Defense Business Brief: Arcfield’s state of play; SMD wrap up; X-Bow Systems’ MDA win

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—There are less than four months left in the year, but defense and aerospace company Arcfield’s plans seem to just be getting started, as they prepare for an upcoming satellite launch and explore manufacturing a highly specialized component key for optical sensors and laser communications.

“There's a lot going on at Arcfield. And what we're really focused on is bringing the government a fully-baked solution,” Dan Knight, Arcfield’s vice president for Golden Dome initiatives and strategy, told Defense One at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., last week. “Instead of saying, ‘Hey, I'm the one-trick wonder that just does sensors,’ or ‘I'm the one-trick wonder that just does architecture,’ we leverage all of our expertise across our organization to bring something that can be easily integrated and operationalized.”

Arcfield is planning to test several sensors in the coming months, and its subsidiary, Orion Space Solutions, expects to launch a very low earth orbit, or VLEO, satellite in September. 

“You launch it up to the International Space Station. One of the astronauts up there takes it out, puts it in like a little Pez dispenser, and drops it down into very low Earth orbit,” Knight said. “There's a lot of sensing that happens in the ionosphere with this particular satellite—and some communications packages and other things.”

Knight said the company is forging geostationary orbit satellite plans for 2027 on top of supporting Golden Dome with mission engineering.

“We have a long history of [low-Earth orbit] satellites. We're building a GEO refueler so that the Space Force can maneuver without regret…and then we do optical and [high frequency] sensors,” Knight said, speaking about missile warning and tracking.

The company also wants to scale its manufacturing ability for a very special type of glass. 

“We want to get into the manufacturing business of something called an etalon. And you're like, I've never heard the word etalon in my life!” Knight said with a laugh. “It's a highly polished piece of glass. And it's needed for a variety of optical applications—so laser communications, very precise telescopes, and very, very sophisticated optical sensors like the ones we build.”

The move comes as the U.S. military increasingly relies on sensors to garner intel, improve navigation, and fuel autonomy, all while the White House pushes for domestic manufacturing of national security technologies.  

“There's a backlog based on our foreign suppliers. We really want to get that investment from the government, which is what they've said they want to do, and get that online so that we can provide etalons for the defense industrial base,” Knight said, referring to working with the Pentagon’s Manufacturing Technology, or ManTech, program. 

Arcfield already makes etalons for its products but expansion would support internal growth and the industrial base overall, Knight said. The company has conducted demos and submitted a white paper to start the process with hopes of getting government funding to help build out its manufacturing capacity for a larger scale.

“We want to expand our manufacturing line for our optical sensor…and within that, that's going to require a fairly significant expansion of the etalon production. We can't [rely] on a company in Canada that produces it,” he said.

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A space-age name change. The German air force, Luftwaffe, officially changed its English name translation to the German Air and Space Force, said Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, who leads Germany’s Space Command. 

• “What we've seen is that the air and the space domains [are] increasingly merging,” Traut said during an international space panel at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium last week. 
• Germany wants to procure space surveillance radars, he said, adding that, “Of course, we know that capable missile defense radars can look into space as well. As such, I'm completely interested in the data they provide, and I'm completely interested in the integration.”
• Last year, Germany committed €35 billion to space-related defense projects. The NATO nation is also interested in hypersonic vehicles, specifically space planes, presenting “an opportunity to operate in different altitudes we were used to,” Traut said. 
• “We are absolutely committed strategically to develop and operate space planes in high atmospheric hypersonic operations. [That] not only sets us up to defend against enemy threats, but to explore and make use of that altitude as well.”

Increased munitions options means launchers should do more with less. Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher, or CAML, represents the kind of thinking we need around launchers, Brig. Gen. Robert J. Mikesh, the Army’s capability program executive for offensive fires, said during the symposium. 

• “We should not think of every launcher as permanently married to a single missile or munition,” Mikesh said. 
• “We need to think about adaptable platforms, commonality, autonomy, payloads for both offensive or defensive environments, reduced soldier burden and the ability to integrate new capabilities more rapidly. The launcher can no longer be an afterthought,” Mikesh said.

Bonus round: NORTHCOM keeps eye on security needs for power generation and increasingly electrified military systems and command and control centers, said Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard, the command’s deputy commander. 

• “We are aware of some of the issues with respect to that,” Jarrard said during the Q&A portion of his keynote at the symposium. “Obviously some of our critical infrastructure requires some of those energy sources. And so I will say that's on our radar…But it hasn't necessarily risen to the level we consider it to be a problem that we have to deal with directly, right now.”
• One thing that is top of mind: The lack of sensors to spot and protect military bases from drone attacks. 

Making moves + other news

• The Missile Defense Agency awarded X-Bow Systems an $11 million contract for testing and development of low-cost interceptors.
• Rocketmaker United Launch Alliance names Mark Peller as CEO.
• Sam Mehta takes over as L3Harris’ CEO, following the ousting of Chris Kubasik.
• Auriga Space brings on former MDA Director Trey Obering as an advisor, Defense One has learned.
• REGENT’s seaglider drone platform performs in the Silent Swarm defense event.
• CACI opens a manufacturing center in Rochester, N.Y. 
• Havoc AI teams up with Red Cat. 
• The Pentagon is auditing academic institutions to scrutinize foreign ties. Related: Reuters looks at how U.S. military funding fueled China’s robot dog boo