Indra to strengthen Eurofighter’s survivability

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  August 13, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Boeing Makes Third Move Into Metal Additive Manufacturing This Year

  Lee Ann Shay Boeing made another investment in additive manufacturing, this time with the intent of producing higher volume of multi-metal parts faster. Boeing HorizonX Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in Digital Alloys, which created Joule Printing, a metal additive manufacturing technology that uses metal in wire form and high deposition rates to produce the parts. The investment was part of a $12.9 million Series B financing led by G20 Ventures and included other companies. Boeing and Digital Alloys did not disclose the exact investment but Boeing said it “was a minority investor in this round.” Lee Ann Shay | Aug 10, 2018 Boeing made another investment in additive manufacturing, this time with the intent of producing higher volume of multi-metal parts faster. Boeing HorizonX Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in Digital Alloys, which created Joule Printing, a metal additive manufacturing technology that uses metal in wire form and high deposition rates to produce the parts. The investment was part of a $12.9 million Series B financing led by G20 Ventures and included other companies. Boeing and Digital Alloys did not disclose the exact investment but Boeing said it “was a minority investor in this round.” Get Key Developments Delivered to Your Inbox Get Your Sample Edition Digital Alloys holds two patents for Joule Printing, which can use multiple metals into a single part. This could enable new parts designs and improved thermal, electric and mechanical properties. This printing process is “similar to resistive welding and does not result in fully melting the material through external energy sources like lasers, e-beams, or electric arcs. As such, it has the potential to print alloys that have been a challenge with existing printing techniques, but with less energy and a lower machine complexity,” says Boeing. Joule Printing solves “three big problems that are gating the use of metal printing and production:” production costs, printing speeds and complexity, says Duncan McCallum, Digital Alloy's CEO. Full Article: https://www.mro-network.com/technology/boeing-makes-third-move-metal-additive-manufacturing-year

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  November 15, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  With plans for drone sidekicks, Europe’s futuristic jet program slowly comes into focus

  By: Sebastian Sprenger BERLIN — Germany may be committed to a project with France aimed at building a new aircraft for Europe by 2040, but don't expect anything drastic or sudden to happen out of Berlin. That was the principal message delivered here to defense industry leaders by German Air Force Brig. Gen. Gerald Funke, who oversees Germany's planning for the Future Combat Air System, or FCAS. “Don't trust anyone who says they can make predictions about the characteristics of an air system in 2040,” Funke said at the International Fighter industry conference on Wednesday. That attitude means Germany is expected to wait as long as possible before closing the design phase of the envisioned weapon and moving toward production. “We need [a] sensible starting point that's worth spending money on,” Funke told Defense News on the sidelines of the conference. “The time pressure is not as acute as industry presents it.” Funke expects money to start flowing toward the project in 2019, when initial concept studies begin to refine plans for the weapon. He said it remains to be seen whether the initial investment will exceed €25 million (U.S. $28 million), the cutoff for parliamentary approval in Germany. Exactly what the new combat jet will look like is still up in the air. But a set of key “design drivers,” as Funke called them, has emerged and are meant to shape the types of questions analysts will pose as they forge a collection of actual capabilities. Autonomy will be a key feature for the jet and its accompanying drones, though never to a degree that humans are no longer involved in striking targets. Officials want it to be highly interoperable with allied aircraft and weapons, even older ones, and able to easily pass data between them. Costs, both for buying the system and operating it, also will be key considerations, especially in Germany, Funke said. The catchphrases “modularity” and “software” also are on the forefront of requirements developers. That means the Air Force eventually wants to have a base aircraft configuration that can be programmed on the fly for specific missions, like strike, reconnaissance or inflicting some sort of cyber damage to future foes. For Germany, a high degree of “tailorability” is a must-have feature, Funke said. Airbus, meanwhile, has some ideas about the physical appearance of the system and its associated components. According to the company, a typical FCAS fleet includes so-called command aircraft of varying configurations, surrounded by autonomous “remote carrier” drones that work in swarms to do anything from attack to surveillance. Additional, smaller unmanned flying sensors provide yet another layer of eyes and ears for the group, with support aircraft for aerial refueling or transport and even space assets counted as part of the FCAS family. The most important component is something called the “combat cloud ecosystem,” a kind of brain connecting all FCAS nodes through secure data arteries. Airbus project lead Bruno Fichefeux argued time is of the essence in developing the program, even though the envisioned fielding time is still decades away. “The technology needs time to mature,” he said. “If we mean the program seriously,” France and Germany should soon begin spending money on it. The Spanish military, meanwhile, is keeping an eye on the FCAS program and will decide at a later point whether to join. While Germany appears eager to pave a path for Madrid's participation, Spain is still keeping its options open, a Spanish defense official said. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/11/14/with-plans-for-drone-sidekicks-europes-futuristic-jet-program-slowly-comes-into-focus

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  September 18, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Should the Air Force spend even more on missile warning satellites?

  By: Nathan Strout Senate appropriators have a message for the Air Force: Make early warning missile satellites a priority. The Senate Appropriations Committee expressed concern over the Air Force's plan for funding the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared system in a report on their annual defense spending bill. While the Pentagon requested $1.4 billion for the program in fiscal year 2020, the Senate spending committee noted that the request was $630 million short of what the program needs. With such a gap, senators questioned whether OPIR was a priority for the Air Force. OPIR is the next-generation early warning missile defense satellite system that will ultimately replace the Space Based Infrared System. The Pentagon has contracts with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to build three satellites in geosynchronous orbit and two covering the polar regions, respectively. In order to close the funding gap, the Air Force has made a number of reprogramming requests. But according to Senate appropriators, that's not a responsible path forward. “If the program is to have any chance of success, the department cannot continue to rely on reprogramming requests for its funding,” the committee's report read. Instead, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a far larger budget of $1.9 billion for OPIR. While that is still less than the program need, it represents an increase of $535.5 million. Those funds are in addition to reprogramming requests that could meet the more than $2 billion program need. Lockheed Martin representatives told reporters at the annual Air Force Association conference Sept. 17 that the requested increase in fiscal year 2020 funding doesn't represent a growth in costs for the program, but is the result of the rapid acquisition approach to the OPIR program. “This shouldn't be perceived as cost growth,”said Kay Sears, Lockheed Martin's vice president and general manager for military space. “But it is an accelerated schedule, so it comes with an accelerated budget.” “Next Gen is an absolutely critical capability. We've been asked to deliver that capability in a ‘go fast' environment by 2025 and we are planning to do that. That comes with a funding profile that is a little bit different than a traditional defense program,” she added. Part of that go fast approach, which Sears says results in higher up front costs, includes a payload competition between a Northrop Grumman/Ball team and a Raytheon team. “There's a lot of spending that can happen at all of those companies at the same time,” explained Sears. “That is what is driving the funding profile ― it's the payload development and the fact that (...) we have two payload developers and two capabilities that we're going to have to choose from in that critical mission area.” Senate appropriators noted in their report that OPIR is breaking ground for how to provide rapid prototypes for programs in the future and needs to be fully funded as an example. “The Committee believes the program will be an exemplar for rapid acquisition of space programs, whether the program succeeds or fails,” read the report. “Failure will have implications for Congress's willingness to fund future programs using the National Defense Authorization Act section 804 rapid prototyping and fielding authorities for similarly large, or even middle tier programs, for years to come.” OPIR has been a point of contention between the House and Senate as they work through the two annual defense bills. Earlier in the summer the House balked at the massive increase in what the Pentagon wanted for OPIR in fiscal year 2020. While the $1.4 billion Pentagon request is $630 million below what the program needs, it's $459 million above what the Pentagon projected it would need for the program in fiscal year 2020 in the previous years' budget. The House Armed Services Committee ultimately authorized just $1 billion for the program in their National Defense Authorization Act citing unexplained growth, prompting a letter from the White House arguing that a failure to fund the Pentagon's full budget request now would lead to delays and higher costs over time. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2019/09/17/should-the-air-force-spend-even-more-missile-warning-satellites/