Defense innovation stymied as gridlock in Congress bars emerging tech

On the same subject

• 

  October 5, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contracts for October 4, 2021

  Today

• 

  June 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Turkey’s ‘chronic engine problem’ is harming defense projects, warn officials

  By: Burak Ege Bekdil ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's inability to produce a fully indigenous engine is harming some of the country's otherwise successful domestic defense programs, according to industry and government officials. “We had it 15 years ago, we had it 10 years ago and we are still having it,” said a former defense industry chief. “It's our chronic engine problem.” A government procurement official agreed, telling Defense News that “at best the problem causes major delays, and at worst it can be an existential threat [to programs].” The Altay, a multibillion-dollar program for the production of Turkey's first indigenous tank, has long been delayed due to difficulties surrounding the engine and transmission used to power the new-generation tank. BMC, a Turkish-Qatari joint venture that in 2018 won the serial production contract for the Altay, said in October 2020 that the tank would be fielded within 24 months. The original target was to have the Altay in the field this year 2020. Today, procurement officials and industry sources say even 2022 is an optimistic deadline. Western countries with power pack technology, particularly Germany, have been reluctant to share technology or sell to Turkey for political reasons. “Lack of a feasible power pack [engine and transmission] is depriving the program of any sensible progress,” noted an industry source. Turkey also needs an engine for the new-generation TF-X fighter jet as well as indigenous helicopter models in the making. At the center of these engine efforts is Tusas Engine Industries, a state-controlled engine maker. TEI announced June 19 that it successfully tested its locally made TJ300 miniature turbojet engine, which the company produced for medium-range anti-ship missiles. The engine features a thrust rating of 1.3 kilonewtons. Company officials say the TJ300 engine's more advanced, future versions could power larger anti-ship cruise missiles and land-attack cruise missiles. Turkey hopes to power its anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles with locally developed engines. “The effort is about ending dependency on imported designs,” a TEI official said. Turkey currently imports miniature air-breathing engines from Microturbo — a unit of French company Safran — to power its domestically developed cruise missiles. Separately, Turkey's Kale Group is developing a larger, albeit miniature turbojet engine called the KTJ-3200. It has a 3.2-kilonewton thrust rating, and will power the Atmaca and SOM missile systems. On a much bigger scale, Kale Group has ambitions to develop an engine to power the TF-X. In 2017, Kale Group and British company Rolls-Royce launched a joint venture to develop aircraft engines for Turkey, initially targeting the TF-X. But the £100 million (U.S. $124 million) deal was effectively put on hold due to uncertainties over technology transfer. In December, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoğlu said the government is keen to revive talks with Rolls-Royce. When asked for an update on negotiations, a Rolls-Royce spokesperson told Defense News: “We submitted an engine co-development proposal to Turkey, but the customer has not elected to pursue this to date.” A year before the Kale Group-Rolls-Royce partnership, Turkish Aerospace Industries — a sister company of TEI — signed a $125 million heads of agreement with U.K.-based firm BAE Systems to collaborate on the first development phase of the TF-X. Turkey originally planned to fly the TF-X in 2023, but aerospace officials are now eyeing 2025 at the earliest. TEI is also developing the TS1400, a turboshaft engine it intends to power the T625 Gökbey, a utility and transport helicopter developed and built by TAI. The Gökbey currently flies with the CTS-800A turboshaft engine supplied by Light Helicopter Turbine Engine Company, a joint venture between American firm Honeywell and Rolls-Royce. The Gökbey made its maiden flight in September. TEI says it successfully tested the “core” of its TS1400 turboshaft engine and plans to deliver the prototype to TAI in late 2020. But analysts remain cautious. “These efforts may eventually fail to materialize without meaningful foreign know-how,” said a London-based Turkey specialist. “Or they may come at costs not viable for mass production.” Andrew Chuter in London contributed to this report. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2020/06/26/turkeys-chronic-engine-problem-is-harming-defense-projects-warn-officials/

• 

  August 31, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  Armaments consortium launches new path to field high-tech prototypes

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― The National Armaments Consortium, along with the DoD Ordnance Technology Consortium and Army Contracting Command-New Jersey, is taking steps to fast-track their armament prototyping efforts, it was announced Thursday. A year after the Army's high-profile reorganization to more quickly field cutting-edge weapons technologies, the Charleston, South Carolina-based National Armaments Consortium ― made up of 900 companies and academic institutions ― wants to better sync with both the government's increased demand and its actual bandwidth for turning research into prototypes. Pentagon modernization efforts have prioritized, in recent years, long-range precision fires, hypersonic and extended-range missiles, and anti-jam GPS devices ― all of which fall in the lane of the armaments consortium, said National Armaments Consortium Executive Director Charlie Zisette. “Armaments is kind of where the rubber hits the road for our war fighter because we're dealing with everything in the kill chain, protection and survivability,” Zisette told Defense News. “All of these things created a fairly large demand signal for modernization of our systems and components.” The 20-year-old NAC is one of a growing number of Pentagon-sponsored consortia that work to translate the government's notional requirements into technological breakthroughs and business opportunities. Consortia members will work with the government through collective “other transaction agreements” or “other transaction authorities.” These OTAs have become a popular tool to allow the government to communicate more openly about its needs and to work with nontraditional defense contractors whose innovations the Department of Defense wants to harness. According to Zisette, the NAC has 650 active projects at various stages to solve tough problems like developing a new heat-resistant composite material, new types of explosives and a complex long-range precision artillery system. So far this year, its efforts have led to 150 new-start acquisition programs, half awarded to “non-traditionals.” Historically, the NAC would release one annual solicitation based on government requirements, and host one annual collaboration event for NAC members to tout their technologies and ask government representatives about requirements. NAC also hosts a members-only online collaboration portal along similar lines. But something had to change. Amid the DoD's modernization efforts, the NAC has grown such that there would be 350 government solicitations and upward of 1,400 whitepapers, almost simultaneously. It was a “huge bow wave” that overwhelmed the procurement, legal and program staffs involved, Zisette said. “It became too much for the Department of Defense, so we were seeing our award-cycle times getting stretched out,” he said. “We realized we had to level that workload out: put in more agreements officers and contracts specialists so we could ... get quickly through the process itself.” The NAC unveiled Thursday it will initiate faster deadlines to develop prototypes, but it will also move to monthly solicitation releases and three virtual collaboration events per year instead of one. Other consortia will often either deal with requirements on an annual or ad hoc basis, meaning they're emailed out as they're developed. To Zisette's knowledge, no other DoD-sponsored consortia have monthly solicitation releases like the NAC is planning, but the idea for tri-annual events was something Zisette borrowed. “The total model will be a pathfinder,” he said, “but absolutely leveraging some of the best practices and input from across the department.” https://www.defensenews.com/2020/08/27/armaments-consortium-launches-new-path-to-field-high-tech-prototypes/