Airbus wins DARPA contract to develop small constellation satellite bus for Blackjack program

On the same subject

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  July 15, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Can commercial satellites revolutionize nuclear command and control?

  By: Nathan Strout The rapid growth of commercial space makes the use of non-government satellites for nuclear command and control increasingly tempting, according to one official. During a speech June 26, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said that the service — which oversees both the United States' ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as strategic bombers capable of delivering nuclear warheads — was open to the idea of using private sector satellites. “Whether it's Silicon Valley or commercial space, there's unlimited opportunities ahead right now for us in terms of how we think differently on things like nuclear command and control,” said Goldfien. “I, for one, am pretty excited about it.” The military has increasingly turned to the commercial sector to expand its capabilities more cost efficiently. For instance, the National Reconnaissance Office — the agency in charge of the nation's spy satellites — announced that it was looking to expand the amount of satellite imagery it buys from commercial companies. The Air Force has also expressed interest in developing a hybrid architecture for satellite communications, which would see war fighters able to switch between commercial and military satellites as they move through coverage areas. According to Goldfein, there's no reason that commercial capabilities could not similarly be applied to nuclear C2. “The work that we're doing in connecting the force and building a network force around the services in the conventional side has equal applications to the nuclear command and control side, because at the end of the day what we need is resilient capable architecture that keeps the commander in chief connected,” said Goldfien. “So one of the areas that I think we're going to be able to leverage significantly is the rapid and exciting expansion of commercial space in bringing low-Earth orbit capabilities that will allow us to have resilient pathways to communicate.” Currently, the military relies primarily on the Advanced Extremely High Frequency System for the nuclear sector. With four satellites in orbit and a fifth to be launched later this month, AEHF provides highly secure, anti-jamming communications for the military and national leaders like the commander in chief. It wasn't clear in Goldfein's comments whether he was interested in using commercial capabilities to augment, replace or work as a backup to AEHF and other military satellite systems. He did note that the sheer volume of satellites in some commercial constellations provides increased survivability for the network. “We want to get to a point both in conventional and unconventional, or conventional and nuclear, where if some portion of the network is taken out, our answer ought to be, ‘Peh, I've got five other pathways. And you want to take out 1,000 satellites of my constellation, of which I have five? Knock yourself out.' That's what I see is going to be a significant way that we're going to be able to leverage,” said Goldfein. The possibility of lowering costs is another major incentive to turning to the commercial sector to begin providing the communications necessary. “What we want to eventually get to is the reversal of the cost curve. Right now it actually costs us more to defend than it takes to shoot. And we want to reverse that so it actually costs them more to shoot than it takes for us to defend,” explained Goldfien. Goldfein pointed to commercial launches as an area where competition had helped drive down costs. “Increased access to affordable launch and smaller payloads that are more capable has caused this rapid expansion of commercial capabilities in space,” he said. “That may be one of the most exciting developments that we have going forward, because industry is going to help us solve many of these problems.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2019/07/12/can-commercial-satellites-revolutionize-nuclear-command-and-control/

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  April 18, 2024 | International, Land

  Analysis: how good is Challenger 3, the British Army’s new main battle tank? - Army Technology

  The Challenger 3 main battle tank will be the British Army's central armoured element through to 2040, and perhaps beyond.

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  April 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval

  Navy Looking to Buy Aircraft Engines as Civilian Demand Dwindles

  By: Megan Eckstein The Navy is moving forward with its plans to take advantage of a commercial aviation slowdown by accelerating new orders, buying spare parts and conducting depot maintenance – all in conjunction with the other services, to get the maximum benefit of what the industry has to offer even while combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Navy acquisition chief James Geurts told reporters today that, both because customers are avoiding commercial air travel and because aviation manufacturing sites are being hit by the coronavirus, “commercial aviation is still remarkably challenged, and remarkably important because we do get a lot of benefit in the DoD from commercial aviation sector, from those companies that work in both areas. So we're working closely with them.” Geurts had said two weeks ago that the Navy was early in the process of identifying what opportunities might exist to keep aviation-related production lines moving despite limited commercial demand, while also building up Navy readiness by boosting the inventory of spare parts or getting ahead of schedule on acquisition or maintenance efforts. After Geurts made those remarks, his counterpart, Defense Department acquisition chief Ellen Lord, said that aviation was the hardest-hit sector in the defense industrial base due to the COVID-19 pandemic and response. Today, asked what opportunity there was to get ahead on aviation acquisition and maintenance even amid the sector's great disruptions, Geurts told USNI News during a media teleconference that the effort is moving forward and that aviation propulsion would be a key focus. “We're working closely with our partners in the other services so we have a whole-of-DoD approach to those companies in those efforts,” he said. He added that his focus would be less about awarding new contracts and instead looking at rephasing or accelerating work, connecting companies with grants and loans they might not otherwise have access to, and more. “We're looking at the full tools we have available and then trying to rapidly tailor those tools and the right mix to each individual sector and each individual situation,” he said. “I don't see a giant DoD-level contract. I think it's more about synchronizing efforts and working closely with my counterparts in the other services so that we're working together to get the maximum benefit, and I think that's more an alignment of strategies and tools than in a large new kind of joint contract.” For example, the Navy is looking at construction programs where “we may not have planned to buy the engine for three months, but maybe we can buy it now and gain some efficiency.” On programs like the P-8A Poseidon, a military version of the popular Boeing 737, the Navy could find money within the program to stock up on parts, or to leverage Boeing depot repair capabilities not being used by commercial planes. “There will be a natural limitation of funding and whatnot, so we can't do that infinitely, but we're looking to leverage all the different toolsets we have,” Geurts said. Outside the Navy budget, Geurts said the Navy has been trying to help its smaller suppliers get connected with the Small Business Administration to apply for loans so they can keep their production moving or even accelerate. And in the Navy's own Small Business Innovative Research, the service has $250 million in awards that Geurts is trying to get out to industry as quickly as possible over the next couple months. More broadly, Geurts said the Navy had already been taking a close look at its domestic and international supply chain and is in a good position now to be making informed decisions as the entire world faces disruptions from this pandemic. In hard-hit Italy, for example, companies that make parts for the Marine Corps' amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) – which BAE Systems builds in partnership with Italian defense contractor Iveco, which designed the vehicle for the Italian Navy – have had to shut down. “Everybody is working very aggressively to manage around it,” Geurts said, adding “there's nothing I would put in a crisis mode yet, we're just keeping an eye on it.” He said for ACV and other programs that rely on international suppliers, the program offices are looking to rephrase elements of construction to account for certain components being delayed, or may look at using spare parts for already-fielded vehicles to support construction. The latter move, though, would have to be done carefully to balance both production and sustainment needs, he said. https://news.usni.org/2020/04/28/navy-looking-to-buy-aircraft-engines-as-civilian-demand-dwindles