🔐 Army’s Project Gatekeeper uses AI to vet vendor code

Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), now calls high-altitude balloons game-changing after initially dismissing the concept as crazy.

The Army scrapped a planned Pacific balloon swarm test and sent those systems to support Central Command (CENTCOM) operations, where an Army official said they proved effective.

SMDC wants a family of stratospheric balloons operating at 60,000 to 100,000 feet for sensing, communications relay, and launched effects, with more experiments planned over the coming year.

BAE Systems unveiled two counter-drone demonstrators at AUSA, the Multi-Domain Artillery Cannon System (MDACS) and a High Power Microwave (HPM) weapon, built for layered defense against saturation attacks.

MDACS fires the Hypervelocity Projectile for air defense and Scorpio-XR, which doubles existing 155mm projectile range, while HPM is built from over 99% commercial off-the-shelf parts.

The pitch to the Army is magazine depth, with the microwave defeating swarms for as long as power is available rather than running out of ammunition.

The Army awarded $93.6 million in one-year contracts to nine companies, including General Dynamics Mission Systems, Onebrief, and Rune Technologies, to build apps for Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2).

The apps run on a common data baseline built by Anduril, Palantir, Raft, and Striveworks; Anduril won a deal worth up to $1.8B on Sept. 30 to keep refining it.

NGC2 is now fielding to I Corps in the Indo-Pacific, testing whether it can link forces separated by thousands of miles in communications-contested environments.

The Army launches Project Gatekeeper on Oct. 23, an AI sandbox that vets vendor code in an isolated environment, led by acting Army CIO Gabe Chiulli.

The goal is accreditation in minutes instead of months, and companies can submit code before they hold a contract or an Authority to Operate (ATO).

A General Services Administration (GSA) sign-on integration due by mid-November aims to make the pipeline commercially accessible without lowering security requirements.

Lockheed Martin unveiled PAC-3 Edge, a next-generation Patriot interceptor built around a Northrop Grumman multi-pulse solid rocket motor, upgraded controls, and a new seeker.

Lockheed has invested $250 million in its Strigo Product Center to develop the seeker, with interceptor testing slated to begin in 2027.

It is positioned for the Army’s Future Interceptor program to replace PAC-3 MSE, with rapid deployment scheduled for 2031.

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