@Red Leg and
@Altitude sickness thank you both for helping those of us without military experience or defense contracting experience know about these topics and challenges on the modern battlefield. It seems that things are changing at a fast pace. I hope our DOD and all the different companies cooperate to solve such complex issues and evolving needs. Perhaps the big companies will form partnerships with the smaller companies, where needed, to solve these challenges and deploy systems across the broad spectrum of fixed and mobile land-based, ocean-based and space-based platforms.
Absolutely. The large corporations tend to act as system integrators on major programs, partnering with smaller houses for key technologies. Let me give you a non-defense example so I don’t tread into a classified area. My old company, Northrop Grumman, won the prime contractor role to build the James Webb Space Telescope. As you might imagine, a host of different technologies went into the JWST, not all of which were core Northrop capabilities. What was core was the knowledge how to utilize and integrate different technologies to create a successful space vehicle for whatever purpose.
The primary subcontractors included Ball Aerospace who were experts on mirror technology, ATK (since acquired by Northrop) which builds fine control and support structures for optical mirrors, L3Harris for electronic integration, the University of Arizona for mirror analysis and testing, Geodetic Systems which specializes in orbital positioning, etc, etc. More than twenty-five direct subs participated as part of the bid team and many of them had subs on their team. The total industry team assembled by the prime entailed nearly a hundred different entities, many with unique technologies, and of course NASA.
Only three corporations attempted to bid the project, Northrop, TRW, and Ball Aerospace. Yes, Ball attempted to win prime (a real long shot for such a niche company) and were a member of the Northrop bid with their unique mirror technology.
I use this as an example to show how complex platforms (fighters, ships, tanks, and yes, swarms) require deep integration skills to bring the array of technologies together to make complex systems function.
The space swarm missile defense concept may very well prove a useful capability, but it will not be created by a startup in someone’s garage. It will be an extremely complex endeavor whatever new technologies are exploited. But a key technology may be provided by such a startup.
