January 26, 2021 | International, Aerospace
By: Andrew Chuter
LONDON — A British initiative to develop an unmanned air vehicle known as a “loyal wingman” has received a boost with the announcement by the Ministry of Defence that a Spirit AeroSystems-led consortium is to build a full-scale test vehicle.
The Belfast, Northern Ireland-based arm of Spirit and partners, including Northrop Grumman UK, have been awarded a £30 million (U.S. $41 million) deal to lead a partnership, known as Team Mosquito, for building the demonstrator vehicle in time to start a test flight program by the end of 2023.
Work maturing the Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft, or LANCA, will run for three years until the conclusion of the flight trials, an MoD official said.
Following completion of the demonstration phase, the Royal Air Force will analyze the data and use it to inform capability decisions, said the official.
The unmanned vehicle is part of the air force's push to produce a low-cost machine in a fraction of the time of normal combat jets.
The Spirit Mosquito team, previously known as Blackdawn and led by Callen-Lenz , secured the deal beating out proposals from partnerships led by Boeing and Blue Bear Systems.
Spirit acquired the Belfast-based aerostructures operations of Canadian commercial and business jet builder Bombardier last year.
Designing and building the airframe is a small but significant win for the company, which centers on building structures for the Airbus A220 airliner and other civil sector work.
Northrop Grumman UK, the key partner alongside Spirit in Team Mosquito, said in a statement it will be providing model-based systems engineering and agile engineering expertise.
The company said it will also integrate its advanced mission management (AMM) and airborne communication node technologies to enable seamless human-machine collaboration and cooperative mission management across distributed manned and unmanned assets.
The MoD said further companies in the new team will be announced later.
Work on LANCA has been underway since 2015, with the MoD's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory taking the lead pursing innovative combat air technologies and concepts that offer radical reductions in cost and development time.
Defense Ministry officials previously said they want to produce a drone for 10 percent of the cost and in one-fifth of the time of a combat jet.
“If successful, Project Mosquito's findings could lead to the capability being deployed alongside RAF Typhoon and F-35 Lightning jets by the end of the decade,” said the MoD.
The drone is now a RAF Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO)-led project under the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI).
If the project is successful the Mosquito loyal wingman platform could eventually become the first unmanned platform in British service able to target and shoot down enemy aircraft.
The Mosquito effort is one of several future air combat initiatives being pursued by the British, including development of swarming drones and the Tempest next-generation manned and unmanned combat jet.
Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston said the British were “taking a revolutionary approach, looking at a game-changing mix of swarming drones and uncrewed fighter aircraft like Mosquito, alongside piloted fighters like Tempest, that will transform the combat battlespace in a way not seen since the advent of the jet age.”
The loyal wingman concept is generating increasing interest with militaries across the world, with similar work underway in the United States, Australia and Europe.
May 30, 2024 | International, Land
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September 22, 2020 | International, C4ISR
Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — The Army has signed a cooperative research and development deal with Estonia focused on cyber defense and other technologies. The Sept. 14th agreement, signed by the Army Futures Command's Combat Capabilities Development Command's Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center and the ministry of defense, will establish a working group to identify new technologies mutually beneficial to each nation, mostly in the multidomain operations sphere. “This is part of Army Futures Command's' mission: to discover and deliver technology. We're reaching out to pretty much any source that we can find something innovative, whether it's innovative thoughts and ways of doing business or if it's potentially altering a product or modifying it for use by government and by the military,” Brian Lyttle, division chief for cybersecurity at the C5ISR Center, told C4ISRNET in an interview. Under the agreement, the two nations will identify technological areas of mutual interest and share researchers to develop them, Robert Kimball, senior research scientist for cybersecurity at the C5ISR Center, told C4ISRNET. He noted the agreement is in preliminary stages and researchers haven't identified specific projects yet. Andri Rebane, director of the Cyber Defense Department at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, also told C4SIRNET in an emailed response that the joint working group will hold regular meetings to identify those technologies and explore experimentation on those they both agree to. “The ambition is to develop long term research and development projects in cyber defense to encounter the threats from disruptive technologies,” he said. Estonia is considered one of the most digitally connected nations in the world and has continued to up its game in the digital realm following a 2007 cyberattack, largely attributed to Russia. The Army's research and development community wants to chase new technology that can better serve soldiers. “Our mission in the R&D area is to identify those technologies that will benefit the Army as a whole. Our ability to identify those technologies extends far beyond what's available in our own government labs, in research institutions in the United States,” Kimball said. “We're interested in new cyber technologies from wherever they exist. The Estonians have deep capabilities because of their past that they've spent a lot of time working on.” Rebane explained this agreement is part of a larger partnership between the two NATO nations. “In a more practical view the two parties can leverage their vast experience to invest into new research and development to mitigate cyber threats across the spectrum of conflict. In the long term this agreement will benefit also our other allies countering the threats emerging from the shared cyberspace,” he said. Lyttle noted that the Army – and Department of Defense – will never fight alone and thus agreements like this help to foster greater interoperability with coalition partners. https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/09/21/army-mints-new-cyber-research-and-development-agreement-with-estonia/
February 19, 2020 | International, C4ISR
Haifa, Israel, February 18, 2020 – Elbit Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: ESLT, TASE: ESLT) (“Elbit Systems”) announced today that it was awarded an approximately $670 million contract to supply defense solutions to a country in Asia-Pacific. The contract will be performed over a 25-month period. Bezhalel (Butzi) Machlis, Elbit Systems President & CEO, commented: “This significant contract award is a testament to the trust that customers place with our solutions and to the leading position we hold in the market.” About Elbit Systems Elbit Systems Ltd. is an international high technology company engaged in a wide range of defense, homeland security and commercial programs throughout the world. The Company, which includes Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries, operates in the areas of aerospace, land, and naval systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (“C4ISR”), unmanned aircraft systems, advanced electro-optics, electro-optic space systems, EW suites, signal intelligence systems, data links and communications systems, radios and cyber-based systems and munitions. The Company also focuses on the upgrading of existing platforms, developing new technologies for defense, homeland security and commercial applications and providing a range of support services, including training and simulation systems. For additional information, visit: https://elbitsystems.com/, follow us on Twitter or visit our official Facebook, Youtube and LinkedIn Channels. Contacts: Company Contact: Joseph Gaspar, Executive VP & CFO Tel: +972-4-8316663 j.gaspar@elbitsystems.com Rami Myerson, Director, Investor Relations Tel: +972-77-2946403 rami.myerson@elbitsystems.com David Vaaknin, VP, Brand & Communications Tel: +972-77-2946691 david.vaaknin@elbitsystems.com IR Contact: Ehud Helft Gavriel Frohwein GK Investor Relations Tel: 1-646-688-3559 elbitsystems@gkir.com View source version on Elbit Systems Ltd: https://elbitsystems.com/pr-new/elbit-systems-awarded-670-million-contract-to-supply-defense-solutions-to-a-country-in-asia-pacific/