With 6,000 registered attendees, 150-plus exhibitors and more than 50 scheduled speakers, Huntsville’s annual spring defense symposium and trade show roared back to life Tuesday after three years of being closed by the COVID pandemic.

“Designing and Sustaining the Army of 2040″ was the theme, first-day briefings came from top Pentagon leaders and exhibits ranged from simple notepads that repel water in the field to two-story rolling weapons platforms designed to fight ground adversaries and drone attacks.

The event’s full title is “Global Force Symposium and Exposition,” a name that reflects the briefings, speeches and displays that make up the three day event that ends Thursday. The first day opened with Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo briefing a full hall on the Army’s needs for 2030 and the decade to follow.

The goal is continuity of priorities, Camarillo said, adding, “They are the right bets to place. They address the most compelling needs.”

The Army has asked Congress for a $2 billion increase in research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) spending for fiscal year 2024 bringing the total to $15.7 billion. It asked for $23.4 billion in procurement dollars in FY 2024 – a 10 percent increase over this year.

One of those compelling needs is funding the deployment of the Army’s first long-range hypersonic weapon battery, Camarillo said. These are what the Army calls “ultrafast, maneuverable, long-range missiles that will launch from mobile ground platforms.”

By ultra-fast, the Army means they can fly five times the speed of sound at varying altitudes. And unlike most ballistic missiles, they are maneuverable in flight.

“The list goes on and on and on as we continue to build momentum and progress,” Camarillo said of the billions the country will spend in the next two decades.

Back on the exhibit floor, vendors included the giants of America’s military-industrial complex. Many of those companies such as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Dynetics and Boeing also have large operations in the Huntsville region. Dynetics is already working on the body for a hypersonic missile and Lockheed Martin is working on systems integration systems for such missiles.

Back on the exhibition floor, elaborate booths belonging to giant defense companies shared space with universities advertising their programs and suppliers of tools as large as tanks and as small as folding multitools. One company that had curious attendees stopping was Rite in the Rain. Its product is writing pads that resist rain and at least one reporter left with a free sample for his front pocket.