Coming off a troubled year

On the same subject

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  June 4, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  US DoD buys USD3.4 billion worth of Hydra 70 rockets

  The US Department of Defense (DoD) has contracted General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (OTS) to manufacture USD3.42 billion worth of Hydra 70 rockets. The US Army Contracting Command award, announced by the DoD on 29 May, covers production and engineering services of the 70 mm rockets, and will run through to 30 September 2026. The DoD did not disclose the numbers of rockets being acquired. The Hydra 70 is an unguided air-to-surface rocket that has been in service with the United States and international operators since the mid-1960s. The rockets fire from seven and 19-tube launchers and can be mounted on most rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft including the Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopter and Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole combat aircraft. While the baseline Hydra 70 is an unguided rocket, it can be converted into a laser-guided munition with the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) conversion kit developed by BAE Systems. As the APKWS system is a development of existing hardware it does not require any platform integration and little in the way of additional air- and ground-crew training. The mid-body design of its guidance section enables the use of existing warheads, fuzes, and rocket motors, dramatically enhancing the capability of the hundreds of thousands of Hydra 70 rockets in the DoD inventory. The APKWS has demonstrated an average hit accuracy of within 0.75 m of a designating laser spot (against a government specification of 2 m). https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/3a45334c-fcc8-453c-ad28-02d62549ad2e

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  October 11, 2018 | International, Land

  Inflection point: Army wrestles to strike balance between current and future capability

  WASHINGTON — The Army is at an inflection point. It's a statement its top leaders have acknowledged countless times in recent months as they have made the case to begin major investment in future capability. But to bring online state-of-the-art technology and weapons and equipment that will maintain overmatch against peer adversaries like Russia and China, the Army will need money. Lots of money. And that means, at some point soon, the Army will have to make difficult decisions on how long legacy weapon systems and planned upgrades for those capabilities can — or should — carry the service into the future. It is Army Secretary Mark Esper and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley's goal and mandate to have a fully modernized Army that aligns with the service's multidomain operations doctrine by 2028. It logically follows that to get there, much has to happen in the 10 years between now and then. The Army wants longer-range fires, new combat vehicles and tanks, two new helicopters, highly capable autonomous vehicles and aircraft, a robust and resilient network tying together everything on the battlefield, a layered and more advanced air-and-missile defense capability and more lethal systems for warfighters. These capabilities all fall under the Army's top six modernization priorities, which the service laid out a year ago in an overarching modernization strategy. The Army then stood up Army Futures Command — a new four-star command — that will focus on rapidly bringing online modernized equipment and weapons that fit under the top six priorities. And it put a general officer in charge of a cross-functional team for each priority to advance prototypes and technology development. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/10/inflection-point-army-wrestles-to-strike-balance-between-current-and-future-capability/

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  January 18, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  L3Harris to build prototype satellite capable of tracking hypersonic weapons

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — The Missile Defense Agency awarded L3Harris Technologies a $121 million contract to build a prototype satellite capable of tracking hypersonic weapons, the agency announced Jan. 14. Under the contract, L3Harris is tasked with building an on-orbit prototype demonstration for the agency's Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, a proliferated constellation in low Earth orbit that is capable of detecting and tracking hypersonic weapons. The constellation is designed to fill the gap in the country's missile defense architecture created by hypersonic weapons, which are dimmer than traditional ballistic missiles, making them harder to see with the nation's infrared sensors based in geosynchronous orbit. In addition, they are able to maneuver around terrestrial sensors. With China and Russia developing these weapons, the Department of Defense is eager to develop a new constellation that can detect and track the threats anywhere in the world. And so is Congress — in December lawmakers set aside $130 million to fund the project. The HBTSS design solves the hypersonic weapon problem by placing the sensor much closer to the Earth's surface in the lower orbit, making it easier to see the threat. But because the sensors are closer to the Earth, they have a far more limited field of view than the sensors in geosynchronous orbit. In order to achieve global coverage, the Missile Defense Agency wants a proliferated constellation made up of dozens of satellites on orbit. L3Harris was one of four companies awarded $20 million contracts in 2019 to develop a prototype payload design and risk reduction demonstration for HBTSS, along with Northrop Grumman, Leidos and Raytheon Technologies. According to the initial contract announcements, work on those designs was due Oct. 31, 2020. With this most recent award, L3Harris has won the subsequent competition between the four companies to build the actual prototype. The company has also been selected to build satellites for the Space Development Agency that will track hypersonic threats and feed data to HBTSS. In October, L3Harris won a $193 million contract to build four of the agency's eight wide field of view (WFOV) satellites, with SpaceX building four more. According to Space Development Agency leaders, their satellites will work in conjunction with HBTSS satellites to track hypersonic threats. The WFOV satellites will provide initial detection and tracing of the weapons, passing custody from satellite to satellite as the threats traverse the globe. Then, the WFOV satellites will pass custody to the medium field of view HBTSS satellites, which can provide targeting solutions with their more accurate sensors. The WFOV satellites are scheduled for launch as early as September 2022. Work on the HBTSS prototype contract will be complete in July 2023. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/01/14/l3harris-to-build-prototype-satellite-capable-of-tracking-hypersonic-weapons/