December 16, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security
Ukrainian Minors Recruited for Cyber Ops and Reconnaissance in Russian Airstrikes
Ukrainian security exposes Russian FSB's use of teens in espionage. Detained minors aided airstrikes.
July 25, 2018 | International, Aerospace
Boeing proposes designs for new ICBM deterrent
By Stephen Carlson
July 24 (UPI) -- Boeing has proposed design options to the U.S. Air Force for design of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, a possible replacement for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
"We offered the Air Force cost and performance trades for a deterrent that will address emerging and future threats," Frank McCall, vice president for Boeing Strategic Deterrence Systems, said in a press release.
"By considering the various capabilities and opportunities for cost savings, the Air Force can prioritize system requirements as we progress toward the program's next phase," McCall said.
Boeing received a $349 million contract from the Air Force last August for work on the GBSD, and completed a design review in November.
A system functional review will be completed later this year, while Boeing is expected to present the completed design to the Air Force in 2020.
Along with Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are competing for development contracts on the new missile.
The Ground Based Strategic Deterrence program is the U.S. Air Force effort to replace the venerable LGM Minuteman II ICBM, which is nearing the end of its lifespan.
Upgrades of the Minuteman series of ICBMs have been in service since the early 1960's. Much of its components are over 50 years old and making replacement necessary.
The GDSM program is still in its early stages but is expected to start entering service in 2027 and is planned to be in service until 2075.
The current Minuteman III is an underground silo-launched missile armed with nuclear warheads with up to a 350 kiloton yield. It has a range of well over 6,000 miles, though the exact maximum range classified.
The Minuteman III can carry up to three multiple independent reentry vehicle warheads but is restricted to one per missile by treaty. The United States currently has 450 ICBMs in service.
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June 21, 2018 | International, Security
Synthetic biology raises risk of new bioweapons, US report warns
Ian Sample Report warns that swift progress in our ability to manufacture viruses is making us vulnerable to biological attacks The rapid rise of synthetic biology, a futuristic field of science that seeks to master the machinery of life, has raised the risk of a new generation of bioweapons, according a major US report into the state of the art. Advances in the area mean that scientists now have the capability to recreate dangerous viruses from scratch; make harmful bacteria more deadly; and modify common microbes so that they churn out lethal toxins once they enter the body. The three scenarios are picked out as threats of highest concern in a review of the field published on Tuesday by the US National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Department of Defense. The report was commissioned to flag up ways in which the powerful technology might be abused, and to focus minds on how best to prepare. Michael Imperiale, chair of the report committee, and professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, said the review used only unclassified information and so has no assessment of which groups, if any, might be pursuing novel biological weapons. “We can't say how likely any of these scenarios are,” he said. “But we can talk about how feasible they are.” In the report, the scientists describe how synthetic biology, which gives researchers precision tools to manipulate living organisms, “enhances and expands” opportunities to create bioweapons. “As the power of the technology increases, that brings a general need to scrutinise where harms could come from,” said Peter Carr, a senior scientist at MIT's Synthetic Biology Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. More than 20 years ago, Eckard Wimmer, a geneticist at Stony Brook University in New York, highlighted the potential dangers of synthetic biology in dramatic style when he recreated poliovirus in a test tube. Earlier this year, a team at the University of Alberta built an infectious horsepox virus. The virus is a close relative of smallpox, which may have claimed half a billion lives in the 20th century. Today, the genetic code of almost any mammalian virus can be found online and synthesised. “The technology to do this is available now,” said Imperiale. “It requires some expertise, but it's something that's relatively easy to do, and that is why it tops the list.” Other fairly simple procedures can be used to tweak the genes of dangerous bacteria and make them resistant to antibiotics, so that people infected with them would be untreatable. A more exotic bioweapon might come in the form of a genetically-altered microbe that colonises the gut and churns out poisons. “While that is technically more difficult, it is a concern because it may not look like anything you normally watch out for in public health,” Imperiale said. The report calls on the US government to rethink how it conducts disease surveillance, so it can better detect novel bioweapons, and to look at ways to bolster defences, for example by finding ways to make and deploy vaccines far more rapidly. For every bioweapon the scientists consider, the report sets out key hurdles that, once cleared, will make the weapons more feasible. One bioweapon that is not considered an immediate threat is a so-called gene drive that spreads through a population, rewriting human DNA as it goes. “It's important to recognise that it's easy to come up with a scary-sounding idea, but it's far more difficult to do something practical with it,” said Carr. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/19/urgent-need-to-prepare-for-manmade-virus-attacks-says-us-government-report
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March 2, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Leonardo: Toll Helicopters orders two more AW139s supporting the Australian Defence Force (ADF)
The helicopters will supplement a fleet of three AW139s currently supporting a range of activities including pilot and aircrew officer training, utility support to ADF exercises and emergency response and...