant commander for Test and Evaluation, Naval Air Systems Command (AIR-5.0), Patuxent River, Maryland. Hash is currently serving as program manager for air warfare, PMA-298, Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland.

Capt. Tracy L. Hines, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as Navy Cyber Security Division director, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C. Hines is currently serving as executive assistant to the chief of naval operations, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

Capt. Stephen J. Jackson, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as deputy director, Operations, and Integration Directorate, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Jackson is currently serving as Navy programs and policy director, Expeditionary Combat Branch Head, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

Capt. Jeffrey J. Kilian, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific; and director, Fleet Civil Engineer, U.S. Pacific Fleet, with additional duty as fleet civil engineer, N46, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Kilian is currently serving as chief of staff, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Washington, D.C.

Capt. Ryan M. Perry, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as Navy chief of information, Washington, D.C. Perry is currently serving as force public affairs officer, Naval Special Warfare Command, San Diego, California.

Capt. Mark B. Sucato, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as commander, Navy Region Northwest, Silverdale, Washington. Sucato is currently serving as deputy director, Reserve Warfare Requirements and Capabilities, N9, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

Capt. Guido F. Valdes, selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as commander, Naval Medical Forces Pacific, with additional duties as director, San Diego Market; and chief of the Medical Corps, San Diego, California. Valdes is currently serving as deputy commander, Naval Medical Forces Atlantic, Portsmouth, Virginia.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — L3Harris Technologies has established a new entity, the Agile Development Group, or ADG, to foster rapid technology development to counter near-peer security threats through innovation and cooperation.  

Speaking to Seapower at Sea-Air-Space 2022, Sean Stackley, president of Integrated Mission Systems at L3Harris, introduced Dave Duggan, president of the new L3Harris Agile Development Group. The group is dedicated to overcoming inertia and rapidly developing the technology to address future threats with new ideas and acquisition of or partnering with enterprises and allies with high-potential technology. 

“Our mission is to deliver innovative, vital solutions within a fraction of the time and cost of industry norms,” Duggan said in a release announcing the group. “We’re listening to our customers and taking calculated risks to rapidly develop new capabilities that will urgently address emerging threats.” 

Duggan told Seapower that the group is comprised of “highly empowered development teams working with the latest digital tools with an agile development process that backs it up to enable us to respond to our customers need for doing business differently and developing new capabilities in a much faster timeline than historical norms.” 

Duggan said the building of the ADG began four to five years ago and has grown to about 2,500 employees, which the company described as “dedicated engineers, program managers, technicians and operations professionals focused on advanced, front-end and rapid capability development.” 

The ADG entity expects to add additional personnel as it grows. 

Initial projects of the ADG included broadband RF, advanced optics, and advanced unmanned systems and weapons, Duggan said.  

The ADG has facilities in Florida, Texas, Ohio, California and Virginia. 

“The ADG will have a designated internal investment fund to mature and burn down risk of critical enabling technologies. The ADG’s lean, empowered development teams and digital engineering development approach will deliver solutions at the expeditious pace the [Department of Defense], allies and other domestic and international customers demand,” the release said. 

L3Harris, headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, said the fiscal 2023 budget proposes a 10% increase in research and development funds which, if enacted, will provide opportunities for the ADG to demonstrate its value. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The global shipping network is extremely fragile in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine, speakers on a panel about supply chain logistics said April 6.

Maj. Gen. David Maxwell, vice director of Logistics, Joint Staff, U.S. Marine Corps, said current Navy and Joint Staff operations are focused largely on the Ukraine crisis and “the distribution side of the house,” while also addressing broader challenges.

“Over the last month and a half, what you see is U.S. TRANSCOM’s [U.S. Transportation Command’s] ability to leverage really both the military capacity and capability that we have, as well as significant support from the commercial industry in being able to both deploy forces in a very dynamic, responsive time, but also to deliver material in support of Ukraine and the nation’s efforts to sustain the Ukrainian forces,” Maxwell said.

“As we have been spending that time delivering the forces, posturing them, as well as delivering material, [we are] stepping back into the next part of the question, which is, where do we reconstitute? How quickly can we reconstitute supplies and materials that not only have been drawn down out of Department of Defense resources but also that have been drawn down from partners and allies who have contributed? And how quickly and effectively and efficiently can we get back and reconstitute those materials for those partners and allies and U.S. forces?”

Kurt Wendelken, vice commander of Naval Supply Systems, said the military faces the same distribution issues as the commercial world, but the products are very different.

“A lot of these systems that we operate are built for us by key partners, and they are very complex pieces of equipment,” Wendelken said. “Although we did get an education in supply chain during COVID about its general fragility, the products that we’re dealing with are very complicated. They are not shampoo, they are not Snickers, they are not things from Amazon. [For] partners like [Lockheed Martin], it can take them a year to two years to go make those things for us, and that is assuming they understand what our demand signal is.”

Abby Lilly, vice president of global supply chain at Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems, said human capital is also a big concern. In recent months, she said, there has been a 15% to 20% turnover in some companies that support Lockheed Martin.

“Those companies are struggling to hire new workers to train them to do what we need to do,” Lilly said. “Labor availability is one of the key things that we are concerned about. If you think about the great resignation that has happened in this country in the last several months and the number of people who have left the workforce, that is affecting the defense industrial base.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A Naval Sea Systems Command office is seeking to more rapidly modernize ships through a common hardware effort that would make software upgrades easier, an official told attendees at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium April 6.

Ryan Moore, deputy major program manager, said in a briefing on integrated combat systems that his team has focused on the issue of ship hardware and how to ensure commonality across ship classes to better speed technology upgrades to the fleet.

“We’re trying to field hardware on the ships that is common rather than different for each variant,” Moore said. “We want to deliver a common hardware suite that’s a system that can be rapidly updated. We’re doing so by creating a common cabinet and leveraging common software licenses.”

Moore said the Navy is trying to get away from the practice of using major ship availabilities to make hardware upgrades and “cutting holes in the ships.” Instead, his office is working toward a different approach in which the hardware has modules that can be changed.

“We’re able to shorten up installation timelines,” he said. “We can rapidly go and update these components. … It allows us to go off and address any issues that come up from a hardware perspective.”

So, for example, if a ship has an outdated server that became obsolete, and a newer, more advanced server is now available, the team can install the new server because the hardware has been decoupled from the software.

“You don’t have to do a form-fit-function redesign,” Moore said. “That’s the goal here: being able to rapidly modernize respective platforms.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — This year’s Sea/Air/Space conference occurred at a critical time for the sea services as they confront strategic rivals in multiple geographic areas and warfare domains.

Aging force structure in all three sea services makes in harder to deter aggression. New technologies and concepts offer the naval services tools to improve their ability to deter and to defend and defeat opponents as needed. In addition, the Navy faces significant financial hurdles in recapitalizing the undersea component of the nuclear deterrent in the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine while at the same time trying to build a new force for 21^st century missions.

The challenge is to maintain the readiness of existing, legacy forces while both recapitalizing existing capabilities, and transitioning to future forces. These new force structure components are likely to include more unmanned units, connected within robust networks capable of fighting and winning inside opponent-imposed limitations such as anti-access/area denial bubbles.

Aging Force Structure

Many of the sea service’s existing platforms and systems date from the late Cold War and the 1990s. They have seen extensive service in the first Gulf War, operations in the Balkans in the 1990s, and since 2001 in combating rogue states and violent extremists in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the globe. Limited defense budgets have forced the postponement of needed maintenance between deployments.

Like aging automobiles that do not get serviced at the dealer garage when needed, many ships, aircraft and submarines have equipment problems that prevent them from accomplishing their missions. Famous Cold War-era ship classes like Ticonderoga–class Aegis cruisers, Los Angeles–class nuclear attack submarines, many of the Navy’s amphibious warfare ships and even the earlier units of the post-Cold War Arleigh Burke–class destroyers are approaching and, in some cases, have exceeded their planned service lives. Keeping these aging units on the front lines of global deterrence imposes additional costs on the services and the taxpayers. Like the aging automobile, these costs soon come to outweigh the utility of keeping these ships in commission.

Active Adversaries

Across the period of the post-Cold War era (1991 to the present) U.S. adversaries have not been idle in analyzing U.S. capabilities and fielding platforms and payloads to combat them. Both the People’s Republic of China and Russian Federation have watched and learned from U.S. joint force operations of the last 30 years. The PRC remains the “pacing threat” and now fields a fleet of over 350 combatants, along with numerous coastal and maritime militia forces. The PRC also has an extensive force of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles, aircraft and sensors that threaten U.S. forces thousands of miles from the Chinese coast.

The Russian Federation has been unable to modernize its forces as planned ands suffers from severe planning and logistics shortfalls as evidenced by its botched and bogged-down invasion of Ukraine. The Russian navy submarine force, however, while much smaller than its Cold War Soviet equivalent contains a new generation of very quiet submarines including the Borei–class SSBN, the Yasen–class guided missile submarine armed with Kaliber cruise missiles and several special purpose submersibles that could cut seabed cables and otherwise harm underwater infrastructure.

Like a submersible version of the German World War II battleship Bismarck, Russian submarines like the Yasencan threaten multiple targets at sea and ashore. In addition to China and Russia, North Korea continues to menace its neighbors with both conventional and now nuclear weapons while Iran contributes to instability in the Middle East with its regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps that harasses shipping, fires random missiles and threatens mine laying operations in the key Strait of Hormuz through which most Middle East oil moves to global customers.

Violent extremists, while beaten back in many areas, remain a threat and like the Houthis in Yemen field increasingly effective weapons, including cruise missiles. The overall threat environment to the U.S. sea services is likely higher than at any point since the end of the Cold War.

Path to the Future

The U.S. sea services have equally done hard thinking on current and future threats and are building a path to future joint force far more capable than present, legacy platforms. Unmanned systems technology is spiral developing at a dizzying rate with both small and medium unmanned surface and small unmanned underwater units now available for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The Navy will soon field the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned tanker aircraft, substantially improving the range of carrier-based aircraft.

The Marine Corps plans to use many unmanned systems in support of its new littoral regiments and the Coast Guard also plans to use more unmanned systems. These and new manned ships including the Constellation-class frigates, DDG-X, light amphibious warship and others provide a path toward a larger, 500-ship Navy with both manned and unmanned units to better deter and if necessary, defeat opponents in multiple warfare domains.

Team Effort

The move to a future force of capable manned and unmanned naval forces requires a team effort of civilian policy officials, military officers and industry to reach the goals articulated by Navy Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger and Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz for their respective services and for the joint force overall.

The sea services must move from current, costly legacy forces toward a new combination of manned and unmanned surface, subsurface, air and expeditionary units capable of meeting the challenges of the 21^st century.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy continues to work on a conical projectile called Hypercone as it tests hypersonic capabilities, an official told attendees at Sea-Air-Space 2022 on April 6.

Adam Jones, aerospace engineer at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), said he couldn’t provide any details on the Hypercone firing at White Sands Missile Range in the New Mexico desert.

“Our goal is to provide another opportunity to provide testing,” Jones said. “We know that just across the board there are challenges in aero thermal and aero sciences across the board. And we want to use this as a platform to gather the data that we need to help continue to benchmark our modeling and simulation capabilities.”

The Navy has not revealed much about the Hypercone effort, part of a larger push for advancing hypersonic technology. In an October 2021 statement, NSWCDD described the purpose of the technology.

“Dahlgren is applying its deep knowledge of advanced gun systems, guided projectiles, and telemetry to support hypersonic research and development,” the statement reads. “For example, scientists and engineers are developing advanced guidance and control for future hypersonic systems. NSWCDD recently conducted the first of several planned tests by launching a conical projectile, dubbed Hypercone, to collect aerodynamic and aerothermal data relevant to hypersonic flight conditions.

“Dahlgren also has multiple efforts focused on accurately modeling the flow around a hypersonic vehicle,” the statement adds. “Recently, Dahlgren’s hypersonic efforts have expanded to include roles in the development of offensive missile boost-glide weapons and other collaborative efforts across the DoD.”

Asked whether Hypercone could be turned into an offensive weapon, Jones declined to say.