The Senate Armed Services Committee has passed its version of the fiscal 2024 defense policy bill, supporting President Joe Biden’s budget request in many cases—such as easing restrictions on the retirement of A-10 fighters—but pushing back in other areas, including blocking the divestment of any advanced Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Block 40 Global Hawk uncrewed aircraft systems.
The bill, which provides $886.3 billion for national defense, follows its House counterpart in creating a program of record for a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, and authorizes funding to get that program started. It also increases funding for the U.S. Air Force’s next nuclear ICBM missile program.
The bill fully funds Biden’s fiscal 2024 request for programs, including the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) replacement. It also fully funds an effort to upgrade the F-35’s Pratt & Whitney F135 engine and supports the requested amount of research for the Adaptive Engine Transition Program.
When it comes to NGAD, the bill does not include any directive language in the unclassified version. It does, however, seek quarterly briefings from the Air Force on NGAD’s collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) companion effort, to update Congress on progress in acquiring and operating test aircraft, assessments of the effectiveness of CCA missions and trade-offs between manned and unmanned systems. Like the House Armed Services Committee’s bill, the Senate panel also requests a plan for how the Air Force will modernize its fighter force.
The bill would allow the service to retire 42 A-10 aircraft and reduce the total number of fighter aircraft the service is required to maintain to 1,112 from 1,145. It would also require a briefing on how the service will use equipment harvested from retiring aircraft to upgrade service-worthy F-16s.
The bill would add funding for the Northrop Grumman LGM-35A Sentinel, the Pentagon’s next nuclear ICBM. The current Minuteman III ICBM continues to rely on guidance technology from the 1970s, according to a committee aide. The additional funding was included to ensure that the Sentinel’s guidance technology will be upgraded and available for the future. The bill provides both multiyear and advance procurement funding authority for the missile. And the legislation would require replacement of the Sentinel’s strategic automated command-and-control system upon its initial operational capability.
The Senate committee mandates the start of a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile and W80-4 ALT nuclear warhead development program. It anticipates both will be initially capable by 2035. To start that effort, it authorizes $190 million in Defense Department funding for the SLCM-N and $74 million for the W80-4 warhead. And it adds funding for a Ballistic Missile Strategic Weapon System and the Hypersonic Targets and Countermeasures Program.
The legislation also calls for an assessment of the Precision Strike Missile program’s industrial base capacity that would look at ways to accelerate production up to 400 a year. And it supports the U.S. Army’s effort to extend the range of the Lockheed Martin Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System and encourages the Army to reduce costs by seeking a second source for the system’s solid rocket motors.
