DSIAC collects and publishes articles related to our technical focus areas on the web to share with the DoD community.
The U.S. Navy has tested a small hydrofoil boat based on the VT Halter Marine Mk Mod 2 High Speed Assault Craft, a predecessor to the service”s stealthy Combatant Craft Assault special operations watercraft, or CCA. The revelation comes more than 25 years after the service retired its six Pegasus-class missile boats, the last of
3D printing is proving to be an important manufacturing technology within the defense sector. In the U.S. especially, resources are being allocated to explore the use of the technology for producing replacement parts on the fly, so that military equipment can be kept up and running. Recently, the Marine Corps Systems Command teamed up with
Falcon Heavy has flown its first commercial mission, and there’s plenty more where that came from. The world’s most powerful operational rocket sent up the Arabsat-6A communications satellite from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Thursday, demonstrating its commercial viability following its test launch in February 2018. SpaceX successfully landed all three cores, paving the
In September 2018, the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller directed that various Marine Corps units incorporate forced marches into combat readiness evaluations. That directive has resulted in new changes to training and readiness manuals that will see grunts moving farther distances while also testing combat effectiveness after a long hike carrying
The U.S. Navy issued a written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee stating plans to integrate multi-domain capabilities into its next-generation offensive missiles, USNI News reported Monday. The Navy’s Offensive Missile Strategy succeeds the Cruise Missile Strategy and includes non-nuclear offensive strike missiles with a capacity of over 50 nautical miles. The service plans
WASHINGTON: Integration of lasers on ships and other weapons is the biggest challenge today— not power. Officers and officials say there are lots of devilish details to deal with before the US military can employ laser weapons on the battlefield, from beam control to targeting to controls you can operate without a PhD. “I’m not
Scientists at the Army Research Lab are studying how brain activity could be harnessed to optimize a performance of a human-machine team. By feeding artificial intelligence systems information about a soldier”s intent, advanced systems “could dynamically respond and adapt to assist the soldier in completing the task,” said Jean Vettel, a senior neuroscientist at ARL”s
Two new autonomous aircraft concepts that promise to redefine the Air Force’s unmanned fleet are moving forward. The latest, Skyborg, is an autonomous drone prototyping program underway at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Researchers hope to get the aircraft—expected to be cheaper than other platforms and easily replaceable—combat-ready by the end of 2023. Air Force
The Pentagon is making optimistic assumptions, especially regarding congressional support, in its five-year plan for a U.S. Space Force (USSF), according to sources on Capitol Hill and in industry. The Space Force planning task force initial work plan is the first deliverable as directed by the Air Force secretary. The document was created in 30
By the time the application window closed, Amazon had received 238 proposals from cities and regions throughout North America looking to become the second headquarters of the behemoth tech company. Amazon invited proposals especially from places that looked a lot like its native Seattle: metro areas with more than a million people; a stable and
A Rocket Lab Electron rocket climbed into orbit from New Zealand Thursday (U.S. time) with an experimental payload for a U.S. military research and development agency to demonstrate the performance of a compact, deployable antenna that could expand the communications capabilities of future small satellites. The 55-foot-tall (17-meter) rocket, powered by nine kerosene-fueled 3D-printed Rutherford
The Pentagon is considering revisions to the dollar amounts and damage levels that qualify an aircraft accident as a major mishap to better reflect the expense of repairing advanced jets. But such changes could lead to less visibility into the actual state of aviation safety, government watchdogs cautioned. Major aviation accidents are currently classified as