China sanctions Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin for arms sales to Taiwan | Reuters

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  August 13, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Griffin joins Rocket Lab board following Pentagon exit

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — Just over a month after leaving the Pentagon, former Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin has joined the board of Rocket Lab, a small launch provider with increasing business with the U.S. government. “Rocket Lab has established itself as the leader in dedicated small satellite launch, and it's a privilege to be joining the board at an exciting time for the business as it continues to increase launch cadence and expand into satellite manufacturing and operations,” Griffin said in a statement. “Space continues to be a highly contested domain crucial to our national security, and it's also a domain that presents significant commercial opportunity. The Rocket Lab team has a proven track record of executing on a clear vision to make space accessible to these diverse communities, and I look forward to supporting that vision.” As the U.S. government has sought to leverage the growing small launch market in recent years, Rocket Lab has been there to pick up the contracts. The U.S. Air Force has awarded the company multiple launch contracts in recent years, and the U.S. Space Force is expected to launch a payload with the company in the coming months. At the same time, the National Reconnaissance Office launched its first payload from New Zealand on one of the company's Electron rockets earlier this year. Although the company recently saw one of their launches fail to reach orbit, resulting in the loss of all commercial payloads onboard, a subsequent investigation has cleared Rocket Lab to resume launch activities and both NRO and the Space and Missile Systems Center have said they plan to continue doing business with the company. Griffin's addition to the board certainly reflects the company's desire to continue pursuing national security small launch contracts. “We are honored to welcome Mike to Rocket Lab's board of directors,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab's founder and chief executive. “He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from the civil, defense, and commercial space sectors that will be invaluable to our team as Rocket Lab continues to grow and meet the ever-evolving launch and space systems needs of the national security community and commercial sector alike.” Griffin has a long history in the space arena. In 2005 he became the 11th NASA Administrator, a position he held until his resignation in 2008. During his tenure he initiated development of the agency's first commercial cargo delivery service to orbit. More recently at head of R&E for the Department of Defense, Griffin was heavily involved in rethinking how the Pentagon approached the space domain. Griffin oversaw the establishment of the Space Development Agency in 2019, despite resistance from inside and outside of the Pentagon. Griffin was the agency's most high profile advocate, pushing for funding for the nascent organization from Congress and arguing that it should remain independent from the U.S. Air Force's traditional space acquisitions structure—at least initially. Over the agency's first year and a half, he helped articulate a unique identity for the SDA in developing a new proliferated constellation in low Earth orbit, which will eventually be made up of hundreds of satellites. That National Defense Space Architecture is now expected to be a key component to two of DoD's most pressing issues: Hypersonic missile warning and Joint All Domain Command and Control. During his tenure, Griffin was well known for his strong personality, which ruffled the feathers of both his colleagues at DoD and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Most notably, he clashed with former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson over the establishment of SDA, and the day before he announced his resignation the House Armed Services Committee recommended removing the Missile Defense Agency from under his control. Griffin announced his resignation June 23, officially exiting the building July 10. He and his deputy, Lisa Porter—who resigned at the same time—have since opened up a new business together called Logiq Inc. White House Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios was announced as Griffin's successor. Aaron Mehta in Washington contributed to this story. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/08/12/griffin-joins-rocket-lab-board-following-pentagon-exit

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  April 8, 2024 | International, C4ISR

  AI-as-a-Service Providers Vulnerable to PrivEsc and Cross-Tenant Attacks

  New research reveals critical security risks for AI-as-a-service providers like Hugging Face. Attackers could gain access to hijack models, escalate

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  October 21, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  With artificial intelligence, every soldier is a counter-drone operator

  Todd South With the addition of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the aim is to make every soldier, regardless of job specialty, capable of identifying and knocking down threatening drones. While much of that mission used to reside mostly in the air defense community, those attacks can strike any infantry squad or tank battalion. The goal is to reduce cognitive burden and operator stress when dealing with an array of aerial threats that now plague units of any size, in any theater. “Everyone is counter-UAS,” said Col. Marc Pelini, division chief for capabilities and requirements at the Joint Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, or JCO. Pelini and Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, JCO director, who spoke Thursday at the virtual Association of the U.S. Army conference, told reporters that the original focus was on smaller Tier I and II threats. But that has now extended to Tier III threats, traditionally covered by the Army's air defense community, such as Avenger and Patriot missile batteries. Some of that work includes linking the larger threat detection to the smaller drones that now dot conflicts across the world, including the hot zone of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. In June, the Department of Defense conducted a “down select” of existing or in-the-pipeline counter-drone systems from 40 to eight, as Military Times sister publication C4ISRNET reported at the time. That was an effort to reduce redundancy in the flood of counter drone programs taken on in the wake of a $700 million funding push in 2017 to get after problems posed by commercially available drones being used more frequently by violent extremist organizations such as the Islamic State to harass, attack and surveil U.S. and allied forces. Those choices, in the down select, included the following, also reported by C4ISRNET: Fixed/Semi-Fixed Systems * Fixed Site-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System (FS-LIDS), sponsored by the Army * Negation of Improvised Non-State Joint Aerial-Threats (NINJA), sponsored by the Air Force * Counter-Remote Control Model Aircraft Integrated Air Defense Network (CORIAN), sponsored by the Navy Mounted/Mobile System * Light-Mobile Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS), sponsored by the Marine Corps Dismounted/Handheld Systems * Bal Chatri, sponsored by Special Operations Command * Dronebuster, no sponsor, commercial off-the-shelf capability * Smart Shooter, no sponsor, commercial off-the-shelf capability * Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control (FAAD-C2), sponsored by the Army (includes FAAD-C2 interoperable systems like the Air Force's Air Defense System Integrator (ADSI) and the Marine Corps' Multi-Environmental Domain Unmanned Systems Application Command and Control (MEDUSA C2)) The four areas evaluated to determine which systems stuck around for use or further development were effectiveness, integration, usability and sustainment, Gainey said Thursday. A kind of virtual open house with industry is planned for Oct. 30, in which JCO will evaluate what options are out there. Some of what they're learning is being gathered through a consortium, of sorts, that involves regular meetings between service branch representatives during monthly sessions at the two-star level, Gainey said. That goes into a real-time, updated “common threat library” that helps those in the field identify trends and changes that can be met across forces. They use those sessions to share what each component is seeing in theater as far as drone use and changes. But it's more than simple intelligence gathering, he said. They also form rapid response teams. "My operations team works with the warfighters, [the] intelligence community” and others, he said. They “triangulate” common problems with drones and send the rapid response teams to the area of operations most affected. https://www.armytimes.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2020/10/17/with-artificial-intelligence-every-soldier-is-a-counter-drone-operator/