EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon reveals 5 more funded RDER projects, including a top Marine priority

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve has successfully transitioned at least seven technology projects to the services so far, from high-altitude balloons to underwater communications, including five that were not previously linked to the high-speed acquisition effort.

The Pentagon’s R&D chief Heidi Shyu had already claimed two programs in an interview with Breaking Defense, but new details provided by program officials about five others indicate that a top focus for RDER is squarely on surveillance and communications, the eyes and ears of the joint force. Three of the projects focus on “enhancements” to comms, sensors, and other technical abilities aboard platforms developed by other programs: unmanned speedboats, 4th generation fighters, and the MQ-9 Reaper. Four develop new systems: surveillance balloons, underwater communications, and two types of targeting node.

Such high-tech but low-profile projects create crucial connective tissue, especially as the military tries to link its disparate forces into the nascent global battle network known as CJADC2.

But these niche capabilities are also all too often overshadowed in service budgets by big-ticket weapons systems like stealth jets or manned warships. In fact, one of the programs, a sensor-fusion system called the Maritime Targeting Cell, was number one on the Navy/Marine Corps Unfunded Priorities list before RDER came to the rescue.

“We’re doing things because the services are not,” Pentagon CTO Heidi Shyu told Breaking Defense in a recent interview defending RDER from critics.

RDER casts a wide net for “things” to do, then winnows them down ruthlessly through a multi-stage series of field tests and high-level reviews. The initial round looked at over 200 proposed projects; 32 of those — less than one in six — were selected for further investigation, of which 23 were funded for field-testing, according to Shyu’s office. Of those 23, just nine so thoroughly proved their technical maturity and military utility that they “transitioned” from RDER to the armed services for further development and production. Five of the nine are already funded in the services’ 2025 budget requests.

But RDER doesn’t stop there. Another 11 of the most promising first-round projects are still under consideration by Pentagon leaders. Meanwhile, a second round is now underway with 51 projects selected and 25 funded for field testing, officials in Shyu’s office said. Future rounds are envisioned to follow in overlapping two-year cycles, with a new RDER round starting even as the previous one wraps up.

7 RDERs We Know About

Of the nine total technologies to graduate RDER and transition to the services so far, two are too highly classified to discuss, Shyu told Breaking Defense in a recent interview. But she and other officials have made information available on the other seven.

Two have been previously reported:

High-Altitude Balloons (HAB). Similar to those used by Chinese spy agencies over the US last year, these balloons are intended to carry surveillance gear and/or communications relays high into the air, above the reach of conventional anti-aircraft weapons. “None of the services wanted to develop this capability, so it’s a gap,” Shyu told Breaking Defense. “But once we developed the capability and tested it, both the Air Force and the Army said, ‘Hey, we want this.’”

Family of Integrated Targeting Cells (FITC). This is a “capstone research and development project” [PDF] for the Marine Corps’ modernization drive, Force Design 2030. It’s intended to combine traditionally distinct staff functions – specifically “operations, intelligence, and fires” – in a single command center, improving coordination of long-range firepower not just for the Marines but across the services. In a recent speech, Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks highlighted FITC as one of RDER’s successes, saying it “was accelerated by five years.”

Five others were recently disclosed by Pentagon officials who spoke to Breaking Defense:

Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC). This is a small unmanned speedboat, about 16 feet long, now in service with a Navy Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron out of Coronado, Calif. Shyu’s staff describes GARC a “low-cost, attritable platform” that can be configured for a wide variety of missions, such as intelligence, electronic warfare, and communications. RDER helped get GARC funding from another DoD initiative known as APFIT (Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies), “accelerating production and fielding of initial units by at least two years,” one official said. (Shyu did previously mention the GARC in Congressional testimony in February [PDF].)

MQ-9 enhancements. These are upgrades for the venerable and widely deployed Reaper drone, specifically improved communications and sensing to meet “unique USMC [United States Marine Corps] needs.” Shyu’s staff said RDER helped fund prototype development, integration, and experimentation, which “accelerated capability fielding by approximately two years.”

Global Thunder. Not related to the nuclear exercise of the same name, this Global Thunder provides “enhancements” to improve “communications resilience” on 4th generation fighters. (While Shyu’s staff didn’t specify which 4th gen jets, the Air Force F-15 and F-16 and the Navy/Marine Corps F-18 are the most numerous models). RDER helped fund development and provided venues for experimentation and assessment.

Octopus. This is a Navy system for “underwater communications.” (It’s not clear if this would be for Navy divers, submarines, unmanned submersibles, or all of the above). RDER helped fund technology integration and provided venues for experimentation and assessment.

Maritime Targeting Cell – Afloat. RDER improved “communications resilience” and “accelerated fielding” for MTC, a Marine Corps project for “multi-domain fusion of national, theater, and tactical sensors.”

For the final item, what that description means, and what it matters for the Pentagon’s high-priority CJADC2 project, makes MTC a revealing case study of the gaps that RDER is trying to fill.

In March 2023, the then-Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, officially submitted his unfunded priorities  [PDF] to Congress, listing the most important programs the Navy and Marine Corps hadn’t found space for in their submitted budgets. At the top: a $45.3 million ask — modest by Pentagon standards — for the Maritime Targeting Cell.

Built by Northrop Grumman, MTC is a high-tech “fusion” node, meant to pull in data from satellites and a host of other sensors for frontline Marine Corps forces, both ashore and afloat. Budget documents say it supports a trio of major modernization initiatives: the Marines’ Force Design 2030 (alongside the Family of Integrated Targeting Cells), the Navy’s Project Overmatch, and the all-service CJADC2, which intends to link “every sensor [and] every shooter” in the US military into a lethally well-coordinated “kill web,” particularly to protect the West Pacific.

Such projects are, in theory, top priorities. In practice, though, they often fall between the cracks of service budgets consumed by big bills for procuring and maintaining marquee weapons.

But, luckily for the Marines and the MTC program, something else happened in 2023: RDER’s congressional funding finally came through, two years after the initiative was originally proposed.

“Remember I came here in ’21,” Shyu told reporters at last week’s NDIA Emerging Technologies conference. “We proposed all of this in ’21, got the budget in ’23 – because POM [the budgetary Program Objecive Memorandum] is a two-year process, I can’t short-change that ….But we plan everything out of ahead of time, we worked very closely with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, [so we can] sprint it.”

“The stuff we’re developing will provide resilient communications in a highly contested fight — and other capabilities I can’t talk about,” she said, with a laugh.