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i 

94–235 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–33] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND 

CAPABILITIES HEARING 

ON

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FISCAL YEAR 

2016 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK TO 

MAINTAIN TECHNOLOGICAL SUPERIORITY 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 26, 2015 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina, Chairman 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona, Vice Chair 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

KEVIN GATES, Professional Staff Member 

LINDSAY KAVANAUGH, Professional Staff Member 

JULIE HERBERT, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island, Ranking 

Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ..................... 13 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ............................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Miller, Mary J., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and 

Technology ............................................................................................................ 4 

Prabhakar, Dr. Arati, Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency .. 11 

Shaffer, Alan R., Principal Deputy, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering ....................................................................................... 2 

Walker, Dr. David E., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, 

Technology, and Engineering .............................................................................. 9 

Winter, RADM Mathias W., USN, Chief of Naval Research ............................... 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Miller, Mary J. .................................................................................................. 52 

Prabhakar, Dr. Arati ........................................................................................ 103 

Shaffer, Alan R. ................................................................................................ 29 

Walker, Dr. David E. ........................................................................................ 97 

Winter, RADM Mathias W. ............................................................................. 70 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Franks ........................................................................................................ 120 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 119 

Mr. Nugent ........................................................................................................ 120 

Ms. Stefanik ...................................................................................................... 121 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Nugent ........................................................................................................ 130 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 125 

(1) 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FISCAL YEAR 2016 SCIENCE 

AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK TO MAINTAIN TECHNOLOGICAL SUPERIORITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 26, 2015. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:35 a.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Wilson (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. WILSON. I am pleased to welcome everyone here today for 

this hearing on the fiscal year 2016 budget request for science and 

technology [S&T] programs within the Department of Defense 

[DOD]. 

We are all aware of the intense downward budget pressure the 

Department is under these days in the ever-growing universe of 

threats that we are forced to deal with. Science and technology programs are part of the modernization investments that keep the Department prepared and ready to deal with those threats and ensure 

that when we send our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines into 

harm’s way, we make sure they are never in a fair fight because 

technology is on their side. 

But defense sequestration jeopardizes that technological superiority and our ability to outmatch and outclass potential adversaries. I agree, we cannot ignore today’s concerns, including readiness, equipment recapitalization, and the health and welfare of our 

service members. 

Nor can we expect to raid our modernization accounts to pay 

those bills. That is like taking money from the retirement accounts 

to pay the mortgage today. There are short-term rewards, but you 

create an even bigger problem down the line. 

I say that to make the point we understand why science and 

technology is important, should be protected, but also recognize 

that in this budget environment we will continue to be under pressure. The fiscal year 2016 budget request for science and technology is seeing a modest increase, but that request was also well 

above the budget caps set by defense sequestration. 

If we have to remain at sequestration levels, I fear the adverse 

impact it will have on our science and technology programs. Not 

only will we have to defer sought-after and important programs, 

but we will continue to defer the hiring of needed scientists and en-
2 

gineers, defer investments in necessary equipment, and defer building or upgrading facilities that support world-class research and 

world-class researchers. 

I know that I have painted a bleak picture, but it is only to punctuate how important we think science and technology is to our national security and the defense of our great Nation. Every time we 

push off research one year—one more year, we give our adversaries 

another year to catch up with us. 

With that, I would like to welcome our distinguished panel of 

witnesses for their thoughts on this topic. 

Mr. Alan Shaffer, Principal Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Research and Engineering; Ms. Mary Miller, Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology; Rear 

Admiral Mat Winter, United States Navy, Chief of Naval Research; 

Dr. David Walker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for 

Science, Technology and Engineering; Dr. Arati Prabhakar, the Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA. 

I would like to turn now to our ranking member, who will be 

here any moment, and he is on the way. And his staff is very trustworthy, and they promised me he is on the way. 

But Mr. Langevin should be here any time. But he has indicated 

to proceed, and we shall because of the voting schedule that we 

may be facing today. 

I would like to remind our witnesses that your written statements will be submitted for the record, so we ask that each of you 

summarize your comments to 5 minutes or less. 

Mr. Shaffer, we will begin with you, and we look forward to your 

opening statement. Before we do, though, I understand that you 

will be retiring from government service at the end of May to take 

a position as the chief science—chief scientist of the NATO [North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization] Science and Technology Organization. What a great honor. 

You have been a good friend of this committee, and so I would 

like to thank you for your many years of service in the Air Force, 

your public service within the Department, and we wish you and 

your family best wishes in the future. Godspeed. 

[Applause.] 

STATEMENT OF ALAN R. SHAFFER, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING 

Mr. SHAFFER. Thank you very much, sir. It has been a pleasure 

to serve and I will continue to serve in the NATO capacity. 

Chairman Wilson and committee members, I am proud to be 

here once again to represent the 100,000-plus scientists and engineers in the Department of Defense. Although this is a community 

that has been challenged in many ways over the last several years, 

they continue to perform remarkably well. 

I want to start with a somewhat unusual story and share with 

you the value of long-term science and technology. I was recently 

briefed about the progress made in combat casualty care. In Iraq 

and Afghanistan from 2005 to 2013 the average severity of injuries 

to our young forces increased by 25 percent, but the fatality rate 

was cut in half. 
3 

We contend the decline in fatality rate is due, in part, to the 

long-term advances and delivery from the medical science and technology community, which includes contributions from everyone at 

this table. 

While our S&T community has performed very well in the recent 

past, the national security environment is changing in fundamental 

ways. For the first time in several decades, we are seeing an erosion of our technologically based military advantage. 

Secretary Ash Carter addressed this during his fiscal year 2016 

budget posture, when he said: 

‘‘For decades, U.S. global power projection has relied on the 

ships, planes, submarines, bases, aircraft carriers, satellites, networks, and other advanced capabilities that comprise our military’s 

unrivaled technological edge. But [today] that superiority is being 

challenged in unprecedented ways. 

‘‘Advanced military technologies, from rockets and drones to 

chemical and biological capabilities, have found their way into the 

arsenals of both non-state actors as well as previously less-capable 

militaries. And other nations—among them Russia, China, Iran, 

and North Korea—have been pursuing long-term, comprehensive 

military modernization programs to close the technology gap that 

has long existed between them and the United States.’’ 

Dr. Carter also addressed the impact of the sequester, stating, ‘‘A 

return to sequestration in fiscal year 2016 would affect all aspects 

of the Department, but not all equally. . . . 

‘‘Approximately half of the cuts would have to come from the Department’s modernization accounts, undermining our efforts to secure technological superiority for U.S. forces in future conflicts. . . . 

Sequestration would put on a hold on critical programs, like our 

Aerospace Innovation Initiative, the Next-Generation Adaptive Engine, the Ground-Based Interceptor missile defense kill vehicle redesign, and several space control efforts.’’ 

As you noted, the 2016 budget request for science and technology increases to $12.3 billion. We have focused on S&T investments in 

advanced technology development to provide more prototypes and 

demonstrations. 

Our recent emphasis in demonstrations is now producing results 

across the DOD. I will highlight just a few of our noteworthy demonstration programs. 

My Emerging Capabilities and Prototype Office has started several joint capability technology demonstrations for communications 

and imagery from small, tactically relevant satellites. The Space 

and Missile Defense Command Nanosatellite Program, known as 

SNaP, is a low Earth orbit nanosatellite that will provide assured, 

beyond-line-of-sight communication, enabling mission command on 

the move. 

Three SNaP satellites were delivered this March with a launch 

date scheduled for August 2015. The Kestral Eye is a 25-kilogram 

satellite that provides good-enough 1.5-meter visible imagery for 

less than $1.5 million. 

Both imagery tasking and delivery is controlled directly by 

battlefield commanders, and this provides a real augmentation to 

our tactical ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] capability. Kestral Eye will launch this December. 
4 

The Army is developing a high-energy laser mobile demonstrator 

to demonstrate low-cost capability for counter rockets, artillery, 

and mortar. In 2014, the Army tested this system twice and successfully engaged roughly 90 percent of the targets. We are now on 

a path for protective lasers to be fielded in the Army’s Indirect Fire 

Protection Capabilities Increment II. 

The Navy’s Innovative Naval Prototype Laser Weapons System 

is another solid state laser under development. The Navy demonstration uses a fiber laser, as compared to the Army’s heat capacity laser. The system was demonstrated aboard the USS Ponce 

in 2014 and is moving forward to its next set of field demonstrations. 

Finally, the Air Force’s Adaptive Engine program is a new architecture, offering roughly 25 percent reduction in specific fuel consumption. Since 2007, we have moved from the Adaptive Versatile 

Engine Technology, ADVENT, program to the Adaptive Engine 

Technology Demonstration, and in 2016 we will commence with the 

Adaptive Engine Transition Program [AETP], which is out of S&T, 

but a 6.4 program moving towards engineering, manufacturing, 

and development program of record early next decade. 

A frequent criticism of the S&T program is that there is duplication among the services. I don’t believe that this is a pervasive 

problem, but in 2013 we reinstated Reliance 21, a process to allow 

the services and defense agencies looking across all projects to optimize their output. 

Under Reliance 21, we have divided the overall S&T program 

into 17 communities of interest [COI], and they have—they are developing integrated science and technology roadmaps or plans. 

These COIs are adjusting programs at the execution level. 

This is, indeed, an interesting time for DOD science and technology, with operational challenges increasing at a time when 

budgets are flat or declining. Meeting the national security needs 

requires we develop and adopt a multifaceted strategy. 

This strategy is in place. I am proud of the professionals and the 

entire R&E [research and engineering] enterprise, and look forward 

to continued achievements from our dedicated workforce. 

I also very much value working together with each of these 

science and technology executives to deliver the most that we can 

from the overall Department of Defense. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shaffer can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Shaffer. 

Ms. Miller. 

STATEMENT OF MARY J. MILLER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

Ms. MILLER. Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member Langevin, and 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the Army’s science and technology program for 

fiscal year 2016. 

I came before this committee last year and spoke to the difficult 

choices that the Army faced balancing force structure, operational 
5 

readiness, and modernization. This continues to be a significant 

challenge. 

The velocity of instability around the world has increased. The 

Army is now operating on multiple continents simultaneously in 

ways unforeseen just a year ago. 

Our adversaries continue to invest in technology to counter or 

evade our strengths, and what used to take our enemies months 

and years to disrupt may now take only days. 

The Army has developed a new Army operational concept, ‘‘Win 

in a Complex World,’’ to address this new environment. Within the 

Army, however, the research, development, and acquisition accounts are 34 percent less in fiscal year 2016 than we projected 

just 4 short years ago, adding to this challenge. 

Despite this dramatic reduction in our modernization accounts, 

the Army leadership has continued to protect the science and technology investment as the key to the Army of the future. The S&T 

enterprise is committed to providing soldiers with the technology to 

win. 

The contributions from the almost 12,000 scientists and engineers that work within the S&T enterprise span the gamut from 

fixing immediate problems to forecasting for the future. I would 

like to take this opportunity to highlight a few of these areas. 

The Army relies on our science and technology enterprise to rapidly solve current problems for our troops in the field—problems 

such as redesigning body armor to better fit female soldiers in Afghanistan. These soldiers were faced with armor that caused abrasions, restricted their movement, and even impacted their ability to 

correctly seat their rifles on their shoulder when shooting. The 

S&T community developed an armor system designed to fit smaller 

torsos, which is now becoming the new standard for female soldiers 

today. 

We are also called upon to improve our current system capability. Efforts like the Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine, now 

the Improved Turbine Engine program of record, will provide 

Apache and Black Hawk critically needed operational improvement 

in both hot and high altitude conditions. 

We also drive down risk for emerging programs of record by 

bringing forward new capabilities that are not only technologically 

achievable, but also affordable. Our efforts with the Third Gen 

FLIR, forward-looking infrared, are a great example of where we 

developed a technical solution that gave us increased range for 

both detection and ID [identification]—range that exceeds that of 

our enemy—while investing in the manufacturability of this system 

to provide an unprecedented, affordable, all-weather capability that 

recently transitioned into the I–FLIR program of record. 

Before a program even gets started, however, S&T provides the 

technical understanding of the art of the possible, ensuring our requirements are both achievable and affordable. 

Our Joint Multi-Role [JMR] Technology Demonstrator effort will 

produce two flight demonstrators in fiscal year 2017 to inform affordable requirements for the Department of Defense’s next-generation rotorcraft. The Future Vertical Lift planned program of record 

is envisioned to meet 70 percent of the current DOD rotorcraft 
6 

needs, and the JMR Tech Demo is ensuring that we get these requirements right. 

With an increasingly adaptive enemy, one who has watched how 

the U.S. fights for the past 13 years, it is imperative for us to understand our own technology and system vulnerabilities—those aspects that could be exploited and used against us. Our Army 

science and technology enterprise has embraced this challenge, as 

well. 

A key aspect of this initiative is red-teaming, challenging our 

systems with an emulated enemy—one who can use innovative and 

adaptive methods to disrupt our planned capability. These efforts 

have the potential for significant cost savings, as vulnerabilities 

are mitigated before system designs are finalized and systems are 

fielded. 

We also work to understand the global technology environment 

by establishing tighter connections to each other through Reliance 

21, that you just heard about, through increasing our engagement 

with the Intelligence Community and accessing nontraditional 

thinkers through our technology war-gaming, focused on what 

could be possible in the 2030 to 2040 timeframe. 

Finally, we continue to seek and develop new and game-changing 

technologies for the future. For instance, our ‘‘materials by design’’ 

basic research effort will provide the capability to select and create 

material properties and responses, essentially building new materials from the atom up. 

Of course, none of this would be possible without the scientists 

and engineers that make up the Army S&T enterprise. I am honored to represent the men and women who apply their expertise on 

a daily basis to creatively solve difficult national security challenges and provide the flexibility and agility to respond to the 

many challenges that the Army will face. 

Our focus remains on our soldiers. We consistently seek new avenues to increase the soldiers’ capability and ensure their technological superiority today, tomorrow, and decades from now. 

Thank you again for all that you do to support our soldiers. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Miller can be found in the Appendix on page 52.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Ms. Miller. 

We now proceed to Admiral Winter. 

STATEMENT OF RADM MATHIAS W. WINTER, USN, CHIEF OF 

NAVAL RESEARCH 

Admiral WINTER. Good morning, Chairman Wilson and Ranking 

Member Langevin, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. As previously mentioned, I am Rear Admiral Mat Winter, the 

new Chief of Naval Research [CNR], and it is an honor to address 

you all and discuss our Department of the Navy’s science and technology investment strategy, which, I will add, is fully supported by 

the President’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. 

Though I have only been the CNR for less than 90 days, I have 

had years of experience in the science and technology arena as a 

producer and as a consumer; as a scientist, a computer scientist, 

and a mechanical engineer by trade; as a combat A–6 Intruder 
7 

bombardier/navigator and as a major weapons program manager; 

also a Naval Warfare Center commander at China Lake and Point 

Mugu; and most recently as our PEO [program executive officer] 

for unmanned aviation and strike weapons. 

With that experience, I come to the table in this job with a 

unique perspective that understands explicitly how our S&T investments enable our workforce to discover, develop, and deliver the 

breakthrough technologies to support our sailors and marines, 

which is absolutely essential. They operate in what I refer to as our 

three fleets: the current fleet underway, the fleet under development, and our future fleet. It is absolutely imperative that we have 

a strategy that links these three fleets together fiscally, operationally, and technically. 

We recently released our Department of the Navy updated S&T 

strategy that does just that. It focuses our efforts into nine relevant, game-changing research areas to provide that clarity to the 

research enterprise and the broader S&T community that includes 

our academia and our small business industry partners. 

Additionally, the strategy defines our workforce engagement and 

development initiatives to build a strong, knowledgeable workforce 

based on the fundamentals of STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics], ensuring that we have the relevant intellectual capital to solve our hardest problems. This strategy guides our 

planning, execution, and decision-making to ensure we have the 

right people with the right skills in the right jobs, and the organizational alignment to ensure efficient execution, communications, 

and decisive leadership. 

To that point, I am a goal-oriented leader. I hate inefficiencies. 

I am executing our S&T mission with the required rigor and accountability so our warfighter maintains that decisive technological 

advantage to fight the fight and keep the peace. But as equally important, it is—we need our scientists and engineers to maintain the 

decisive technological advantage in our laboratories. 

In the 85 days I have been on this job I am coming to realize 

what an honor and privilege it is to lead this incredible team of 

over 4,000 technical professionals in the naval S&T community 

across our Naval Research Enterprise and those embedded with 

our academia and industry partners. By all measures—and since I 

am an engineer, I like to measure things—the work they are engaged in is some of the most influential and game-changing technology research in the Department and albeit around the globe. 

For example, the demonstrated and revolutionary electromagnetic railgun; our breakthrough, game-changing, forward-deployed laser cannons, that has been mentioned previously; the 

medical research focused on traumatic brain injury solutions; advanced materials research; synthetic biology; advanced algorithmic 

autonomous behavior; electromagnetic warfare—it goes on and on. 

My scientists are making contributions that are making marked 

differences not only to our warfighters, which is important, but to 

our Navy and Marine Corps and this great country. How do I come 

to that conclusion? As an engineer—and I like to measure things— 

but I like metrics. We have got to be able to measure things and 

show progress. 
8 

Our S&T domain, though, really is a squishy area of basic and 

applied research. With flubber and flux capacitors, hard to put 

metric to those types of investments. 

So how do we do that? Some would say it is transition of S&T 

products to get to our warfighters. 

That is true, but I don’t think that is the complete answer. I 

think we need to look at all of the spectrum of S&T transition. 

I can point to our Department of the Navy S&T metrics that 

show 87 percent of our S&T products transition into acquisition, 

and the majority of those transition to the warfighters’ hands. That 

is not trivial, and that is a good success rate. 

But there is 13 percent, and those will be looked at as failures. 

I say it is different. I say that gives us latent benefit. 

That 13 percent provides new knowledge that has never been 

known before. It allows us to populate the intellectual capital to 

solve hard problems, manifests into over 60 Nobel Peace—Nobel 

Prize winners. We also have 300-plus patents a year in the Department of the Navy that make sure we husband our intellectual capital and continually get return on investment. 

And we also transition technologies to the shelf. They are on the 

shelf so that when an emerging requirement manifests itself, we 

have a ready-to-go solution to transition. So that is a transition— 

latent transition activity, as well. 

The problem I see as we bring that together is the ‘‘Valley of 

Death’’ is more of a moat, and it is a bridge, and it is something 

that we need to continue to work through together. To that end, 

it is apparent that we don’t—we leave nothing to waste. 

When you visit our Navy and Marine Corps, everything you see 

originated at some level with S&T—everything from Old Ironsides 

to the first radars, from nuclear propulsion to our biofuel alternatives, from the Sidewinder missile to the RGPS [Relative Global 

Positioning System] capabilities and railgun and lasers. All have 

the origins within the Naval Research S&T domain, and we are 

proud of that. 

These are relevant technological successes. Some are old, some 

are new, but they are a true cumulative impact from discovery and 

invention, to application and experimentation, to demonstration 

and fielding. They work. 

And our naval scientists, along with our small business industry 

partners and our academia university colleagues here and around 

the globe, make it happen. I invite you and your staffs to come join 

us and observe firsthand, in our Navy Warfare Centers and our 

labs, the technologies and the accomplishments that our scientists 

are executing. 

We will continue to pursue our S&T efforts with innovative research and disruptive thinking, always trying to make existing systems more effective and affordable. That is very important. 

And in doing so, we remain aligned to our senior leadership. The 

CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] and Commandant’s recently released ‘‘Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century Seapower’’ is 

underpinned by this S&T strategy. 

We can’t afford to do business as usual—just can’t do that. And 

we can’t wish away the technological advantages of emergent global actors that are challenging our warfighting supremacy. 
9 

The CNO’s strategy provides us the framework to think and act 

differently, and we are. We must be committed as a country to pursuing the technological solutions for tomorrow today. 

It is essential to tie that technical to the tactical to the strategic, 

and we in the Navy and the Marine Corps are committed to ensuring our S&T resources that you and your congressional colleagues 

provide us gets the most bang for the buck by giving our sailors 

and marines that technological advantage on the battlefield. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your time and your continued support of our S&T efforts, and I look forward to taking 

your questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Winter can be found in the 

Appendix on page 70.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Admiral Winter. 

We now proceed to Dr. Walker. 

STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID E. WALKER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND ENGINEERING 

Dr. WALKER. Thank you, Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member 

Langevin, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to have 

the opportunity to provide testimony on the Air Force’s fiscal year 

2016 science and technology program. 

This has been an exceptional year for science and technology in 

the United States Air Force. Last summer our Secretary and Chief 

published a new ‘‘America’s Air Force: A Call to the Future’’—a 30- 

year strategy for the Air Force, which really highlights science and 

technology and how it is required to achieve the strategic goals 

that they set forward. 

Our fiscal year 2016 President’s budget request is an increase of 

14 percent over our previous request, at a $2.4 billion level. The 

Air Force leadership recognizes the excellent work that S&T has 

done in the past and recognizes the need for S&T to achieve the 

future they want. And characterizing our S&T program, Major 

General Masiello, the commander of the Air Force Research Lab, 

has put it in three Rs: responsive, relevant, and revolutionary. 

The responsive piece is, how do you be responsive to the 

warfighter’s need in the field today? An excellent example of this 

is a—Air Force S&T provided a capability to the special operations 

troops operating in Afghanistan by integrating the sensor payload 

onto a tactically remote piloted vehicle that provided a unique and 

unprecedented capability for identifying IEDs [improvised explosive 

devices], weapons caches, and enemy, and has resulted in significant support within the theater. 

On the revolutionary front, the adaptive engine technology that 

Mr. Shaffer addressed earlier is one of the great revolutions coming 

out that will really change warfighting by providing significant fuel 

efficiency in addition to greater thrust out of the existing family of 

fighter engines. This has grown out of an ADVENT program, our 

first program which was pure S&T. That program completed last 

summer and has proven a greater than 20 percent savings in fuel 

just from an S&T large engine buildup that we ran with General 

Electric. 
10 

The follow-on to this is the Advanced Engine Technology Development program, which is ongoing this year and next year, which 

will continue to move forward this technology. And then as part of 

the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, under the Defense Innovation 

Initiative, we have the follow-on program, which is the Advanced 

Engine Transition program. 

These really promise to bring this technology not only through 

the S&T, but on forward into actual prototyping to prove that this 

technology in a full-up flight-sized engine really works. 

The one problem, of course, is under the BCA [Budget Control 

Act] that—the AETP program, the follow-on program, is still above 

the BCA levels. 

Another revolutionary area we are working is in nanotechnology. 

One of the game-changers that we are working right now is in 

flexible, wearable sensors—the ability to put a bandaid-like patch 

onto an individual and be able to detect fatigue, cognition, their 

performance indicators, by pulling biomarkers through the skin. 

This is enabled by the nanoprinting of nanoparticle inks onto these 

markers and actually building up smart electronics into a bandaidlike, flexible, electronic patch. 

Has great future not only for the Air Force and how we use it, 

but all the services, and for the medical industry as a whole, so 

there is tremendous capability that we are working. 

We are also addressing relevant warfighter needs. This is a problem that, as you work in the midterm requirements—near and 

midterm requirements—how do we make sure that what we are 

doing in Air Force technology is really supporting what the 

warfighter needs? 

A good example of this, and working with the Air Combat Command [ACC] and their desire to go after hard and deeply buried 

targets with existing capability on existing airplane platforms, we 

need to have smaller, more compact systems. So the High Velocity 

Penetrating Weapon was a program that we put together to do 

this. Been very successful, and now it has transitioned that technology into the follow-on program that ACC is now looking at in 

their AOA [analysis of alternatives]. 

We also last July launched the ANGELS, or the Automated 

Navigation and Guidance Experience for Local Space, which is really focused on how do we do geosynchronous space situational 

awareness, which requires somewhat of an autonomous capability. 

So the ability to detect, track, and characterize space objects on 

geosynchronous is really moving us forward in our capability for 

the space situational awareness of the future. 

To do this we really have to have a talented workforce. We have 

taken advantage of the new authorities that have been given to us 

by the HASC [House Armed Services Committee] and the SASC 

[Senate Armed Services Committee]. 

In addition, we built a strategic plan both for building our engineering workforce, but also for helping build the STEM workforce 

across the Air Force as a whole, really trying to build the STEM 

ambassadorship of the Air Force across the Nation to develop the 

talent that we need. 

In closing, the Air Force 2016 President’s budget really requests 

the science and technology to make sure that we can remain re-
11 

sponsive, revolutionary, and relevant in the future. On behalf of 

the scientists and the engineers of the Air Force S&T enterprise, 

I want to thank you for your continued support of our S&T program and look forward to any questions you have. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Walker can be found in the Appendix on page 97.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Dr. Walker. 

We now proceed to Dr. Prabhakar. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ARATI PRABHAKAR, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE 

ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Langevin, members of the subcommittee. It is great to be here with my colleagues 

and I appreciate the chance to talk with you today. 

DARPA is part of this Defense Department science and technology community; we are also part of the larger national and global technology ecosystem. But within those communities DARPA has 

one particular role, and that is to make the pivotal early investments in new technologies that show what is possible so that we 

can take huge strides forward in our national security capabilities. 

And I will just share with you this morning a couple of brief examples that I hope will bring that mission to life. One is some of 

our work that is being put to work in one of today’s challenges— 

namely, the fight against ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]. This program that these tools derive from is called Memex. 

Memex set out to build some software tools that allow for a very 

different kind of search through public Web sites—deep, domainspecific search. So what that means is that a user using these 

tools, it lets them do two new things. 

One is to see Web sites out beyond those that are indexed by 

commercial search engines like Google or Bing—public Web sites, 

but those that aren’t really reached by these commercial search engines. And then secondly, this tool automatically maps patterns 

and linkages, relationships across vast numbers of Web sites—very 

enabling, powerful technology for analysts. 

These technologies, these tools, have already been used by the 

law enforcement community in some work in the arena of human 

trafficking. That has led to indictments and at least one conviction. 

Today the same tools are in operational use to understand linkages among ISIL Web sites, as well. 

A second very different example is about driving U.S. technological superiority to—so that we can deter or defeat a sophisticated peer adversary. And, you know, I think we all know that ever 

since radar helped win the Battle of Britain, we have all understood that controlling the electromagnetic spectrum is foundational 

to warfighting. 

And in fact, today U.S. military RF [radio frequency] arrays are 

the envy of the world. That is not by accident; it is because of the 

joint investments in S&T across all of our activities here represented at the table. 

And I think that is a tremendous advantage that we have, but 

it is also the case that the rest of the world doesn’t stand still, and 

so today we see other capabilities developing around the world that 
12 

put our advantage, you know, at risk. So today what that—you 

know, what that translates to is that in a highly contested environment against a sophisticated adversary, they will now have the 

ability to jam our systems, essentially rendering our forces blind in 

the heat of battle. 

So one of the efforts that is underway at DARPA today, in close 

partnership with our service colleagues, is really to create the next 

generation of capability for controlling the electromagnetic spectrum. This is new work at the level of devices, new systems architectures, new algorithms, new manufacturing technologies, all of 

which together I think can give us a chance to move into a future— 

not just a future where we can operate in the electromagnetic spectrum, but a future where we can control the electromagnetic spectrum in real time in the battlespace, and I think giving us that— 

the kind of substantial advantage that all of our investments are 

really about. 

Those are just a couple of examples across a much wider portfolio 

at DARPA. You have our new report that just came out that offers 

a broader perspective across the portfolio. I am happy to talk about 

any of that. 

But I also want to take a couple minutes and talk with you about 

what it takes for us to deliver on our mission. Your support in so 

many ways across many years has been essential to that. 

First and foremost is our people. We have had a flexible hiring 

authority that this committee helped create a number of years ago. 

Last year in legislation you allowed us to use more of our positions 

within our fixed head count using this flexible technique. 

And this is a—this hiring authority is just essential for everything that we do at DARPA. It lets us get access to the kind of people who have the potential to be really great DARPA program managers, and that really is our lifeblood. So I am very appreciative for 

your support of that capability. 

Secondly, turning to the budget, again, your support in recent 

years has been critical to stabilizing our budget post sequestration, 

and the President’s budget request this year at $3 billion essentially continues that stabilization. It is essentially, in real terms, 

the same level as what was appropriated last year. 

Again, I will ask for your support of the President’s budget-level 

request. 

And I don’t have to tell you about sequestration, Mr. Chairman. 

You mentioned it in your opening remarks, but you know well that 

if we can’t avert sequestration it will take a significant toll on the 

work that we are doing. 

Let me just finish by saying that my comments today have focused on the challenges that face our Nation today and into the future. All of us here at this table take those threats very seriously. 

At the same time, for us we are very fortunate that our daily 

work is about solutions, and all of us come to work every day to 

find creative ways to rise above these dangers. And because of that, 

it is our responsibility but also our privilege to do this work of harnessing advanced, powerful technologies for our Nation’s security. 

So thanks again for the chance to be here with you. I am happy 

to answer questions along with my colleagues. 
13 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Prabhakar can be found in the 

Appendix on page 103.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Dr. Prabhakar. 

And indeed, we have been joined by the ranking member. He got 

here within 14 seconds of the beginning of the hearing. 

Mr. James Langevin. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I apologize for 

being a little bit late. 

I was actually off site with Bloomberg News doing an interview 

and talking about one of our favorite topics—cybersecurity. And it 

ran just a little bit behind. 

But I do want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today. 

And, of course, I want to thank our witnesses for being here to 

discuss the Department of Defense’s science and technology budget 

request for fiscal year 2016, and I appreciated hearing your testimony here this morning already. 

Maintaining the United States technological edge is a priority for 

the House Armed Services Committee and, most especially, for this 

subcommittee. And I thank my partner and the leader in this effort, Chairman Wilson. 

As budgets grow smaller we recognize the necessity of continuing 

a robust investment in S&T. The seeds of innovation that we plant 

with our investments today grow into the game-changing capabilities of tomorrow. 

Conversely, if we fail to properly invest, we will be dealing with 

the consequences for decades. Emerging technologies born of past 

and current investments, like directed energy and other highenergy weapons, have the potential to deliver paradigm-shifting capabilities to our warfighters that in many ways upend traditional 

warfighting concepts and tradeoffs. 

And, Secretary Shaffer and others, I appreciate you mentioning 

those capabilities today, particularly on directed energy. 

So these capabilities not only give us a warfighting advantage, 

but can serve as a deterrent to our adversaries. Today we are engaged around the globe with enemies like Al Qaeda and ISIL, its 

associate affiliates, and other terrorist groups. Our S&T investments over the last decade have been instrumental in delivering 

the capabilities our forces need to defeat such enemies and protect 

them from rudimentary yet effective weapons like improvised explosive devices. 

Other potential adversaries require different capabilities, some 

more suited to traditional warfare concepts and others more—for 

more unconventional warfare, like cyber. Ensuring our investments 

align with requirements is key, and I look forward to continuing to 

discuss and hear from the witnesses about the Department’s approach to emerging challenges and new domains. 

In addition to investing in technology, we must invest in, of 

course, our workforce and our future workforce. Recruiting and re-
14 

taining top talent in the Department’s S&T community is truly a 

bedrock of maintaining technological superiority. 

Now, over the years the Congress has provided the Department 

of Defense with many tools to do just that through IPA [Intergovernmental Personnel Act] programs, internships, and other unique 

personnel opportunities. I know you each in your various ways are 

engaged in growing that workforce, and I appreciate those efforts. 

Also crucially important to our technological superiority is ensuring that the Department has knowledge of the innovative work 

being done by entities other than large corporations typically associated with defense, and that it is able to transition that work to 

become new capabilities. 

Opportunities provided under the auspices of programs such as 

the Rapid Innovation Fund [RIF] of course have proven to be a 

win-win for the Department, small businesses, labs, and our 

warfighters. As the witnesses are no doubt aware, the Rapid Innovation Fund program authorization will expire at the end of this 

fiscal year, and I am certainly committed to reauthorizing this program and would appreciate if the witnesses could provide their 

thoughts on the success of this program and examples for the 

record. 

With that, let me just again thank you all for the work that you 

are doing. I think that this subcommittee is one of the more interesting in Congress, and I know you all appreciate the work that 

you do and that of your workforce, and I hope you will convey our 

appreciation to the people that you oversee. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for, again, holding 

this hearing, and I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Langevin. 

And we will now begin the 5-minute process, and Kevin Gates is 

going to be strict, including on me in particular because we have 

votes any second, and so we are always at the will of how the votes 

occur. 

I think it is very appropriate, Mr. Shaffer, that you actually 

began with military medicine. The American people need to know 

the survival rates that have been achieved, which are unprecedented in conflict. 

It was so inspiring to me visiting the theater field hospitals, visiting Landstuhl, visiting Bethesda, Walter Reed, and to see the 

survival and then the prosthetics that were developed so that 

young people who were injured had—and—have fulfilling lives, and 

to see people with injuries that are just utterly catastrophic by barbarians who, as cited by Jim, the improvised explosive devices— 

these were designed as unprecedented, I believe, ever for the maximum personal injury of not just military but civilians. Just a heinous enemy that we are facing. 

But the success, and so by beginning with that was fantastic. 

We actually, with your help, we have made progress relative to 

the issue of defense sequestration. Initially most people couldn’t 

even pronounce the word ‘‘sequestration,’’ and then—but the good 

news is that, particularly now, the American people I think understand the threat of defense sequestration, where half of the sequestration is in one department—Department of Defense—and the ef-
15 

fect that this has with the other budget cuts that have been implemented. 

But, in fact, as an indication of success—and 2 months ago I 

wouldn’t have thought this, but last night we had a vote on a budget that would actually substantially roll back sequestration. But 

the way that we have been successful is not just generically discussing the threat, but specifically. 

So if each one of you could identify a specific example of where 

sequestration will lead to a problem, and beginning with Mr. 

Shaffer. 

Mr. SHAFFER. Thank you very much, sir. And thank you for the 

vote last night. 

I think that there are two real issues with sequestration. First, 

with all the must-pay bills, as Dr. Carter noted, over half the cuts 

of sequestration would come from modernization accounts. Embedded in that are some of the things that you heard about today that 

would go away. 

So the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, which actually has two 

stools underneath it—this is a DARPA-led, for right now, DARPAAir Force-Navy program that is designed to build the next generation prototype flying platform, and that is about all we can say 

about that. But also, the next-generation turbine engine that will 

give us 25 to 30 percent savings. Both of those projects will end. 

The real ripple effect is with the reduction in procurement accounts and the reduction in our 6.4 and 6.5 accounts. Engineers are 

being laid off. Once you lose the design engineers in the aerospace 

industry and the turbine engine industry they don’t come back. 

So think about a Department of Defense with no significant, 

long-term research project for the next generation of air capability. 

That is what sequestration means, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. The morale effect, I can’t even imagine. 

Ms. Miller. 

Ms. MILLER. I will echo what Mr. Shaffer said. Clearly sequestration will impact yet again our modernization accounts. 

We are in a situation where we have to have force structure and 

operational readiness. We have to support our soldiers that are out 

there on the line, and we will. 

But what we sacrifice is those improvements to our existing capability, the restoral of the capabilities that are coming back out 

of theater now that we are committed to restoring so we can utilize. 

But I will take you in another direction. We had a dramatic impact on our workforce with the last sequestration, and even the indication that we might do this again, we are already starting to see 

indications that our workforce, which has been under a considerable amount of strain and still doing what needs to be done to protect our soldiers, they are now looking at whether or not it is really 

worth staying. 

And so I expect that we will lose, again, some of our best and 

brightest engineers because they will either look for more security 

somewhere else or, frankly, we have got a large contingent that are 

close or eligible to retirement that will choose to do so without 

passing on that extreme knowledge that we need to pass down to 

our younger generation. 
16 

We are currently still under a hiring limitation. It is a one-forsix for the Army; we can only hire one when we lose six. That is 

a dramatic impact on our ability to make sure we keep the best 

and brightest available for meeting the needs of the Army. 

Thank you, sir. 

Admiral WINTER. Mr. Chairman, I will echo—the workforce is 

definitely a critical area, but I won’t just repeat that. I will go towards a naval optic. 

As we focus to our Pacific operating area, if our modernization 

accounts are reduced, those programs of record that are delivering 

naval capabilities for our marines and our sailors are underpinned 

by our S&T investments of our technology maturation future naval 

capability efforts. Those naval capability efforts are ensuring that 

we maintain and expand our undersea domain supremacy, which 

is absolutely critical for that area of operations. 

Likewise, being able to ensure that we can have power ashore 

with our marines, enabled by those systems, will all be at risk as 

those modernization accounts are reduced and the effectivity of our 

S&T investments to be able to bring long-range torpedo, underwater unmanned vehicle constellations, communication—over-thehorizon communication and targeting for at-range threats, being 

able to bring the ship connector capabilities with our marines and 

our Navy vessels. They are all at risk, sir, and our S&T investments will not be able to enable that technological advantage. 

So coupled with the workforce degradation and our ability to do 

the true, I will say underwater and electromagnetic warfare efforts—that would be the biggest impact to the Department of the 

Navy. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. Doctor. 

Dr. WALKER. I want to echo on the workforce impact is the biggest impact I see that will have a lasting effect if we go through 

a sequestration again. We are still feeling the impact of that today 

in our workforce from the previous sequestration we went through. 

As we go forward, the modernization accounts will pay the brunt 

of this in the Air Force for the same reasons that my colleagues 

have already spoken of. 

On the S&T side, we are right now transitioning this engine 

technology out of S&T into a 6.4 program. That will be lost, losing 

that ability to bridge out of S&T, which we are trying to build. 

Furthermore, some of our programs which are in the 6.3 level in 

S&T and high-powered microwaves and advanced lasers upon aircraft will also suffer significantly if we go back into sequestration 

again. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you for the specifics. 

And, Dr. Prabhakar. 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. I will mention three specifics. One thing we 

found a few years ago in sequestration is that at the end of our 

programs, when we were prepared to do flight demos or trials at 

sea, one of the big problems we had was that because of sequestration those trials got delayed. And then the follow-on effect, because 

of the way we work with the services at test ranges, et cetera, often 

that led to not only delays but, in fact, overall increased costs, 

which was quite deleterious. 
17 

Our workforce issue is very similar. For us, our people come only 

for 3 to 5 years, so it is somewhat of a retention issue, but really 

the bigger problem is trying to recruit people into this sort of tumultuous environment is not very helpful. 

And I think to me the most fundamental danger in these process—none of these specific cuts are the end of the world. The problem is that they just continue this erosion, this corrosion of our 

ability to do our mission. And a lot of our focus is to reach out to 

a very broad technical community, engage them in this important 

business of national security. When things like sequestration happen it is such a negative message to people who don’t already live 

in this world and whom we really need to attract to this mission. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank each of you. 

And we now proceed to Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, thanks to all our witnesses for your testimony. 

So for the panel, the Rapid Innovation program, which I spoke 

about in my opening statement, as you know, was authorized in 

section 1073 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 

year 2011. The merit-based, competitive program accelerates the 

fielding of technologies into military systems in support of requirements, and there are so many examples of successful projects, such 

as the Navy’s port security barrier intrusion detection system, 

which helped mitigate gaps in the system from being exploited. 

As I stated in my opening remarks, I am championing reauthorization for the Rapid Innovation Program since it expires at the 

end of this fiscal year. Let me ask, in your opinion, has the program been valuable to the Department, and how so? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Yes, sir. Thank you. 

RIF has, indeed, been valuable. We held maybe a month ago, 

maybe 6 weeks—time kind of blurs together—we held our annual 

review of the RIF program. And now we are far enough into it that 

we are starting to see the results. 

So we are getting about, on the whole, 60 to 70 percent transition 

rate. I think we are also getting to reach out and touch companies 

that might not otherwise want to work with the Department of Defense. 

And the program has been kind of transformed over the last 3 

years, where it is jointly run by acquisition and S&T people. In 

fact, the funding is not in the S&T lines; it is in the—our 6.4 accounts, our advanced capability development and prototyping accounts. 

And we put it there specifically to bridge that gap of getting 

good, new technologies into our acquisition programs of record, but 

using the intelligence and the smarts of our S&T community to 

manage and conduct the source selection. 

So I am seeing very positive things from it. Mr. Kendall, my 

boss, has asked me for a recommendation, and depending upon 

what—where we end up with for funding targets for the year, we 

are going to try to fund it ourselves. Don’t know if that will happen, but we are going to try. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. That is very helpful. 

Ms. MILLER. Within the Army I would say that we are finding 

RIF is an added flexibility that we might not otherwise have. As 
18 

Mr. Shaffer mentioned, it allows us to reach those industries that 

we might never have otherwise engaged or been able to engage because, you know, we are kind of the big Army and looking for big 

things. 

But some of the efforts that we have put out there, we kind of 

laid out to industry what our problems were and we got some interesting approaches on how to solve them. And I will give you two 

examples of success. 

We had a small company that looked at a problem that we had 

with our FMTV [Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles] systems. We 

were up-armoring the cabs of our FMTV—and that is a good thing, 

protecting the soldiers. However, over time the doors on the FMTV 

started to sag, and we were causing damage to the added weight 

on the cab frame. 

So we put out a problem and got a response through the RIF 

process that gave us a cab-stiffening assembly that passed all of 

our tests so far. We have now transitioned it to the PM [program 

manager] for FMTV; he is going under—undergoing testing to see 

whether that will now become part of his program of record to retrofit onto those existing FMTVs that have up-armored cabs. And 

that was on the order of about a $2.5 million investment from us 

in the RIF, and well worth it. 

Another quick example is a handheld, pocket-sized quantitative 

electroencephalogram. It is essentially this weird-looking thing that 

slips over your head and you can use it in the far-forward theater. 

What it is helping us to do is provide an objective assessment on 

neurological injury. So this is kind of the far-forward idea, are we— 

did we get some sort of mild traumatic brain injury? Is there something that would warrant our soldier now getting a more rigorous 

look by a medic? Something that we need to know to make sure 

that we have provided appropriate health care for the soldier in the 

far-forward environment. 

Just two examples, sir. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Great examples. Thank you. 

Admiral. 

Admiral WINTER. Sir, I will echo—RIF is very value-added. And 

as a previous program manager, the flexibility of not just having 

resource, but having a resource that allows you to go tackle those 

design issues that you would otherwise wait at a future spiral, allows you to pull in capabilities sooner to your warfighter. 

Examples like our Navy high-energy chiller that allowed us to 

identify a smaller size and weight and footprint to be able to cool 

our high-energy avionics electronics on ships. That small investment of a hundred—couple hundred thousand dollars will show 

huge dividends downrange for the recurring costs for all of our 

ships. 

And the ability of the program manager to reach out to small 

business—and 90 percent of our engagement in RIF for the Department of the Navy is with small business. And that is a tenet from 

Mr. Stackley on down, to engage at that small business base. 

Things such as our verification and validation capabilities. Right 

now we have to put things on jets, go out and check and see if they 

fit in the aerodynamic environment. We populate those aircraft 
19 

with very expensive verification and validation instrumentation 

suites. 

We gave that challenge to a very small—to a small business. 

They came back with a USB [universal serial bus]-sized stick— 

solid state, vibratory, wireless verification and validation capability, that for about $300,000 we are saving $5 million a year. 

So that kind of innovative thinking that is facilitated by a very 

small investment from a RIF perspective, giving not only program 

managers but small industry the flexibility and the opportunity, 

and I think we need to continue this program. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Very valuable. Thank you. 

Dr. WALKER. The RIF has been very useful to the Air Force, as 

well, particularly in bringing in new and innovative businesses to 

solve problems that we didn’t have a solution for. So far, we have 

had over 2,600 white papers that have been submitted to our call. 

We have put out about 94 projects out of these papers of selecting 

the best and most promising ones. 

And what it has allowed us to do was to really reach out to nontraditional small business as well as our traditional SIBRs [Small 

Business Innovative Research] and STTRs [Small Business Technology Transfer] participants and help transition technologies into 

programs of record to solve problems that are annoying problems 

but we are not—have not risen to the level that they were actually 

going after them with their large acquisition program. 

The F–35 has been the recipient of several great ideas that have 

allowed them to reduce costs or fix problems on the production line 

that, as I say, are annoyances, but once you do it you realize that 

this is a much better way to solve the problem. And the leveraging 

for a small investment, investing millions to get savings in the 

hundreds of millions, has been really valuable. 

So we really do like the program. As has been said, we have 

moved this to be an acquisition program with lab support, and look 

forward to continuing with it. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Nothing with you, Dr. Prabhakar? Okay. 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. DARPA is not involved in this—it is a services 

program. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Very good. 

Thank you all. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WILSON. Thanks, Mr. Langevin. 

Now proceed to Congressman Rich Nugent, of Florida. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought maybe it 

would be Mr. Franks first, but that is okay. 

It is in order? Okay. 

This is a question—this committee and the larger committee last 

year in the 113th Congress appropriated $220 million for the sole 

purpose of accelerating the development of a domestic rocket propulsion system. However, thus far, neither the Air Force nor the 

Department of Defense has moved expeditiously to accomplish the 

task. 
20 

And since passage of last year appropriations act, I specifically 

want to know what has the Air Force done with the advanced liquid rocket booster engine to replace the RD–180? 

Dr. WALKER. I will have to take that for the record, sir, as far 

as the acquisition program does not fall under my purview. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 120.] 

Dr. WALKER. However, under the S&T program, which we are 

continuing, we have been working the component technologies that 

are required to enable that type of capability in the future. Have 

had a strong program over the past decade that will allow us then 

to move into an oxygen-rich liquid rocket in the future. 

So the investments we made in the past and investments we are 

continuing in this year’s budget are really focused on giving us the 

capability to go to the next generation of liquid rocket engines. 

Mr. NUGENT. Well, I appreciate that and certainly look forward 

to your response outside of the committee. Obviously, you know, it 

was very important to this committee that we get away from the 

Russian engine, where we shouldn’t be relying upon that technology in particular. 

But the next question, then, is on directed energy. And I know 

the chairman and ranking member are very invested in directed 

energy. 

Last year Congress directed the Air Force to deliver a CHAMP 

[Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile 

Project] system on surplus cruise missiles, and Congress set aside 

$10 million just for the purpose of getting the technology out of the 

lab and to our warfighters. We have had numerous combatant commanders testify to the fact that CHAMP would be a, you know, an 

excellent addition to their inventory, and particularly since what 

we are recommending is obviously—and I understand where the 

Air Force is at—they would like to see a long-term solution to that 

problem in regards to a delivery vehicle and maybe some additional 

upgrades. 

But, you know, we just met with the lab and folks that, A, 

have—obviously we have tested this particular item. We have surplus cruise missiles that were deactivated from the nuclear force 

that at least would get that technology out to our combatant commanders in a very short period of time. 

We have proven that it works. They have upgraded it, actually, 

from the lab. 

As a bridge to when we get this reusable delivery vehicle, or 

maybe something that we really want to have 10 years out, but 

gives a bridge right now for, you know, a fraction of the cost to at 

least get it out to the combatant commanders. To us, you know, 

S&T is so important, but we also have to be able to provide it out 

into the field, and whether it is, you know, 80 percent, 90 percent, 

or 100 percent, this issue is, you know, if it is at least fieldable to 

assist those combatant commanders, then we ought to be doing it. 

And so we are really concerned—I am, in particular—in regards 

to that we are not—excuse me—that we are not actually following 

through when we have the ability to. Do you have an answer for 

me? 
21 

Dr. WALKER. At this point in time the Air Force is still looking 

at the technology and where the right point is to transition it. That 

said, from a science and technology perspective, we are looking at 

how do we continue to improve the capability? So we are leveraging 

the $10 million that you provided to, one, take the things that we 

saw in the demonstration with the CALCM [conventional airlaunched cruise missile] size system, and to improve on those so 

that if we did decide to go with the program with the current system we would be able to make a better system. 

In addition—— 

Mr. NUGENT. I don’t disagree with that. I mean, I think that we 

have the ability to do multiple things at a time, and one is if you 

can field it and get it out to the combatant commands, particularly 

with the nation-state threats that we face today with Russia and 

China, I would think it would be to our benefit to take advantage 

of at least the technology we have today. 

We can absolutely continue to do the research and development 

to improve it, but I also know within that short period of time we 

have also already made an improvement to the original CHAMP 

that was tested. So there are some great avenues. 

I would really like to see the Air Force work on that technology, 

get it out to the warfighter. Those that have testified in front of 

the main committee that—said that they would welcome that technology to have in their toolkit to protect America. 

And I know you want to do that, and I understand all the competing interests within the Air Force, but I would, you know, to the 

Air Force I would suggest that we absolutely, in a cost-effective 

manner, at least roll it out so our combatant commanders have the 

use of CHAMP in the future, because we don’t know what our next 

crisis is going to be. 

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your time. 

And, Dr. Walker, if you could get back to me on both of those 

issues I would appreciate it. Thank you. 

Dr. WALKER. Yes, sir. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 120.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Sheriff Nugent. And we appreciate your passion as a dad of service members. 

You can tell why he is into this, and so we are so grateful. 

We have Congressman Aguilar, of California. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the hearing and the opportunity to hear the discussion and the testimony. 

My first question had to do with sequestration, but I think that 

that has been tackled by the ranking member and the chairman 

quite well. And I appreciate your honesty and also the specifics 

that you have offered on programs that could face possible reductions. I think that is very helpful for us moving forward. 

Dr. Prabhakar, can I—can you tell me how that is pronounced 

first? That is my first question. 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. Prabhakar is correct. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Prabhakar. 

Can you talk a little bit about managing risk and taking 

chances? Often government is risk-averse and safe, but DARPA 

seeks to engage, measure, and to create new capabilities. Can you 
22 

talk about how you foster that within your department and, you 

know, what possible tools that you need in order to continue that 

mission? 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. Taking risk ends up being core to executing on 

our mission. We don’t love risk. We actually like to try to beat it 

down and kill it off. But we need to be able to tackle it simply because we come to work to do the things that are going to have a 

huge impact. 

And, you know, I always tell my program managers, ‘‘If you have 

a high-impact idea that doesn’t involve taking a lot of risk, let’s do 

it,’’ because that is really the business we are in. But often, of 

course, as soon as you do those you have to move into the technologies that have a lot more risk if you are really going to reach 

for these kinds of dramatic changes in capability. 

So it is part and parcel of our mission. And very much to the nature of your question, I think it is essential for us as an organization to nurture the culture about being fearless about taking risk 

but then structuring programs to kill it off, to get—to build these 

technologies to a point that they are no longer risky, that they really can show their value so that they can be adopted and actually 

get in the hands of warfighters and make a difference. 

So how does that actually happen in practice? It happens in the 

way, in particular, that we structure our programs. 

Our program managers may define a very aggressive goal— 

maybe it is a new way to launch satellites on orbit on a 24-hour 

notice, or maybe it is a way to build a firebreak to stop infectious 

disease. It could be whatever the DARPA program is. 

But with that ambitious goal is—the program is structured with 

very carefully thought-out milestones along the way to tell us if we 

are on track, are we making progress. And that allows our program 

managers to stop the projects that aren’t working, redirect the efforts to more fruitful areas. When we see something that is working it allows us to put more resource and move faster in that area. 

And that kind of very hands-on, structured program is how we 

try to make that journey from high-risk to actually achieving the 

impact. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Additional tools that you think might be necessary 

moving forward that can maintain that culture? 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. You know, the tools that this committee has already helped us with I think are critically essential—number one, 

bringing in people from all different parts of the technical community. Not just those who already live in the DOD S&T world, but 

people who come with backgrounds in commercial companies or 

having done startups or people out of universities—those different 

perspectives are very helpful. 

Our ability to contract with entities that aren’t normally in the 

business of doing business with the Federal Government through 

other transactions authority, that is another way that allows us to 

reach farther in terms of technology and, you know, get access to 

some of these bleeding edge technologies. 

So I think a lot of the critical pieces are in place. I will tell you 

the single most important thing to allow us to keep taking risk is 

when we fail and when our projects don’t work to—you know, we 

try to acknowledge that and say, ‘‘Yes, it—that didn’t work. We 
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stopped it; now we are going to move on to something more productive.’’ 

And I think when—your allowing us to fail so that we can keep 

going and take that next step is actually the most—— 

Mr. AGUILAR. We need to be able to embrace that occasionally, 

as well. So thank you very much. 

I will yield back, Mr. Chairman, so someone else can get a question. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And in consultation with the ranking member, what we would 

like to do is, Mr. Franks and Ms. Stefanik, if each of you could ask 

a question and then they could get back for the record? 

Mr. FRANKS. All right. 

Mr. Shaffer, I guess I will start with you. And I thank you, 

again, for your great service. 

What do you think the earliest we will be able to find an operational laser or high-powered microwave weapon, and especially as 

it relates to the laser and missile defense? And what additional resources would you need to either accelerate the development or to 

mitigate or down the technical risk? 

Mr. WILSON. And you can get back for the record and—because 

we are in the midst of voting, and so thank you so much, Congressman Franks. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 120.] 

Mr. WILSON. And, Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

My question is for Ms. Miller. I represent the Army 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum, and this division, as you know, 

has continuously served in Afghanistan from 9/11 until today. 

Would you be able to discuss how the Army S&T enterprise is 

being utilized for the current mission in Afghanistan, and particularly in terms of the drawdown? Thank you. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 121.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Ms. Stefanik. 

We have one final question from Mr. Langevin? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And again, thanks to our panel for the discussion this morning. 

So again, if you could get back to me on the record, just given 

the fact that time is tight. I was pleased to see Deputy Secretary 

Work’s memo of March 17th creating the Electronic Warfare [EW] 

Executive Committee largely in response to the Defense Science 

Board’s EW study, which pointed to lost focus on EW, particularly 

at the merge points of EW and cyber. 

So I couldn’t agree more with the need for more focus on these 

issues and the need for strong, intellectually vibrant and technologically superior electronic warfare community. 

How do each of you see the creation of this organization changing 

how you conduct your business? Obviously with our adversaries 

using asymmetric threats and technologies and weapons to a greater extent than ever before that could overcome our both technological and numeric advantage, and perhaps even neutralizing it, 
24 

we obviously need to focus more on our EW and cyber capabilities 

to neutralize those asymmetric threats. 

So I would like to hear your comments on that question. Thank 

you all. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 119.] 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you very much, Mr. Langevin. 

And indeed, as you can hear the bells and whistles, we are in the 

process of voting. 

But thank you for being here, and you have received the requests 

for the final questions, and we appreciate, again, very much your 

service, and we look forward to working with you in the future. 

And we wish Mr. Shaffer the best in his future career. God bless. 

We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:46 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 26, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 26, 2015 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

MARCH 26, 2015 

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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. SHAFFER and Dr. PRABHAKAR. The Electronic Warfare Executive Committee 

(EW EXCOM) is co-chaired by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and includes 

the Service Vice Chiefs, Service Acquisition Executives, the commanders of 

USSTRATCOM and USCYBERCOM, Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, Director, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the DoD Chief Information Officer. This level of senior 

visibility and decision authority will necessarily focus attention and resources toward the challenges posed to our freedom of maneuver in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). 

The EW EXCOM’s initial focus is on ensuring that fielded weapon systems and 

those in earlier stages of development are designed and equipped to operate effectively in the EMS, notwithstanding the growing capabilities of potential adversaries. 

This means that weapon systems must have adequate electronic protection (EP) to 

withstand the growing electronic attack (EA) capabilities of our adversaries made 

possible by the worldwide proliferation of advanced devices for signal processing, 

and that continual expansion of EA capabilities is needed to maintain U.S. advantage. To do so, the Department requires closer coordination and cooperation among 

the Military Departments, the many acquisition programs of record, and both national and Military Department’s research laboratories. This coordination and cooperation are an essential emphasis of the EW EXCOM. Effective operation in the 

EMS requires extensive knowledge of the spectrum and how the adversary is operating within it. Thus, efforts to collect signals, both at a strategic level with SIGINT 

and a tactical level with electronic warfare support (ES), require continued emphasis and support. Additionally, as operations in the EMS are increasingly connected 

and essential to both kinetic and non-kinetic operations across the range of military 

operations, electromagnetic battle management (EMBM) capabilities require development and thus attention by, and direction from, the EW EXCOM. Finally, the 

EXCOM will consider operational issues, including the quantity and expertise of EW 

personnel. 

Specifically, through efforts in science and technology, the EW Science and Technology Community of Interest developed a roadmap for use by the service laboratories. The EW S&T roadmap was developed by Military Departments’ input and 

approved by the ASD(R&E) to define a cross-cutting EW S&T investment strategy. 

The EW EXCOM’s support to implement the roadmap capabilities, or to provide direction to amend it if required, is anticipated. The ASD(R&E) will submit an annual 

review of progress on the EW S&T Roadmap for EW EXCOM approval. 

The ASD(R&E) will seek to inform the EW EXCOM, and be guided by it, on EW 

matters. The ASD(R&E) will provide input to the EW EXCOM on the technologies 

and capabilities we see relevant to EW, a process that has already begun. The EW 

EXCOM will provide and prioritize guidance to drive technology development to 

meet specific challenges. The EXCOM’s authority will bolster the visibility and support of proposed EW capabilities relative to competing options and leverage the varied EW strengths of the Military Departments. In regard to EW and cyber, the EW 

EXCOM will address cyberspace operations as they relate to the EMS in coordination with the Cyber Investment Management Board (CIMB). [See page 24.] 

Ms. MILLER. While it is too soon to say exactly how the newly-formed Electronic 

Warfare (EW) Executive Committee (ExCom) will impact our Science & Technology 

(S&T) programs, I would say that our EW and Cyber S&T efforts are already very 

well coordinated with the other Services and OSD through our involvement in the 

EW and Cyber Security Communities of Interest. We also coordinate extensively 

with our acquisition partners and the Training and Doctrine Command community 

during the development and execution of our programs to ensure we are addressing 

Warfighter needs. We will continue to collaborate across the DoD to address this 

important area and will participate in the EW ExCom as appropriate. [See page 

24.] 

Admiral WINTER. The Defense Science Board (DSB) recommendations regarding 

improving our Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities spanned all phases of military 
120 

development, from science and technology (S&T) through acquisition and deployment. The March 17, 2015 memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Work established 

the Electronic Warfare Executive Committee and chartered this new group ‘‘to provide senior oversight, coordination, budget/capability harmonization, and advice on 

EW matters to the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Deputy’s Management Action Group.’’ Further, it states the initial focus areas of the 

group ‘‘will include EW strategy, acquisition, operational support, and security.’’ 

Missing from this list is EW science and technology (S&T), which is where Office 

of Naval Research (ONR), the other service S&T organizations and DARPA can contribute. Fortunately, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research & Engineering) has 

already established a joint S&T oversight group, the EW Community of Interest 

(COI), which produced in 2014 a far term joint roadmap for EW research and development. This Joint EW COI S&T Roadmap independently identified many of the 

shortfalls in current EW capabilities highlighted by the DSB study. More importantly, this roadmap shows how past, current and planned EW S&T investments 

in developing technology enablers have put the DoD on a path toward realizing a 

future EW vision to mitigate and eliminate these shortfalls. A separate Cyber S&T 

COI has produced a similar long term Joint Cyber S&T Roadmap and both COIs 

are working ‘‘at the points where EW and cyber are converging.’’ Our recommendation would be that the new EW Executive Committee adopt the EW COI and the 

Cyber COI as advisory bodies on S&T and endorse their respective roadmaps as the 

long term vision for future DoD EW/Cyber capability development. [See page 24.] 

Dr. WALKER. The creation of the Electronic Warfare Executive Committee (EW 

EXCOM) will complement our existing efforts to harmonize the development of EW, 

Cyber, and integrated Cyber-EW capabilities across the Services and Agencies of the 

DoD. It will mesh well with the efforts and activities of the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense’s (Research & Engineering) Reliance 21 Program in the Science & Technology (S&T) community. 

The EW EXCOM will provide senior oversight, coordination, budget/capability 

harmonization, and advice on EW matters to the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Deputy’s Management Action Group. It will facilitate cohesion across requirements, science and technology (S&T), research, development, 

acquisition, test and evaluation (T&E), and sustainment to ensure that EW and 

joint electromagnetic spectrum operations (JEMSO) investments are effectively 

planned, executed, and coordinated across the DoD. The EW EXCOM will provide 

feedback to key senior level DoD decision-making bodies on the execution of EW requirements and acquisition processes. 

Underpinning the science and technology (S&T) leadership is an ecosystem of 

technical groups known as Communities of Interest (COIs). The COIs provide a 

forum for coordinating S&T strategies across the Department, sharing new ideas, 

technical directions and technology opportunities, jointly planning programs, measuring technical progress, and reporting on the general state of health for specific 

technology areas. Separate COIs for Electronic Warfare and Cyber exist and have 

been successful in their endeavors. The EW EXCOM, in coordination with the Cyber 

Investment Management Board, should provide an avenue to increase technology 

transitions from the EW and Cyber S&T COIs, potentially streamline acquisition of 

the technologies, and aid in establishing more integration and synergy of the technologies. [See page 24.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FRANKS 

Mr. SHAFFER. The Department has an integrated technology and systems development roadmap for both high-energy lasers and microwaves (HEL, HPM). It is unlikely that either system could be operationally fielded before the 2022–2025 timeframe. Additional resources are not likely to accelerate development, but they could 

potentially contribute to significant lower risk reduction in achieving the necessary 

milestones. Development of both HEL and HPM is really an engineering challenge. 

Adding more resources is not likely to accelerate the engineering process. What 

more resources might facilitate is the chance to work on competing designs simultaneously, which could reduce technical risk, leading to a program of record that 

would be more predictable in cost and schedule. [See page 23.] 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. NUGENT 

Dr. WALKER. The rocket propulsion system effort, as referred to in the fiscal year 

2015 National Defense Authorizations Act (NDAA), is funded in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Program (SPACE)—EMD Program Element (PE) 
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0604853F. That effort is managed through the Air Force Program Executive Officer 

for Space (AFPEO/SP) in the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles AFB, CA. 

The Air Force has obligated about $50 million so far; $37 million in fiscal 2014 money, which was reprogrammed in the Omnibus, and about $13 million of the fiscal year 2015 money, which was appropriated in 2015. We intend to invest an additional $45 million to $50 million over about the next six months. We issued a draft 

Rocket Propulsion System (RPS) Request for Proposals (RFPs) in April and will 

award multiple contracts with propulsion system or launch system providers to 

partner with their ongoing investment in domestic propulsion systems as part of our 

plan to develop a domestic propulsion system by 2019, and to do so competitively. 

However, this will only give us an engine, and an engine alone will not launch us 

into space. Transitioning the engine to a fully integrated tested and certified capability will take longer than that. This is the consensus of experts across the space 

enterprise. [See page 20.] 

Dr. WALKER. We do not have the ability to give the combatant commanders this 

capability right now for a fraction of the cost. One year and $10 million is not sufficient to provide a CHAMP-like capability to the warfighter. Raytheon, a CHAMP 

contractor, has estimated that the cost and schedule to provide 32 missiles is four 

years and $140 million. This estimate does not include the cost, resources and planning required by the Air Force and the combatant commands for the development 

and implementation of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and 

education, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF) associated with a weapon system capability. Additionally, maintaining a very small number of CHAMP platforms, with 

the associated sophisticated hardware, in the inventory will be expensive. There are 

also concerns with the platform’s survivability, ingress range, target engagement 

ranges, and guidance and navigation capabilities in a realistic scenario. Developing 

and producing any weapon system would not be funded within the Science and 

Technology portfolio. [See page 21.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. STEFANIK 

Ms. MILLER. One of the great strengths of Army Science & Technology (S&T) is 

our world-class cadre of nearly 12,000 scientists and engineers. For 30 years now, 

the Army has embedded scientists and technology experts in the field to ensure that 

the exchange of new technology and the feedback it yields moves efficiently between 

the researchers who develop it and the Soldiers who use it. In recent military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army’s labs have been an important source of 

rapid technology transition of solutions to meet operational needs. Through the Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM), our Field Assistance 

in Science and Technology (FAST) Activity brings Army labs and research and engineering centers into closer contact with their ‘‘customers’’—the major Army commands throughout the world, providing the Soldier in the field with greater support 

and responsiveness to operational needs. This includes the Science and Technology 

Assistance Team (Afghanistan) (STAT–A), a rotating 3-person team that from 2007 

to 2014 provided in-theater technical advice and quick reaction solutions to technical problems, as well as a direct connection back to our scientists and engineers 

back home. Today, RDECOM provides the lead Engineer in the Rapid Equipping 

Force (REF) Expeditionary Lab in Afghanistan on a 179 day rotation supporting 

Soldiers on the ground. Over the past years, the Army S&T Enterprise has made 

numerous other important contributions to our efforts in Afghanistan. For example, 

our Deployable Force Protection (DFP) program was established in response to the 

DoD’s priority initiative to improve force protection at forward operating bases 

(FOBs). U.S. military units operating remotely at small bases are more vulnerable 

to enemy attacks, especially extra small FOBs, combat outposts, and patrol bases 

where 300 personnel or less occupy the base. Their vulnerabilities are greater because they have less manpower and organic equipment for construction of protective 

measures, weapon systems with shorter kinetic reach, significant bandwidth limitations, and are generally more remote making them difficult to reach with reinforcements or supplies. The DFP S&T Program was stood-up to help address these shortfalls and was geared toward accelerated development of technologies with spiral 

transitions to acquisition partners or related activities such as the Rapid Equipping 

Force. The DFP program concluded in FY14, having delivered a number of important capabilities to US Forces–Afghanistan, including Cerberus Lite and Low-logistics Modular Protective Systems Mortar Pit Kits. These small FOB force protection 

capabilities were especially useful during the drawdown when the bases’ manpower 

and organic capabilities were being reduced. Army S&T has also developed several 
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Soldier power technologies that have transitioned through Program Executive Office 

Soldier and been provided specifically to the 10th Mountain Division. For example, 

the Conformal Wearable Battery (CWB) is a 2.3lb ergonomic Soldier-worn battery 

that bends to the curvature of the Soldier’s chest and/or back and provides 150 watthours of power. The battery serves as the central source of power for multiple Soldier-worn devices, and increases Soldier mobility by better distributing weight 

around the Soldier’s core. The Integrated Soldier Power/Data System (ISPDS) is an 

integrated Soldier worn power/data distribution system intended to manage power 

and data from Soldier worn devices and powered by the CWB. The system manages 

the distribution of power across all worn peripherals and aggregates peripheral data 

onto a common end-user device. Over a 72 hour period, ISPDS provides a 32 percent 

weight savings in batteries. Both these technologies were provided to the 1st, 3rd 

and 4th Brigades, 10th Mountain Division, between 2012 and 2014. [See page 23.] 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 26, 2015 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Mr. WILSON. Could you give us an update on the status of the ‘‘Trusted Foundry’’ 

program for providing a secure source of microchips for sensitive defense systems? 

What is being done to respond to the recent announcement that IBM plans to sell 

its Foundry capabilities to a foreign controlled company? 

Mr. SHAFFER. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained in 

the committee files.] 

Mr. WILSON. Do you have enough visibility into industry-directed independent research and development (IR&D)? Are there additional legislative tools you need to 

be more effective in coordinating with those investments? 

Mr. SHAFFER. IR&D conducted by defense contractors as an allowable overhead 

expense can be an important source of innovation for both industry and DoD. IR&D 

represents well over $4 billion in annual R&D spending. Reviews of IR&D spending 

indicate that a significant fraction of IR&D is being spent on near-term competitive 

opportunities and on de minimis investments principally intended to create intellectual property rights for a company. IR&D allowability should encourage contractors 

to engage in R&D activities of potential interest to DoD. We have established a 

database in which companies meeting certain dollar thresholds are required to report their IR&D projects. Because companies enter the information at the end of 

their Fiscal Year, our visibility is limited to looking in the past. We are working 

to increase visibility into IR&D without increasing administrative burdens or requiring legislation. 

Mr. WILSON. What tools do you have to transition successful technologies developed by S&T, whether in the labs or from contractors, into programs of record? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Prototyping and experimentation have become key transition tools. 

Prototypes are preliminary versions of a system or major sub-system assembled to 

resolve some area of risk and/or to explore operational potential. Experimentation 

puts prototypes into end users’ hands in an operational context. Experimentation capabilities span ranges from field use by military personnel, wargaming, simulation, 

Service/Combatant Command exercises, and government/industry live, virtual and 

constructive environments. 

Prototyping and experimentation aid in the transition of successful technologies 

by providing Warfighters with the opportunity to explore novel operational concepts. 

In addition, they provide a hedge against threat development and reduce the lead 

time to develop and field new capabilities. 

Mr. WILSON. How important are programs like the Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR), or 

the Rapid Innovation Program (RIP) to your technology transition efforts? 

Mr. SHAFFER. SBIR/STTR and RIP are key enablers for transitioning small business technologies into DoD products. Based on a recent DoD-wide survey of military 

and industry RIP participants, RIP remains one of the few programs available to 

acquisition managers to solicit competitively for technology refresh, providing small 

businesses an ‘‘on-ramp’’ into defense acquisition programs. 

RIP stimulates U.S. manufacturing and supports small businesses. Eighty-eight 

percent of RIP contracts (321 of the 365 awards over a five year period) are awarded 

to small businesses, with over seventy-five percent awarded to businesses that participate or have participated in the SBIR program. 

Mr. WILSON. Do you have enough visibility into industry-directed independent research and development (IR&D)? Are there additional legislative tools you need to 

be more effective in coordinating with those investments? 

Ms. MILLER. The Army currently has sufficient visibility into industry-directed 

independent research and development (IR&D). In fact, quarterly IR&D updates are 

held at the OSD level between the heads of large defense companies and Defense 

and Service Acquisition and S&T leads and provide a regular opportunity to exchange dialogue and inform investment decisions in their R&D portfolios. The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) rules provide for a major 

contractor’s annual IR&D costs to be allowable only if the contractor reports its 

IR&D projects to the Department of Defense. Currently this reporting is done 

through the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) via an online form. Par-
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ticipating companies are required to update their efforts annually and again upon 

project completion. While the DoD has visibility into IR&D projects, the DoD has 

only limited ability to impact the allowability of the projects and therefore may require statutory or regulatory changes to gain the ability to endorse or reject projects 

prior to their initiation. 

Mr. WILSON. What tools do you have to transition successful technologies developed by S&T, whether in the labs or from contractors, into programs of record? How 

important are programs like the Small Business Innovative Research program 

(SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR), or the Rapid Innovation Program to your technology transition efforts? 

Ms. MILLER. One example of the tools that exist within the Army to assist in the 

transition of technologies is the Army’s Technology Maturation Initiative (TMI) 

(Program Element 0604115A), which aligns S&T and acquisition partners under a 

coordinated effort to assess emerging but needed capability improvements and facilitate their transition to Programs of Record. TMI matures high-payoff S&T products 

beyond traditional technology readiness levels in order to drive down program risks, 

inform affordable and achievable requirements and increase transition success. By 

engaging key stakeholders from the requirements, technology, acquisition and 

resourcing communities to select and oversee the TMI and other prototyping efforts, 

we are able to prioritize and coordinate efforts that best enable the integration of 

new capability into current and planned Acquisition programs. 

The Army SBIR and STTR programs also aid in technology transition by providing acquisition Program Managers with visibility of innovative small business 

technologies. Army SBIR Phase I projects develop proof of concept solutions and 

Phase II further develops those technologies into prototypes. The Army SBIR program uses their Phase II Enhancement Program to facilitate transition of promising 

technologies into acquisition programs. Under the Phase II enhancement program, 

the acquisition program needs to make a tangible commitment to the transition, and 

SBIR will provide up to $500,000. Started in 2008, this program has led to many 

successful transitions into acquisition programs and industry. 

The Army has also used the Rapid Innovation Funding (RIF) program to transition technologies. The RIF program provides the Army a useful mechanism to address Program Executive Office and the Research community near-term challenges. 

Of the 71 projects awarded in Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012, nine have transitioned 

to acquisition programs with committed outyear funding and an additional 58 are 

working transition agreements, with outyear funding not yet committed. 

Mr. WILSON. Do you have enough visibility into industry-directed independent research and development (IR&D)? Are there additional legislative tools you need to 

be more effective in coordinating with those investments? 

Admiral WINTER. As reflected in the recent guidance on Better Buying Power 

(BBP) 3.0 issued by USD/AT&L, there is clearly a need for increasing our visibility 

into industry IR&D. This is a valuable complement to the Services’ RDT&E investments, but to ensure that it is being used productively, we need to increase communications between industry and Government on the subject. Under BBP 3.0, this is 

being done in two ways. 

First, we have initiated a recurring series of Technology Interchange Meetings 

(TIMs), organized by the DoD technical Communities of Interest, which will provide 

a forum for the Government to communicate future strategies and program thrusts 

to industry and for industry to share relevant IR&D efforts with Government subject matter experts. The initial stages of these information exchanges will be accomplished virtually, via the DTIC hosted Defense Innovation Marketplace. Based upon 

reviews of these initial exchanges, face to face meetings and reviews of relevant 

projects will be conducted. The outcome of these TIMs will include both increased 

shared situational awareness and the identification of potential new areas for 

partnering between Government and industry. 

Second, we are initiating a new process for review and endorsement of IR&D efforts prior to the Government making a determination regarding allowable IR&D 

expenses. Discussions with industry regarding this new process and specific mechanisms to accomplish it are ongoing. Depending on the outcome of these discussions, 

there may be a need for legislative action to support implementation of the new 

process. However, that is yet to be determined, so no action is requested at this 

time. The resulting process will increase Government visibility into industry strategy and focus of IR&D efforts, allowing the Government to more effectively inform 

industry of relevant RDT&E programs and shape those programs to better leverage 

industry investment. 

Mr. WILSON. What tools do you have to transition successful technologies developed by S&T, whether in the labs or from contractors, into programs of record? How 

important are programs like the Small Business Innovative Research program 
127 

(SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR), or the Rapid Innovation Program to your technology transition efforts? 

Admiral WINTER. GAO recently reported positively on DoN’s approach and tools 

for technology transition. Technology Transition Programs Support Military Users, 

but Opportunities Exist to Improve Measurement of Outcomes GAO–13–286: Published: Mar 7, 2013. One of DoN’s primary investments in late term transition focused research is the Future Naval Capability (FNC) program. This science and 

technology (S&T) investment portfolio utilizes nine (two-star level) mission-focused 

Department-wide Integrated Product Teams to collaborate to determine the naval 

need, product priority, and appropriate technology focus of any new FNC S&T investments. These FNCs are recommended at the two-star (IPT) level and forwarded 

to a naval technology oversight board at the three-star level for approval. Once approved at the three-star level, FNC S&T investments are tracked and enforced 

through negotiated Technology Transition Agreements (TTAs) agreed-to and signed 

by program managers across the three collaborating naval communities from S&T, 

Requirements and Acquisition. These agreements are reviewed and renewed annually to ensure appropriate leadership visibility and progress in delivering the capability to the warfighter. The SBIR/STTR Programs are very important as they are 

the largest source of early stage research and development funds for small businesses (over $300 million in the DoN). By utilizing agile small businesses, SBIR/ 

STTR awardees develop innovative technologies that address DoN needs and enhance military capability, accelerate military development capability, and provide 

cost savings to acquisition programs and fielded systems. The Rapid Innovation Program is also very important and provides acquisition program managers with a tool 

to select and transition technology that addresses their priority needs. The goal of 

RIP is to accelerate the fielding of innovative technologies into military systems. 

The program achieves its goal utilizing source selection preference for small businesses, particularly those from SBIR/STTR, whose technology readiness levels are 

at the component and/or breadboard validation in a relevant environment or at the 

system/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment. A 

2015 GAO report, DOD Rapid Innovation Program: Some Technologies Have 

Transitioned to Military Users, but Steps Can Be Taken to Improve Program 

Metrics and Outcomes, GAO–15–421, supported the Navy’s approach to technology 

transition. ‘‘In addition, the Office of Naval Research’s risk management team can 

provide support for small businesses to stay on track in fulfilling RIP contracts, including making sure companies can ramp up production if their projects are 

transitioned. We have previously reported that this office has a well-established 

technology transition focus which may contribute to project success. Because of this, 

the Navy may be better aware of the benefits and obstacles associated with a substantial portion of their S&T portfolio. This knowledge can better inform investment 

decisions made by Navy leadership.’’ 

Mr. WILSON. Do you have enough visibility into industry-directed independent research and development (IR&D)? Are there additional legislative tools you need to 

be more effective in coordinating with those investments? 

Dr. WALKER. Yes, the Air Force has sufficient visibility into industry-directed 

independent research and development. The Air Force science and technology program frequently interacts with industry, academia, small businesses and international partners to enable research and development synergies. As a prime example, the Aerospace Systems Technology Directorate in the Air Force Research Laboratory participates in several consortiums such as the Rocket Propulsion for the 

21st Century and the Versatile Affordable Advanced Turbine Engine, where both 

government and industry collaborate to achieve common goals and address national 

technology needs. At this time, the Air Force does not request additional legislative 

tools to be more effective in coordinating investments. 

Mr. WILSON. What tools do you have to transition successful technologies developed by S&T, whether in the labs or from contractors, into programs of record? How 

important are programs like the Small Business Innovative Research program 

(SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR), or the Rapid Innovation Program to your technology transition efforts? 

Dr. WALKER. There are two keys to the successful transition of technology developed from S&T. The first is that the technology must address a prioritized capability gap. The second is that the technology must be successfully demonstrated in 

a relevant environment. With today’s budget constraints, only those technologies 

that address top capability gaps and are successfully demonstrated have a chance 

at transition to the warfighter. The involvement of Program Executive Offices 

(PEOs) and Centers is essential to successful transition of technology. PEOs and 

Centers are best positioned to understand the Major Command (MAJCOM) requirements, what the labs can deliver, and what vendors are working on. The Air Force 
128 

has been working hard to tighten the lines of communication between the S&T community, PEOs, Centers, and MAJCOMs. The Air Force has several programs that 

facilitate the transition of technology. The SBIR/STTR and Rapid Innovation programs are three such programs that are very important to Air Force technology 

transition efforts. SBIR/STTR programs identify small businesses that are engaged 

in developing technologies with the potential to address Air Force requirements. 

Funds provided through these programs empower small businesses’ efforts to bring 

their innovative technologies to commercial readiness. As the technical readiness 

level matures during the period of support, the potential Air Force customer works 

closely with the company to ensure alignment of the capability with the requirement. As part of the SBIR/STTR programs, the Commercialization Readiness Program (CRP) identifies companies that have significantly advanced their technologies, but still require some additional support to move to enable insertion into 

programs of record. The Rapid Innovation Program has been an excellent means for 

the Air Force to communicate areas of critical need and solicit vendors to respond 

with innovative technology solutions. The Air Force is now in its fifth year of working with this program and has experienced very positive results in transitioning 

technology, primarily from small businesses, to address Air Force requirements. 

There are two other programs that also assist in the transition of technology: the 

Technology Transition program and the Technology Transfer program. The Technology Transition program provides funds to mature and demonstrate technologies 

to enable or accelerate their transition into programs of record. Currently, the primary focus in this program element is the follow-on maturation and demonstration/ 

validation of next generation adaptive jet engines. The Technology Transfer program was created to promote the transfer and exchange of technology with state 

and local governments, academia and industry. The primary means for doing this 

is through Partnership Intermediary Agreements between the Air Force and nontraditional contractors such as a small business or university to facilitate technology 

transfer. This year the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is rolling out a new 

program to assist in transitioning technology to address hard problems. This program is through the Emerging Capabilities and Prototyping Directorate in OSD and 

offers the Services the opportunity to propose technology that addresses top priority 

challenges throughout the DoD. The Air Force Research Laboratory and PEOs, in 

partnership with other organizations such as national labs, university affiliated research centers, and Combatant Commanders, propose technologies that address 

OSD challenges and if successfully demonstrated will transition. The Air Force continues to focus on technology transition and is striving to ensure our MAJCOMs, 

PEOs, Centers, and AFRL are all working together to maximize results of our S&T 

efforts. We especially recognize small businesses areas are a major driver of innovation and we continue to explore and strengthen all avenues to encourage our partnership with them. 

Mr. WILSON. Could you give us an update on the status of the ‘‘Trusted Foundry’’ 

program for providing a secure source of microchips for sensitive defense systems? 

What is being done to respond to the recent announcement that IBM plans to sell 

its Foundry capabilities to a foreign controlled company? 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained 

in the committee files.] 

Mr. WILSON. Do you have enough visibility into industry-directed independent research and development (IR&D)? Are there additional legislative tools you need to 

be more effective in coordinating with those investments? 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. IR&D conducted by defense contractors as an allowable overhead 

expense can be an important source of innovation for both industry and DoD. IR&D 

represents well over $4 billion in annual R&D spending. Reviews of IR&D spending 

indicate that a significant fraction of IR&D is being spent on near-term competitive 

opportunities and on de minimis investments principally intended to create intellectual property rights for a company. IR&D allowability should encourage contractors 

to engage in R&D activities of potential interest to DoD. We have established a 

database in which companies meeting certain dollar thresholds are required to report their IR&D projects. Because companies enter the information at the end of 

their Fiscal Year, our visibility is limited to looking in the past. We are working 

to increase visibility into IR&D without increasing administrative burdens or requiring legislation. 

Mr. WILSON. What tools do you have to transition successful technologies developed by S&T, whether in the labs or from contractors, into programs of record? How 

important are programs like the Small Business Innovative Research program 

(SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR), or the Rapid Innovation Program to your technology transition efforts? 
129 

Dr. PRABHAKAR. Tools: The primary means by which S&T-funded efforts performed in laboratories or contractor facilities are transitioned to programs of record 

is driven by acquisition program managers who competitively solicit proposals from 

industry to initiate a new program of record or to modify or enhance an existing 

program of record. Contractors who have demonstrated technical feasibility and developed components or prototypes on DARPA contracts and demonstrated a sufficiently high technology readiness level (TRL) typically respond to these competitive 

solicitations. The decision and the funding to incorporate the DARPA-developed 

technology into a program of record is determined and executed by the acquisition 

program. To facilitate the transition of DARPA-funded projects into programs of 

record, DARPA works with both the military operational community (COCOMs) and 

the acquisition community PEOs/PMs and Chiefs of Staff of the Military Departments to validate needs, understand concepts of operations, demonstrate prototypes 

and participate in operational exercises. The primary benefit of this aggressive and 

continuous interaction is that the acquisition professionals (those responsible for 

programs of record) not only learn about the benefits of DARPA programs but become active participants in the development process and advocates for technology 

transition in their Service. 

SBIR/STTR: The DARPA Technology Offices leverage the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs to 

address significant technical problems that are considered high risk, but high payoff; to explore alternative technology approaches to mitigate risk for a DARPA program; to explore the feasibility of a new start; or to investigate a disruptive technology. DARPA frequently uses the SBIR/STTR programs to explore new ideas from 

novel and sometimes unconventional small businesses rather than as a technology 

transition tool. 

However, the Small Business Programs Office places high emphasis on helping 

small businesses to transition their technology and offers transition and commercialization planning and implementation assistance for active DARPA-funded SBIR/ 

STTR Phase II projects during the contract period of performance (typically 24 

months). The goal is to increase the potential for these companies to move their developed technologies, solutions or products beyond Phase II and into the DoD military services, other federal agencies, and/or the commercial market. Entry into the 

program is voluntary and services are provided at no cost to participants, which is 

consistent with added congressional and DoD priorities over the past several years. 

The DARPA Transition and Commercialization Support Program (TCSP) offers a 

range of assistance, including consulting and collaborating with small companies in 

developing and executing their project-focused transition and commercialization 

strategies. More than half of all qualified companies take advantage of the program’s offerings: 

• review and provide feedback to the company on their transition and commercialization plans 

• identify experiment and demonstration opportunities and sources of potential 

funding and collaborators 

• facilitate introductions to potential funders, collaborators, and partners 

• provide business planning and technology readiness assessment tools 

• provide routine alerts about opportunities 

Support includes targeted outreach and training events to promote transition successes and share best practices and lessons learned. Participants’ progress is 

tracked as they move on to Phase III awards and beyond. 

In FY15 the DARPA SBIR/STTR program is funded by placing 3.3% of the 

DARPA top line appropriated budget into the SBIR/STTR account. DARPA does not 

receive external funding for this program. 

Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF): DARPA does not directly participate in RIF. This 

program is administered by the ASD(R&E) and is intended to reach out to small 

business that may have technology products available at a technology readiness 

level 6–9 (low risk) that can be rapidly adapted to meet a Military Department acquisition program or operational need. DARPA typically funds projects that are high 

risk (lower TRL) with large payoff. The DoD RIF program participants are typically 

organizations that have an operational mission where a minimal, short-term investment in a mature small business technology can impact near-term operations. 

DARPA does not have an operational mission and is not a customer for or consumer 

of these products. However, performers on DARPA programs are made aware of the 

RIF program and they can independently respond to the competitive RIF solicitation 

if their technology products satisfy the appropriate criteria. From an SBIR standpoint, the firms in our SBIR Phase 2 portfolio are informed of RIF funding opportunities. 
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. NUGENT 

Mr. NUGENT. Last year, the 113th Congress appropriated $220 million dollars for 

the sole purpose of accelerating the development of a domestic rocket propulsion 

system. However thus far, neither the Air Force nor the Department of Defense has 

moved expeditiously to accomplish this task. 

Since the passage of last year’s Appropriations act, what has the Air Force specifically done to develop an advanced liquid rocket booster engine to replace the RD– 

180? 

Dr. WALKER. The rocket propulsion system effort, as referred to in the fiscal year 

2015 National Defense Authorizations Act (NDAA), is funded in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Program (SPACE)—EMD Program Element (PE) 

0604853F. That effort is managed through the Air Force Program Executive Officer 

for Space (AFPEO/SP) in the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles AFB, CA. 

The Air Force has obligated about $50 million so far; $37 million in fiscal 2014 

money, which was reprogrammed in the Omnibus, and about $13 million of the fiscal year 2015 money, which was appropriated in 2015. We intend to invest an additional $45 million to $50 million over about the next six months. We issued a draft 

Rocket Propulsion System (RPS) Request for Proposals (RFPs) in April and will 

award multiple contracts with propulsion system or launch system providers to 

partner with their ongoing investment in domestic propulsion systems as part of our 

plan to develop a domestic propulsion system by 2019, and to do so competitively. 

However, this will only give us an engine, and an engine alone will not launch us 

into space. Transitioning the engine to a fully integrated tested and certified capability will take longer than that. This is the consensus of experts across the space 

enterprise. 

Mr. NUGENT. Last year, Congress directed the Air Force to deliver the CHAMP 

system on the cruise missile. 

Congress also set aside an extra $10 million dollars for the specific purpose of getting this particular technology out of the lab and to our warfighters on the non-reusable platform. Why has this not been completed? 

Dr. WALKER. Gen Welsh stated, concerning CHAMP, during the HASC Fiscal 

Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Budget Request from the Military Departments hearing that took place on Mar 17 2015 ‘‘Do we plan to produce this 

weapon by F.Y. ’16? No, sir, we can’t get there from here.’’ We do not have the ability to give the combatant commanders this capability right now for a fraction of the 

cost. One year and $10 million is not sufficient to provide a CHAMP-like capability 

to the warfighter. Raytheon, a CHAMP contractor, has estimated that the cost and 

schedule to provide 32 missiles is four years and $140 million. This estimate does 

not include the cost, resources and planning required by the Air Force and the combatant commands for the development and implementation of doctrine, organization, 

training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF) 

associated with a weapon system capability. Additionally, maintaining a very small 

number of CHAMP platforms, with the associated sophisticated hardware, in the inventory will be expensive. There are also concerns with the platform’s survivability, 

ingress range, target engagement ranges, and guidance and navigation capabilities 

in a realistic scenario. Developing and producing any weapon system would not be 

funded within the Science and Technology portfolio. 

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