January 23, 2020 | International, Naval
By: Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — India on Tuesday announced the selection of domestic and foreign defense companies for the construction of six diesel-electric submarines with air-independent propulsion technology as part of an effort worth more than $7 billion.
The submarines will be manufactured in India under the Navy's P75I program and guided by the Ministry of Defence's Strategic Partnership model, which aims to build indigenous capabilities, a senior ministry official told Defense News.
Two domestic shipyards companies — state-owned Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited and private sector firm Larsen & Toubro — were shortlisted to collaborate with five overseas original equipment manufacturers — Rubin Design Bureau of Russia, Naval Group of France, Navantia of Spain, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems of Germany, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering of South Korea.
“The defence acquisition council approved the shortlisting of Indian strategic partners and potential original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who would collaborate to construct six conventional submarines in India,” the MoD said in a statement.
An expression of interest was issued in June 2019 to four domestic companies: Mazagon; Larsen & Toubro; Reliance Naval and Engineering Limited; and a consortium of Hindustan Shipyard Limited and Adani Defence.
An internal MoD committee rejected the Hindustan-Adani Defence bid because it did not meet eligibility requirements, and the ministry noted that Reliance Naval and Engineering did not meet financial requirements.
A separate, restricted expression of interest was issued in July 2019 to the five foreign OEMs as well as Saab of Sweden. Saab chose not to participate in the program, citing lack of clarity.
For the P75I program, the Rubin Design Bureau is offering the Amur 1650 submarine; France is offering the Scorpene 2000; Navantia has offered the S-80-class sub; TKMS offered its HDW class 214; and Daewoo is offering its KSS-III.
The MoD official said submissions were accepted in September and selection done early this month.
A senior Indian Navy official said the OEMs must provide full technology transfer of critical systems of the submarines such as air-independent propulsion technology, sensors, and communication and electronic warfare suites. They must also help establish a domestic supply chain for spare parts and material as well as assist in training the local labor force, the official added.
The OEMs are free to set up joint ventures or equity partnerships, or make royalty arrangements with Indian prime partners and other domestic suppliers.
Another MoD official said a request for proposals will be issued to two shortlisted Indian companies who will set up a technical partnership with one of the five shortlisted OEMs and submit both financial and technical bids by the end of 2020. Thereafter, the technical and financial bids will be evaluated, with final selection expected in mid-2022. The selection will be made based on the lowest price offered, he added.
Under the P75I program, the submarines must be made up of 65 percent indigenous material.
The MoD said any contract between an Indian strategic partner and a foreign OEM must include provisions for the protection of classified information. In addition, the shortlisted OEMs must confirm their willingness to cooperate with the selected Indian company, including life-cycle support and transfer of technology.
April 6, 2022 | International, Aerospace
The non-proprietary Mission Augmentation Port standard could help enable a future vision for on-orbit satellite mission extension and augmentation.
July 9, 2019 | International, Aerospace
Avec AFP Airbus Defense and Space et le CNES, l'agence spatiale française, ont annoncé lundi avoir signé un contrat pour développer une constellation de quatre satellites d'observation de la Terre en 3D, à vocation civile et militaire. La constellation CO3D (Constellation optique en 3D) sera composée de quatre satellites électriques de 300 kilos chacun environ qui seront lancés en 2022. Elle "permettra de fournir des images stéréoscopiques (image prise par deux capteurs légèrement distants, NDLR) de résolution submétrique (50 cm), à vocation mondiale", précient le CNES et Airbus Defense and Space dans un communiqué commun. Avec les quatre satellites Pléiades Neo qui seront lancés à partir de 2020, voire avec les deux Pléiades lancés en 2011 et 2012 s'ils fonctionnent encore, "la constellation CO3D offrira une capacité de revisite inégalée pour l'imagerie à haute résolution", affirment-ils. En orbite héliosynchrone, à environ 800 km d'altitude, cette flotte de satellites permettra en effet de repasser plus fréquemment au-dessus d'un point donné pour voir l'évolution de la situation. Le budget est d'environ 200 millions d'euros, réparti pour moitié entre le CNES et Airbus, selon une source proche du dossier. Airbus Defense and Space, qui sera chargé de la construction et de la gestion des satellites, l'a emporté sur Thales Alenia Space. L'entreprise fournira notamment un "Modèle numérique de surfaces (MNS) global de haute précision" qui permet la modélisation 3D de carte ainsi que les images à "l'utilisateur final qui est le gouvernement français", à travers le CNES, selon Airbus Defense and Space. L'agence spatiale, pour qui c'est un projet dual, civil et militaire, s'en servira pour la gestion des risques naturels, la recherche scientifique ou encore pour les besoins des armées. "C'est une gouvernance très originale, un partenariat entre le public et le privé, un coinvestissement équilibré qui permet d'associer des besoins publics et des besoins commerciaux. Le CNES n'est pas propriétaire de l'infrastructure, ce qui est une première", a-t-on souligné à l'agence spatiale. "Ce contrat conforte Airbus en tant que partenaire de confiance pour le CNES et les autorités françaises et renforce notre position de leader du marché en Europe et dans le monde", se félicite le président d'Airbus Defense and Space France, cité dans le communiqué. Pour le président du CNES Jean-Yves Le Gall, également cité dans le communiqué, la constellation CO3D ouvre "une nouvelle ère dans l'observation de la Terre", permettant "notamment un plus haut débit de réactualisation, une plus grande résilience ainsi que des performances élevées". https://www.journal-aviation.com/actualites/42786-contrat-entre-airbus-et-le-cnes-pour-une-constellation-de-satellites-d-observation-en-3d
September 16, 2020 | International, Naval, Other Defence
KELSEY ATHERTON Leaving the browser and its history in a virtual environment spread across any number of servers makes it harder for adversaries to target the military's actual computers or tablets. ALBUQUERQUE: The Defense Information Systems Agency awarded $198.9 million for a Cloud Based Internet Isolation contract to Menlo Security and By Light, the agency announced today. DISA hopes Menlo Security's tech can, by keeping downloads in the cloud, reduce harmful downloads across the entire Pentagon workforce. By keeping browsing inside the cloud, the program will save on bandwidth, and protect against the department's 3.5 million users accidentally downloading malware. It is a kind of “air-gapping,” the style of computer security that keeps networks safe by making sure that computers are not physically connected at all times. Leaving the browser, and all its contained history, in a virtual environment in any of a number of servers makes it harder for adversaries, be they criminals, nonstate actors, or nations, to target the actual computers or tablets used by the military. Internet browsing is mostly downloading files directly to the end-user's computer or mobile device. What the Cloud Based Internet Isolation (CBII) does is make sure that all that downloading happens, not on the end user's computer, but instead in a remotely secured server. “The remote worker will perform the task of going to their net or an Internet based application, that fetch and execute,” Menlo Security VP Mike Fraga says. What is different is that, instead of downloading directly onto the user's device, “getting the information and actually queuing is done in a disposable container in Menlo cloud. And so then we replicate what's happening on the application or the internet down on a remote workers device.” In essence, CBII promises to do all this while making the user experience virtually indistinguishable from having the browser directly running on the computer. Users are functionally interacting with an image of a browser window, instead of the browser itself, but that illusion should be imperceptible. “That's going to significantly reduce the risk in the attack surface,” said By Light VP Jason Cole, “alleviating all the congestion at those Internet access points.” For security purposes, this means that instead of monitoring all traffic for harm on every device, the Pentagon can instead look at the connection between computers and clouds. If a piece of malware was downloaded, it becomes a much smaller haystack of files for the forensics team to go through, since downloading to a computer becomes an active choice, instead of the passive function of browsing. Many of the normal conveniences of browser-based functionality are continued within Menlo's cloud-based environment. Instead of users having to log in anew to every site they visit every time they load the remote cloud, the software “maintains an encrypted cookie-jar in our cloud for each user that largely mirrors how the user's native browser handles cookies,” said Kowsik Guruswamy, Menlo Security CTO. “When a user navigates to a site, Menlo injects the user's site-specific cookies into the isolated browser so they can stay logged in,” Guruswamy continued. “The encryption key for each user's cookie jar is stored in their own browser, such that only they can unlock the contents.” Beyond the security of the environment, the move to cloud-based browsing also promises an overall savings in data use. “We're estimating about a 20% bandwidth reduction for any general web browsing, but then a 50 to 70% bandwidth reduction for streaming media,” said Cole. That savings is valuable everywhere, and is especially valuable in areas where bandwidth is already constrained, like on ships underway or at remote bases with low connectivity. Even in more domestic settings, the pandemic-induced shift to remote work often means users have to send data back through company-owned network infrastructure for security reasons, which eats up time in the process, and comes with risks. “I think companies overall are struggling with not only the latency so that their end users can have a good experience to accomplish their job, but gaps in security based on all that backhauling, and there's some blind spots there,” said Fraga. The servers are, like much of the cloud infrastructure available today, provided through Amazon Web Services. Menlo's approach is already in use with banks like JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and AmEx. “Isolation overall is an innovative technology,” said Fraga. Isolation, in the fashion promised by cloud-based browsing, is a preventative technology. It reduces the number of paths into computers, making it easier for other detection solutions to find the fewer threats that might slip through. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/09/fewer-threats-more-bandwidth-disa-awards-199m-for-cloud-browsing/