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Gathered in a temporary maritime operations center in Arlington, Virginia, military, industry and political leaders watched multiple satellite images flash onto large monitor screens. These images showed three types of drug-running vessels hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean — a small, fast, highly maneuverable boat capable of transferring illicit cargo between ships on the high seas; a support ship with a crane for loading and unloading contraband; and a tugboat serving as the recipient ship for smuggling cargo into the U.S. The scenario was part of a larger July 2023 experimentation event designed to emulate drug-smuggling activities in the maritime domain as well as efforts to deter the flow of such contraband. Called the SCOUT Main Experimentation Event, the two-week exercise involved partners such as the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-South (JIATF-S), U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), and numerous naval warfare centers and industry and academic partners. Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus, who was one of several ONR leaders at the maritime operations center, said, “I’m truly impressed by the innovation, teaming and analytic rigor you’ve all brought to this exercise. Your pioneering approach is leading the way for us to learn faster with new partners to tackle the hardest operational challenges.”

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has ended fiscal year 2023 with the highest rating from the Professional Services Council (PSC) for its outreach, transparency and thoroughness in acquisition forecasts. The Department of the Navy’s ranking on the PSC scorecard is a big change from previous years according to Ellen Simonoff, director, Office of Small Business Programs. She said last year the DoN pushed an initiative to get a higher ranking and succeeded, in part, by getting all of the Navy commands to have their long-range acquisition estimates correspond to each other in terms of how and what information was published.

Extraordinarily rugged with a melting temperature of several thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That describes the results of research into new ceramic materials sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and recently published in the Journal Nature. A research team, led by ONR’s Principal Investigator, Dr. Stefano Curtarolo, Duke University, developed a computational method for creating new types of ceramics using transition metals – carbonitrides or borides – through a process called Disordered Enthalpy-Entropy Descriptor (DEED). The applications are endless, said Dr. Eric Wuchina, a research materials engineer who was the program officer with ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons department when Curtarolo’s research team was awarded the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI). According to Wuchina, the variety of new compositions could create potentially millions of new materials.

Known as the Layered Laser Defense (LLD), the weapon was designed and built by Lockheed Martin to serve as a multi-domain, multi-platform demonstration system. It can counter unmanned aerial systems and fast-attack boats with a high-power laser—and also use its high-resolution telescope to track in-bound air threats, support combat identification and conduct battle damage assessment of engaged targets.

The Office of Naval Research's Electrochemical Materials program is focused on developing a fundamental understanding of charge (electron and ion) storage, transport and transfer mechanisms, and applying that knowledge to inform the development of materials, materials architectures and devices that address Navy and Marine Corps application power and energy needs.

The Manufacturing Focus Area develops technologies that acquisition programs need to make the design, fabrication, construction, repair and sustainment of naval platforms more affordable.

The Materials Focus Area is materials science and engineering to enhance the performance, affordability, survivability and reliability of the future and legacy Navy and Marine Corps systems and platforms.

Managed within the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Navy ManTech Program sponsors projects and develops enabling manufacturing technology, such as new processes and equipment, for DoD weapon system production lines that deliver the highest impact manufacturing technology to benefit the fleet when implemented.

The Navy ManTech Program Investment Strategy concentrates ManTech investments on reducing both the acquisition and life-cycle costs of key Navy acquisition programs.

The Navy ManTech Program executes its projects primarily through its Centers of Excellence. The COEs were established as focal points for the development and transition of new manufacturing processes and equipment in a cooperative environment with industry, academia and the Naval Research Enterprise.