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July 2, 2019 | International, Other Defence
Army awards key contracts to build virtual trainers
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — The Army has awarded several key contracts to build virtual trainers, which make up a critical part of the service's developing Synthetic Training Environment (STE).
Cole Engineering Services, Inc. (CESI) was selected from a pool of vendors with solutions for ground and air virtual trainers on June 28 to build a prototype of the Army's Synthetic Training Environment's Reconfigurable Virtual Collective Trainer (RVCT).
The Army sifted through a total of 11 responses to a request for solutions issued in April — eight RVCT solutions that address aircraft, two that address ground platforms and one that covered both air and ground capability in a comprehensive solution.
“As a result of a multi-stage competition, the comprehensive solution, provided by Cole Engineering Services Inc., was selected as the winning vendor providing best value to the government,” a June 28 statement sent to Defense News from Army Contracting Command- Orlando said.
The total value of the prototype project, if all phases and options are exercised, is $81.4 million.
The Army also awarded a $95 million contract June 19 to VT MAK, a subsidiary of Singapore company ST Engineering in the United States, to deliver both Training Simulation Software (TSS) and a Training Management Tool (TMT) — two essential elements that, when combined with One World Terrain, form the STE's Common Synthetic Environment (CSE).
The CSE enables the RVCT, the Soldier Squad Virtual Trainer and the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS).
The awards mark big progress in developing the STE — essentially a virtual world in which to train soldiers for war and aims to move the service away from its stove-piped training systems from the ‘80s and ‘90s.
The new system will allow soldiers to train collectively — which is critical to preparing for multidomain operations across air, ground, sea, cyber and space — with greater fidelity. The STE will ultimately also be used as a mission planning tool.
The idea is to be able to click on any place on a virtual globe and go there. Soldiers can then train virtually in an exact environment in which they can expect to operate in reality.
The STE was prioritized through the establishment of Army Futures Command and has its own cross-functional team led by Maj. Gen. Maria Gervais to push efforts forward quickly.
Prior to the standing up of the new four-star command aimed at rapidly building and procuring more modern equipment, the STE wasn't going to be ready until 2030.
Now that timeline has been shrunk through new approaches in development and acquisition. The contracts awarded this month, for example, are Prototype Other Transaction Agreements under the Training and Readiness Accelerator (TReX), which allowed the service to move more quickly through a competitive process.
The plan moving forward for the RVCT is “upon successful completion of this prototype effort,” the Army would award a follow-on production contract “without the use of competitive procedures,” according to the ACC-Orlando-issued statement.
But if the vendor fails to “demonstrate progress” or “be unsuccessful in the accomplishment of the goals of this prototyping effort,” the Army “reserves the right to return to the results of this competition and award additional Other Transaction Agreements to one or more of the vendors that responded to the initial Request for Solutions, as appropriate within the scope and evaluated results of the competition,” the statement notes.
Should the vendor move forward, a follow-on effort could include continued development, further scaling of the solution and integration of future capabilities.
The Army estimates the fielding quantity for the prototype would be 210 (or greater) RVCT-Air trainers and 656 ground versions “at various locations for Full Operational Capability,” according to the statement.
https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/06/28/army-awards-key-contracts-to-build-virtual-trainers/
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May 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace
How low-Earth orbit satellites will enable connectivity across all domains of warfare
Nathan Strout The Space Development Agency will provide the unifying element in the Defense Department's future Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, pulling together tactical networks developed by the services with a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites. With the JADC2 concept, the department envisions an overarching network capable of connecting sensors to shooters regardless of where they are located. That means U.S. Air Force sensors could feed data to U.S. Army shooters, or even National Reconnaissance Office sensors could send information to U.S. Air Force shooters. “Each of the services have their own way to incorporate [tactical networks], and JADC2 is just a way to make sure they all have the same networking infrastructure to talk to one another, essentially,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said at the C4ISRNET Conference on May 6. “We plug directly into [JADC2] as the space layer to pull all of that communication together.” Service efforts include programs like the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System and the Army's TITAN ground system. What the Defense Department wants to ensure is that programs like these have a way to share data across the armed services. “All of those are reliant on a way to be able to have a back end to go in space to be able to communicate across one another and across back to [the continental United States], etc. That's where the Space Development Agency's transport layer comes in,” Tournear said. “In fact, in the defense planning guidance, Secretary Esper put out the edict that basically said the transport layer will be the integrating aspect of JADC2 to be able to pull all of this tactical communication together in space.” On May 1, the SDA released its solicitation for the first 10 satellites that will make up its transport layer — a space-based mesh network in low-Earth orbit. When fully developed, that transport layer will provide a global network that various sensors, shooters and tactical networks will be able to plug into for tactical communications. A key part of that effort involves ensuring space-based sensors can feed into the services' battlefield networks in near-real time. Once that transport layer is placed on orbit in 2022, the SDA wants to demonstrate space-based sensor data being downlinked to a ground station, then uplinked to the transport layer for dissemination to the tactical edge via TITAN and Link 16 tactical network. But ultimately, the SDA wants to cut out the ground station and move the data directly from the space-based sensor to the transport layer via optical cross links. That's a stretch goal for those first 10 satellites, and the minimal viable product when the second tranche of 150 satellites is added in 2024, said Tournear. Tournear declined to identify the SDA's mission partners on development of space-based sensors, which will need to use optical inter-satellite cross links to plug into the transport layer. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/05/06/how-low-earth-orbit-satellites-will-enable-jadc2/
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July 19, 2022 | International, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence
Cybersecurity for critical infrastructure approved in $840 billion defense bill
'In the nearly 22 years that I've served in Congress, we have come a long way in cyberspace,' said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I.