Breaking Defense is reporting that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued a new memo creating a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM) for autonomy. It said this new drone chief position will oversee all ground vehicles, small-to-medium air vehicles and nearly all sea platforms.
The outlet also reported on the latest developments in the multinational Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), which aims to develop a sixth-generation aircraft.
Separately, Breaking Defense highlighted a modular, open-architecture Maritime Mission Equipment Package (M-MEP) for Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs). It said this package integrates sensors, communications, and kinetic or non-kinetic effectors to detect, track, and defeat evolving Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) threats from platform-agnostic USVs.