DARPA project uses AI to flag space weapons, spy satellites

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  May 22, 2020 | International, Naval

  Northrop Grumman Builds Very Lightweight Torpedo for US Navy

  By Fernando Catta-Preta May 21, 2020 - Northrop Grumman has successfully manufactured and tested the first industry-built Very Lightweight Torpedo (VLWT) for the U.S. Navy. The prototype torpedo is based on the Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory's (PSU-ARL) design that was distributed to defense industrial manufacturers in 2016. Northrop Grumman, which independently funded the research and development, will offer the design-for-affordability improvements to this VLWT as Northrop Grumman's response for the Navy's Compact Rapid Attack Weapon program. Northrop Grumman‘s torpedo design and production legacy reaches back over 80 years to World War II through its Westinghouse acquisition. In 1943, Westinghouse won the Navy contract to reverse engineer a captured German electric torpedo and in 12 months began producing the MK18 electric torpedo, which turned the tide of the undersea warfare in the Pacific. Northrop Grumman has been at the forefront of torpedo design and production ever since, to include the current MK48 Common Broadband Advanced Sonar System (CBASS) heavyweight torpedo and MK50 Lightweight Torpedo. Today, Northrop Grumman is the only company in full rate production of MK54 and MK48 torpedo nose arrays and has delivered over 600 MK54 arrays and over 70 MK48 arrays to the U.S. Navy. Applying its engineering and manufacturing expertise, Northrop Grumman improved upon the VLWT baseline design to replace high-cost components and drive overall affordability, reproducibility and reliability. Those altered sections were built and tested using PSU-ARL's own test equipment for confidence. “The successful testing of the torpedo nose on the first try is a testament to Northrop Grumman's design-for-affordability approach, which will significantly reduce cost without sacrificing operational performance,” said David Portner, lead torpedo program manager, undersea systems, Northrop Grumman. Northrop Grumman assembled the prototype VLWT using a Stored Chemical Energy Propulsion System (SCEPS) manufactured by teammate Barber-Nichols, Inc., (BNI) of Denver, Colorado. “The nation needs advanced undersea warfare capabilities now more than ever," said Alan Lytle, vice president, undersea systems, Northrop Grumman. “We are ready to support fielding the VLWT which will increase subsea lethality and enable innovative concepts of operations for multiple warfighting platforms.” Northrop Grumman's manufacturing plan would span the country by building components in California, Utah, Minnesota, Colorado, West Virginia and Maryland. View source version on Northrop Grumman: https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/northrop-grumman-builds-very-lightweight-torpedo-for-us-navy

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  October 17, 2019 | International, Land

  Here’s who will build the US Army’s new missile defense radar

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Incumbent Raytheon will build the U.S. Army's new missile defense radar to replace the Patriot air and missile defense system's current radar as part of the service's future Integrated Air and Missile Defense System. The company has taken its years of experience refining gallium nitride, or GaN, technology at its Massachusetts-based foundry to help design a new radar system that will provide the Army 360-degree threat detection capability in a configuration that includes one large array in the front and two smaller arrays in the back. The contract is worth roughly $384 million to deliver six production-representative units of the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS. “Our clean-sheet approach to LTAMDS reinforces Raytheon's position as the world's premier air and missile defense radar capability provider,” Ralph Acaba, president of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, said in a statement. The service earlier this year held a “sense-off” at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, between three working radars from Raytheon, a Lockheed Martin and Elta Systems team,and Northrop Grumman. The service analyzed the results and was in contract negotiations with the winner as the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference, which kicked off Oct. 14. Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, who is in charge of the service's air and missile defense modernization effort, told Defense News in an interview ahead of the show that negotiations were ongoing and that the award would happen soon. Without public knowledge of the win, Raytheon brought its offering for the LTAMDS competition to the show and passed out red lanyards advertising LTAMDS that said: “No time for a blind spot,” referring to the 360-degree coverage capability. Replacing the Patriot radar has been a long time coming. The radar was first fielded in the 1980s, and the Army previously attempted to replace the system with Lockheed Martin's Medium Extended Air Defense System through an international co-development effort with Germany and Italy. But that program was canceled in the U.S. after closing out a proof-of-concept phase roughly six years ago. Since then, the Army studied and debated how to replace the Patriot radar, while Raytheon continued to upgrade its radar to keep pace with current threats. The service has acknowledged there will come a point where radar upgrades will be unable to keep up with future threats. Taking years to decide, the service moved forward on a competition to replace the radar in 2017 and chose four companies to come up with design concepts for the capability — Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Technovative Applications. Toward the end of 2018, Raytheon and Lockheed were chosen to continue technology development under that program. But then the Army redirected its plans into a sense-off competition last fall. Raytheon is expected to build six prototypes by the end of fiscal 2022. The radar that Raytheon specifically designed for the Army uses next-generation GaN and is 7 feet longer but 11 inches more narrow than the current radar unit. But it no longer requires outrigger stabilizing legs. Rather, the system is held stable by jacks underneath, which means it takes up less space on the sides, according to Bob Kelley, Raytheon's director of domestic integrated air and missile defense programs for business development and strategy. The radar meets all of the Army's mobility and transport requirements, Kelley said, including fitting in a C-17 aircraft. The smaller arrays are about 50 percent of the size of the legacy Patriot system's array, but are twice as capable due to the advancements with GaN technology, he added. Though the Army backed off its 360-degree detection capability requirement for the competition, Raytheon has been steadfast about keeping that capability in its offering. In addition to being able to constantly cover 360 degrees, the radar can see farther than the currently fielded Patriot radar. That radar is unable to fully support the maximum kinematic range of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement that it fires. The Army claims that its effort to tie the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System with Patriot would help the MSE missile reach its full potential. The LTAMDS will be able to fully support current missile systems including PAC-3 MSE range capability and future missiles ranges, Kelley said. https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2019/10/17/heres-who-will-build-the-armys-new-missile-defense-radar

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  October 12, 2021 | International, C4ISR, Security

  DoD SBIR/STTR Component BAA Pre-Release: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) HR001121S0007 Topics 29-30

  The DoD Small Business and Technology Partnerships Office announces the pre-release of the following Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) topics: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), HR001121S0007: STTR Topic HR001121S0007-29: “Breakthrough Technologies for Energy Web Dominance,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/64463b5ca4464cb291e82f2c928e87e8/view SBIR Topic HR001121S0007-30: “Collaborative APIs Through Incentive Design (CATID),” published at https://sam.gov/opp/5d353e8300d64e86bd24b69947f73dc3/view IMPORTANT DATES: October 7, 2021: Topics pre-release October 26, 2021: Topics open, begin submitting proposals in DSIP November 30, 2021: Topics close, full proposals must be submitted in DSIP no later than 12:00 p.m. ET Full topics and instructions are available at the links provided above.