Photo caption: ATLANTIC OCEAN (Feb. 21, 2024) Sailors assigned to operations department’s OC division conduct air traffic control operations in the air traffic control center aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) in the Atlantic Ocean, Feb. 21, 2024. (U.S. Navy photo)
Feb. 23, 2024
HII’s Weekly News Digest is compiled every Friday by the Corporate Communications team to summarize and highlight news stories of significance to the company.
EMALS Testing Underway Aboard John F. Kennedy (CVN 79): WTKR reported on Wednesday that HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division recently started topside testing of the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) on Ford-class aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CVN 79). The electromagnetic launch system was first integrated into USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), and replaces the existing steam catapults currently in use on the U.S. Navy’s Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. NNS has completed no-load testing the system and has now moved to dead-load testing where wheeled cars weighing up to 80,000 pounds are launched from the flight deck using EMALS. Naval Technology reported on Thursday that EMALS uses stored kinetic energy and solid-state electrical power conversion. This technology permits a high degree of computer control, monitoring and automation that was not available using the old system. The Virginian-Pilot reported on Thursday that the EMALS system allows air wings to get into the air — and return to the battle after rearming and refueling — faster than with the traditional steam-and-hydraulics systems.
Pentagon Calls For Generational Investment In Industry: Defense News reported on Tuesday that the Pentagon is calling for “generational” investments in the defense industrial base to help keep pace with current and potential global conflicts. The Pentagon is now rethinking its approach to the industry, which it had allowed to contract and consolidate beginning in the early 1990s after the end of the Cold War. The Pentagon is now signaling future commitments in its new industrial base strategy that focuses on four areas: creating resilient supply chains, ensuring workforce readiness, creating business-friendly acquisition policies and bolstering the national security marketplace. Halimah Najieb-Locke, the Defense Department’s acting deputy for industrial base policy, said the goal over the next three to five years is to speed up long-lead items, such as ball bearings or solid-rocket motors that slow down the production of important weapons. Others include retooling obsolete parts of the supply chain and using more funding from the Defense Production Act, which allows the Pentagon to issue national security-related grants. The Defense News report comes less than a week after U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro urged defense companies to continue investing in ways that boost production, Inside Defense reported on Feb. 15. Del Toro’s comments came during the WEST 2024 conference in San Diego.
Navy Secretary: Continuing Resolutions Will Create Budget Misalignment: Inside Defense reported on Friday, Feb. 16 that senior Navy officials warned of the budgetary dysfunction that could be created without settling the ongoing fiscal year 2024 appropriations debate in the near term, especially given the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2025 budget request is expected to be released in a few weeks. Those officials cited serious funding misalignments and impaired military readiness if the budgetary discord in Congress does not resolve itself in the near future. U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said a full-year continuing resolution would be “monumentally damaging” to the existing and future fleet. Del Toro warned a full-year continuing resolution would create $40 billion in sequestration cuts and misaligned funds. Politico reported on Wednesday that several House conservatives want an update on the status of nearly two dozen possible policy riders that could be included in a deal to fund the federal government — and floating a yearlong stopgap measure. Portions of the government are due to shut down on March 1, while other agencies have funding until March 8. The Hill reported on Friday that a spending deal could emerge from the House as early as Sunday.
Social Media Highlight Of The Week
Posted Thursday on HII’s Facebook page:
“Welcome home to the crew of the USS Delbert D. Black – DDG 119 following a 3-month surge deployment. The ship deployed in December to the U.S. Naval Forces Europe area of operations as part of deterrence efforts in defense of our nation’s security. #IngallsShipbuilding is proud to build and maintain these destroyers for the U.S. Navy.” |
Pentagon Achieves Initial Version Of CJADC2: C4SIRNET reported on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Defense has achieved a basic version of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, knowns as CJADC2. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said the Pentagon’s effort to connect sensors from all branches of the armed forces into a unified network is optimized to reliably process a large amount of data. There is still more work to do, but recent progress on implementing advanced communication and information-sharing processes has made the concept a reality, at least in a limited capacity, Hicks said. Defense News reported on Thursday that the Pentagon’s acknowledgement that CJADC2 is being applied by combatant commands is a signal to China that the U.S. is making significant strides in military modernization. The quicker battlefield information can be collected, analyzed and disseminated, the quicker and more precisely targets can be taken down. Folding in artificial intelligence and other pattern-recognizing programs to tackle tides of data will be critical. Breaking Defense reported on Wednesday that Pentagon Chief Digital & AI Officer Craig Martell is pushing a vision that creates long-term solutions that will allow the armed services to both share the data they collect and synthesize the data in specialized ways that allows the information to be useful for their individual needs.
HII’s Weekly News Digest is produced by HII’s Corporate Communications team and posted to Homeport every Friday.
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