The Space & Missile Systems Center’s Space Enterprise Consortium has been so successful at providing competitive prototypes, fast, that SMC wants to expand its scope dramatically.

Innovators! You have until Aug. 23 to submit white papers on how to make the future infantry squad “10 times more effective.”

And make it snappy: The deadline is July 26th.

PARIS AIR SHOW: During an unusual public appearance in the US Chalet, Will Roper called for a large expansion in the number of companies doing business with the Air Force so more new planes can be built — and be built much more quickly as was done in the 1950s and ’60s when a new… Keep reading →

The senators’ draft of the annual defense bill puts a new emphasis on technological competition, including industrial policy moves to strengthen US companies.

The Pentagon’s new Special Ops leader is looking to the defense industry for help in meeting peer adversaries, but he also has a bone to pick.

“This is not based on ownership. We leave them their freedom.”

BOSTON: “It’s like running through a briar patch naked,” Will Roper said of trying to bring start-up companies into the service’s contracting model to keep apace of commercial innovation. “You have to be willing to bleed a little bit,” Roper, the Air Force’s top acquisition official told me in an interview last Thursday, after watching 10 newborn… Keep reading →

After decades using the same clunky simulators, the Army is about to buy new sims drawing on the latest innovations in online gaming.

The Army must take risks to modernize, the Futures Command chief said, and the modernization effort will survive the inevitable failures along the way.