March 15, 2021 | International, C4ISR
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Israel Establishes Center to Develop Non-GPS Navigation Tech
October 2, 2018 | International, C4ISR
Happy new (fiscal) year! Feds want more electronic warfare and cybersecurity tools
By: Justin Lynch
As the new federal fiscal year begins, cybersecurity analysts and industry leaders predict that electronic warfare and managed services will top the U.S. government's priority list to improve cybersecurity during the next fiscal cycle.
Lockheed Martin, one of the five major cybersecurity contractors for the federal government, told Fifth Domain that they are focusing on signals intelligence and electronic warfare in the new year, which began Oct. 1.
Cybersecurity and electronic warfare “can disrupt, deny, degrade, deceive and destroy adversaries' electronic systems,” Deon Viergutz, vice president of Lockheed Martin's cyber division told Fifth Domain in an email. “The ability to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum allows militaries to not only establish control, but also keep soldiers out of harm's way by providing offensive and defensive techniques from remote locations.”
Russia's use of electronic warfare during its 2015 invasion of Ukraine exposed how the Department of Defense needs to boost its own digital combat tools, Brad Curran, an analyst at Front & Sullivan previously told Fifth Domain.
The White House's new cybersecurity strategy states that the federal government will boost efforts to lawfully gather evidence of criminal activity and disrupt criminal networks through new legislation. It could translate into a greater need for tools that can manage large amounts of data, such as artificial intelligence.
But along with the expected increase in electronic warfare, analysts and firms are predicting a rise in managed and cloud based services.
Raytheon, another of the five major cybersecurity U.S. government contractors, said they expected the federal government to need more managed security operations.
“Concepts like security operations center-as-a-service, and others are gaining momentum due to the desire for scalability. Federal agencies will continue to look to contracted service providers for expertise and support,” John DeSimone, a vice president for cybersecurity and special missions at Raytheon told Fifth Domain in an email.
Curran said he expects the federal government to save money by using more cloud-based services, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure.
The Trump administration has seen an increased in shared services, said Suzanne Spaulding, a former undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Which services they will ultimately centralize is hard to see,” Spaulding said. She added the decision-space is “is tricky because at the end of the day, cabinet secretaries also need to be accountable for their own cybersecurity.”
Distributed cloud-based communications is a key priority of the Department of Homeland Security, according to the agency's 2017 industry guide. The department also said they were looking to invest in metrics for cybersecurity effectiveness and data capture of networked devices.
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November 30, 2022 | International, Aerospace
Exclusive: General Electric, L3Harris among suitors vying for Aerojet -sources
Industrial conglomerate General Electric Co and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies Inc are among those competing to acquire rocket maker Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc , according to people familiar with the matter.
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January 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace
US Defense Department launches Gremlins drone from a mothership for the first time
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department is one step closer to having swarming drones that it can launch from military planes and recover in midair, having successfully conducted the first flight of the Gremlins aircraft in November. The test, which occurred at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, proved that a C-130A could successfully launch an X-61A Gremlins Air Vehicle, said Tim Keeter, who manages the program for Dynetics. The company won the Gremlins contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2018. “It gives us a lot of confidence going forward that this vehicle can fly where it's supposed to fly, how it's supposed to fly,” Keeter said during a Jan. 21 phone call with reporters. “Now the team can be principally focused on the other portion of our program plan ... which is to successfully rendezvous with a C-130, dock with our docking system ... and safely recover the vehicle.” During the test, which lasted 1 hour and 41 minutes, the X-61A flew with no anomalies and the DARPA-Dynetics team completed all test objectives, including transitioning the X-61A from a cold-engine start to stable flight; validating the Gremlins' data links and handing off control of the drone between air and ground control stations; deploying the docking arm; and collecting data on the air vehicle. However, during the recovery process, the drone crashed to the ground and was destroyed. The drogue parachute, which deployed first to slow the air vehicle, functioned as planned, Keeter explained. However, the larger main parachute — which would soften the landing of the air vehicle so that the drone could be reused — did not correctly deploy due to a mechanical issue. Dynetics has built four other Gremlins vehicles, leaving enough drones to accomplish the program's primary requirement to fly and recover four Gremlins in 30 minutes, said Scott Wierzbanowski, DARPA's Gremlins program manager. The next demonstration, set for sometime this spring, will verify whether the Gremlins can be successfully recovered by the C-130 while in flight. Wierzbanowski characterized this test as critical for proving that the Gremlins can be reused over multiple missions — a key point for bearing out the cost-effectiveness of the concept. "If I have an expendable vehicle, at some point I'm not going to want to be able to use those things because they're just too expensive,” he said. “But if I can recover them and then amortize the cost of that vehicle over 10 or 20 or 30 sorties, maybe there's a bend in the curve somewhere that really will allow us to benefit from these smaller, more affordable, attritable systems." During the recovery process, the C-130 will lower a towed capture device that will mate with the Gremlins drone, thus avoiding the turbulence generated by the wake of the larger aircraft, Keeter said. Once the drone is stabilized by the capture device, an engagement arm deploys, docking with the X-61A and bringing it inside the C-130 cargo bay to be stowed. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2020/01/28/us-defense-department-launches-gremlins-drone-from-a-mothership-for-the-first-time/