Defense Business Brief: A little bit of MOSA; Netherlands-U.S. industry days, and more

Defense Business Brief

Military buyers want to move quickly, which can mean companies need to add new tech to vehicles after they’re built. Now, Oshkosh Defense is building a dedicated center to test those modifications.

“We call it the Vehicle Integration Center. It allows us to prove out and test conformance in the real world. So that's work that we'll be doing in ‘27,” Logan Jones , Oshkosh Defense’s chief growth officer, told Defense One .

“The question of ‘does it work?’ is still left way too late in the process,” Jones said. “We want to shorten that from like a year and a half to weeks.”

While the focus is on their own offerings, Jones said the integration center could help other combat vehicle makers test their products.

“The primes are going to be interested,” he said. “The signal in the market that we've seen is we would be taking risk out of their program—and that's what they want. They want speed, and they want low risk, so they can predict when it'll be available.”

The aim, at least in part, is to make the process easier on engineers. For example: Let's say you're an engineer doing the counter-UAS solution. You said ‘I'm going to bolt it on.’ You need to know where the mounting locations are,” Jones said, noting that information is usually in an interface control document, or ICD. “We don't make that easy today…But in the future, it should be a turnkey system” where the ICDs are easy to access.

Oshkosh is cleaning up ICDs and aims to start work at the center early next year.

You’ve reached the Defense Business Brief, where we dig into what the Pentagon buys, who they’re buying from, and why. Send along your tips, feedback, and song recommendations to lwilliams@defenseone.com . Check out the Defense Business Brief archive here , and tell your friends to subscribe !

How the Dutch are rethinking weapons buying. The U.S. isn’t the only nation with procurement woes. The Netherlands has spent recent years trying to revamp its acquisition system, and there’s a push to incentivize manufacturers to stay ready, Derk Boswijk, the minister for arms procurement and personnel, told reporters.

“We can buy 1 million drones, but I know one thing for sure: that weeks from now they are outdated. So we have to come up with a new model, and we are already working on it,” Boswijk said.

That model would have the government pay commercial companies to be on-call, in a way, to produce certain military products during a conflict.

For example, the government could pay an automaker to make drones. “In the meantime, you do the research, you build prototypes,” and order supplies, he said. But when a conflict “breaks loose, they put everything aside and…produce the drones instead of the automobiles.”

Boswijk spoke with a sense of urgency to try something different: “The most dangerous thing we can do is play [it] safe …I have to take [risks] because otherwise, when I want to have 100 percent certainty, then I know for sure…it will be too late.”

A bit more: Two U.S. companies inked deals during last week’s annual Netherlands-U.S. defense industry event: Bell Textron and Lockheed Martin.

Bell had two memorandums of understanding: one with PhotonFirst to explore the use of fiber optic sensing to monitor aircrafts’ structural health and another with the Netherlands Industries for Defense & Securities.

The latter agreement is “really to facilitate relationships on how they can help us and find other partners in the Netherlands,” Robbie Yarbrough, director of international industrial cooperation at Bell Textron, told Defense One . “And next month, we'll be signing a few more MOUs, and we're really looking for research and technology.”

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works signed an agreement with the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Center in support of the Dutch air force. The deal expands an existing agreement and broadens industrial base access.

MQ-25 Stingray progress report. The Navy successfully synced the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to an unmanned tanker located more than 2,100 miles away via satellite as part of a series of preliminary sea-trial tests “to validate procedures, networks and interfaces,” the service said in a news release.

“Once the satellite link was up, air vehicle pilots aboard USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) connected to the MQ-25A air vehicle on the ground in Mascoutah, Illinois,” the Navy told Defense One via email. “Using the MD-5C [unmanned air command and control station] aboard the ship, the AVPs gave the air vehicle multiple commands to exercise various subsystems of the aircraft and verify an established connection.”

Context: The Navy has made several strides with its drone tanker program this year. The program is considered to be a “pathfinder” effort designed to relieve F/A-18E/F aircraft from their refueling duties to focus more on strike missions.

Related: The Navy awarded Applied Intuition a contract for AI data infrastructure “across the manned and unmanned fleet,” the company announced. The service previously awarded the company a contract for its data engine solution and will build on that.

“Its Intelligent Perception System will be the first fleet-scale capability deployed, starting with five Arleigh Burke-class destroyers under the Portfolio Acquisition Executive Robotic and Autonomous Systems and PAE Mission Systems initiative,” the company said in a news release.

Making moves + other news

BAE Systems bought about 13 acres in Weld County, Colorado, to expand manufacturing related to space-based hardware and sensor systems.

The Army expanded its enterprise contract with Striverworks tenfold to $700 million for fullstack AI solutions . The company also has a separate $200 million Army contract for the service’s Next Generation Command and Control program .

Electra plans to demonstrate its hybrid-electric Ultra Short aircraft in Lower Manhattan on Friday. The event is expected to be the “first-ever landing at the heliport by a fixed-wing aircraft without vertical takeoff capability,” the company said in a news release.

The National Armaments Consortium added new members and elected James Miller of the Practical Energetics Research as its executive chairman.

The Pentagon awarded Nikon Advanced Manufacturing a contract with an unspecified amount for “customized additive manufacturing systems targeted for production of Tomahawk Land Attack Missile mid-bodies, and other similar potential applications,” the company said in a news release. The award is part of the Defense Department’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program.

Defense tech firms like Palantir are getting more attention—from Wikipedia editors , the Guardian reported. Fun fact: Once upon a time, I wrote “a long article” about that very unique world.

NEXT STORY: Fast-flying Shahed drones spur new class of interceptors

国防商业简报

军方买家希望快速行动，这意味着企业可能需要在车辆制造完成后为其添加新技术。目前，奥什科什防务公司正在建设一个专门的中心来测试这些改装。

“我们称之为车辆集成中心。它使我们能够在现实世界中验证和测试一致性。这就是我们将在 2027 年开展的工作，”奥什科什防务公司首席增长官洛根·琼斯告诉《防务一号》杂志。

琼斯说：“‘它是否有效？’这个问题在过程中仍然被拖延得太久。我们希望将这个过程从一年半缩短到几周。”

琼斯表示，虽然重点是他们自己的产品，但该集成中心可以帮助其他作战车辆制造商测试他们的产品。

“主要承销商肯定会感兴趣，”他说。“我们从市场上看到的信号是，我们将降低他们项目的风险——而这正是他们想要的。他们想要速度，也想要低风险，这样他们就能预测项目何时可用。”

其目的至少部分是为了简化工程师的工作流程。例如：“假设你是一名负责反无人机系统解决方案的工程师。你说‘我要把它用螺栓固定上去’。你需要知道安装位置在哪里，”琼斯说道，并指出这些信息通常包含在接口控制文档（ICD）中。“目前我们并没有让这一切变得简单……但未来，它应该是一个交钥匙系统”，届时ICD将易于访问。

奥什科什正在清理ICD，并计划于明年初开始在该中心开展工作。

欢迎来到《国防商业简报》，在这里我们将深入探讨五角大楼的采购内容、采购供应商以及采购原因。欢迎将您的建议、反馈和歌曲推荐发送至 lwilliams@defenseone.com。点击此处查看《国防商业简报》往期内容，并邀请您的朋友订阅！

荷兰正在重新思考武器采购方式。美国并非唯一面临采购困境的国家。荷兰武器采购和人事部长德克·博斯维克告诉记者，近年来，荷兰一直在努力改革其采购体系，并正努力激励制造商保持战备状态。

“我们可以购买100万架无人机，但我可以肯定地说：几周后它们就会过时。所以我们必须研发出一种新型号，而且我们已经在着手研发了，”博斯维克说道。

这种模式会让政府付费给商业公司，让它们在冲突期间随时待命，生产某些军用产品。

例如，政府可以出资让汽车制造商生产无人机。“与此同时，你可以进行研发，制造原型机，”并订购原材料，他说道。但当冲突爆发时，“他们会放下一切，转而生产无人机而不是汽车。”

博斯维克带着一种急切的心情谈到要尝试一些不同的东西：“我们能做的最危险的事情就是安于现状……我必须承担风险，否则，当我想要百分之百确定的时候，我知道……那就太晚了。”

再补充一点：在上周举行的荷美年度国防工业盛会上，两家美国公司签署了协议：贝尔德事隆和洛克希德·马丁。

贝尔公司签署了两份谅解备忘录：一份是与 PhotonFirst 公司签署的，旨在探索使用光纤传感技术来监测飞机的结构健康状况；另一份是与荷兰国防与安全工业公司签署的。

贝尔德事隆国际工业合作总监罗比·亚伯勒告诉《防务一号》：“后一项协议的真正目的是为了促进双方建立联系，了解他们如何帮助我们，并在荷兰寻找其他合作伙伴。下个月，我们将签署更多谅解备忘录，我们真正寻求的是研发和技术方面的合作。”

洛克希德·马丁公司臭鼬工厂与荷兰皇家航空航天中心签署了一项协议，旨在支持荷兰空军。该协议是对现有协议的扩展，并扩大了工业基地的准入范围。

MQ-25“黄貂鱼”无人机进展报告。美国海军在一份新闻稿中表示，作为一系列初步海上试验的一部分，海军已成功通过卫星将“罗纳德·里根”号航空母舰与一艘位于2100英里（约3400公里）外的无人油轮进行同步，以“验证相关程序、网络和接口”。

“卫星链路建立后，‘罗纳德·里根’号航空母舰（CVN 76）上的无人机飞行员与位于伊利诺伊州马斯科塔的MQ-25A无人机建立了连接，”海军通过电子邮件告诉Defense One。“无人机飞行员使用舰上的MD-5C（无人机指挥与控制站）向无人机发出多项指令，以测试飞机的各个子系统并验证连接是否已建立。”

背景：今年，海军的无人加油机项目取得了多项进展。该项目被视为一项“探路者”计划，旨在减轻F/A-18E/F战斗机的空中加油负担，使其能够更专注于打击任务。

相关报道：Applied Intuition公司宣布，海军已授予该公司一份合同，为其“有人和无人舰队”提供人工智能数据基础设施。此前，海军已授予该公司一份数据引擎解决方案的合同，此次将在此基础上继续推进相关工作。

该公司在一份新闻稿中表示：“其智能感知系统将是首个部署的舰队级能力，首先将在投资组合采购执行机器人和自主系统以及PAE任务系统计划下的五艘阿利·伯克级驱逐舰上进行部署。”

最新动态 + 其他新闻

BAE Systems 在科罗拉多州韦尔德县购买了约 13 英亩土地，以扩大与航天硬件和传感器系统相关的制造。

美国陆军将与Striverworks公司的企业合同金额扩大了十倍，达到7亿美元，用于采购全栈人工智能解决方案。该公司还与陆军签订了一份价值2亿美元的合同，用于该军种的下一代指挥与控制项目。

Electra公司计划于周五在曼哈顿下城展示其混合动力电动超短程飞机。该公司在一份新闻稿中表示，此次活动预计将是“有史以来首次有不具备垂直起降能力的固定翼飞机在该直升机场降落”。

国家军备联盟新增成员，并选举实用能源研究公司的詹姆斯·米勒担任执行主席。

五角大楼授予尼康先进制造公司一份金额未公开的合同，用于“定制增材制造系统，旨在生产战斧陆攻导弹中段弹体及其他类似潜在应用”，该公司在一份新闻稿中表示。该合同是美国国防部工业基础分析与保障计划的一部分。

据《卫报》报道，像Palantir这样的国防科技公司正受到更多关注——包括来自维基百科编辑的关注。有趣的是，我曾经写过一篇关于这个独特领域的“长文”。

下一篇报道：高速飞行的“沙赫德”无人机催生了新型拦截器