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June 8, 2023 | International, C4ISR

L3Harris awarded $81 Million contract to connect Multi-Orbit satellite constellations

L3Harris will leverage its Rapidly Adaptable Standards-compliant Open Radio (RASOR™) to deliver resilient, protected, high-bandwidth, high-availability communications and data-sharing capabilities.  

https://www.epicos.com/article/764148/l3harris-awarded-81-million-contract-connect-multi-orbit-satellite-constellations

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  • FVL: The Army’s 10-Year Plan For FARA Scout

    March 31, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    FVL: The Army’s 10-Year Plan For FARA Scout

    The Army's urgently developing new air-launched drones, long-range missiles, and electronic architecture to go on the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft that Bell and Sikorsky are vying to build. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR WASHINGTON: The Army's Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program is much bigger than the two ambitious high-speed helicopters that Bell and Sikorsky will now get more than $1 billion to build. At least five other major moving pieces must come together on time to turn the final aircraft, whoever makes it, into a working weapon: a new Improved Turbine Engine built by GE; helicopter-launched mini-drones called Air Launched Effects (ALE); a new Long-Range Precision Munition (LRPM), with the Israeli Spike-NLOS as the initial version; an Integrated Missile Launcher (IML) to launch both the missile and the drones; and the underlying electronic framework of standards and interfaces to plug it all together, the Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA). The Army is “not just focused on the air vehicle, but focused on the weapon system,” said Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, Future Vertical Lift director at Army Futures Command, in a call this morning with reporters. Here's the current schedule for everything to come together: 2019 April: The Army awarded five contracts for “initial designs” of the FARA aircraft itself. 2020 March: The Army assessed the five initial designs – including each company's ability to deliver on budget and schedule. Yesterday, they chose Bell and Sikorsky to build prototypes. Each company has already received a “digital model” of how their design must conform to the Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA), which will allow the government to plug-and-play MOSA-compliant components from any company, not just the manufacturer, over the life of the program, program manager Dan Bailey said: “We, the government, will control the interfaces internal to the aircraft so we can efficiently upgrade.” December: The Army will conduct a Final Design Review of both designs to confirm “that they are postured for success and risk is acceptable,” Bailey said. “After that, they will begin to build the aircraft.” 2021 Bell and Sikorsky build their prototypes. Despite their very different designs, each company must incorporate certain common Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) provide by the Army. That includes a 20mm cannon; the GE T909 Improved Turbine Engine, which will also be retrofitted to existing Apache and Black Hawk helicopters; and the Integrated Munitions Launcher (IML), which will use MOSA interface standards to connect missiles and ALE mini-drones to the aircraft – without having to modify the aircraft each time a new weapon is developed. If the Army's 2021 budget request is approved, this year the service will buy $152 million of Spike NLOS (Non-Line-Of-Sight) missiles from Israel armsmaker Rafael as an interim Long Range Precision Munition. 2022 Bell and Sikorsky begin ground testing of their prototypes. The Army fields Spike-NLOS missiles on existing aircraft across three Combat Aviation Brigades (CABs), providing both immediate combat power and hands-on experience with the technology to refine either the Spike or a competitor into the full-up LRPM. November: The Bell 360 Invictus and Sikorsky Raider-X fly for the first time. Flight testing begins. 2023 Summer: The prototype aircraft move from their builders' test sites to Redstone Arsenal to begin Army flight testing with all-government crews. The Army finalizes its formal requirements for FARA based on how the prototypes actually perform. Fall: The Army conducts a Weapons System Preliminary Design Review – that is, not of the aircraft alone, but of how all the pieces work together – and, in context of that holistic assessment, selects either Bell or Sikorsky to build the aircraft. By December 31st: The Army launches an official Program Of Record (POR) to acquire FARA. While the first few aircraft will cost more, the service's long-term goal is to spend no more than $30 million per FARA, the same price as the current AH-64 Apache gunship. 2024-2025 The Air-Launched Effects (ALE) mini-drones begin to enter service on existing Army aircraft. As with the Spike missile, this early deployment provides both immediate military benefit and the necessary experience to refine the technology for FARA. 2028-2030 The first FARA aircraft enter operational service. The Army hasn't specified how many it ultimately plans to build or for what price. But the Army's Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Aviation, Patrick Mason, told reporters today that “I have no reason to disagree with” widely circulated independent estimates of 300-400 aircraft for $15-20 billion. “We've got a series of gates” over the years, Mason said. “This is a constant assessment as we go through, and this is really the beauty and benefit of the prototyping design of this program: We will get to see both vendors as they go to their final designs and they build their prototype air vehicle, as we simultaneously carry forward [with] the other elements that are part of the FVL ecosystem.” “We're going to see very, very clear indication of the technology maturity, the readiness, and the ability of the prototype aircraft to meet the requirements,” he said. Novel Contracts, Novel Technology, Tight Schedule It's worth delving into some detail on what happened yesterday, when the Army announced that Bell and Sikorsky would get the chance to build competing prototypes of FARA – the Bell 360 Invictus and the Sikorsky Raider-X – while designs from AVX, Boeing, and Karem were rejected. Each of the five companies had received up to $15 million for design work, while Bell and Sikorsky will each get up to $735 million more to build and test their prototypes. The exact figures are competition-sensitive, and each vendor has invested much of its own money in any case. The contracts call for one-third private funding and two-thirds government funding over the design and prototyping phases combined, but the companies have almost certainly outspent the government so far. Technically, FARA program manager Dan Bailey told reporters, “we actually aren't awarding anything at this time.” Instead, last April, all five contenders got Other Transaction Authority Prototyping (OTAP) contracts for both the design and prototyping phases, but with clauses allowing the Army to cut any vendor at any time. It's that option they've just exercised. Rather than making an award, Bailey said, “yesterday, we notified two that we would continue to fund them into Phase 2 and we notified three that we would stop funding them.” (Emphasis ours). This novel approach, among other benefits, is nigh-impossible for losing bidders to appeal against, Rugen said: “There really is no ability to protest per se with the GAO [Government Accountability Office]. There is legal recourse potentially through the courts but, again, our legal team has advised us the risk is low.” That's helpful because – as the JEDI cloud computing contract proves – legal battles can delay Defense Department programs for months. The Army has a tight timeline for FARA, which it sees as essential to fill the gap in its aerial reconnaissance capability left by the retirement of the aging and much-upgraded Bell OH-58 Kiowa. While the competing designs are very different, Army simulations so far show that either would meet the military needs “Both are advanced rotorcraft configurations,” Brig. Gen. Rugen said. “Both did very well with speed, range, endurance at range, in our European scenario.... The power [for] takeoff with payload out of ground effect was also, again, leap-ahead.” The Bell 360 Invictus is basically a conventional helicopter with small wings for added lift, using fly-by-wire and rotor technology developed for the civilian Bell 525. The Sikorsky Raider-X is a compound helicopter with coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller for added thrust, derived from Sikorsky's S-97 Raider – which is a real, flight-testing aircraft – and ultimately the award-winning X2. “The X2 technology continues to impress,” Rugen said. While Bell's design may not have struck some observers as revolutionary, he said, “the efficiency” with which Bell's engineers stripped out every possible bit of drag – allowing much higher speeds – “was truly innovative. “We've got two great competitors ... on a program that we must deliver for the Army,” Rugen said. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/fvl-the-armys-10-year-plan-for-fara-scout

  • Armement : l'Italie au nirvana en Egypte, la France aux oubliettes

    June 15, 2020 | International, Naval

    Armement : l'Italie au nirvana en Egypte, la France aux oubliettes

    Par Michel Cabirol | 13/06/2020, 8:00 | L'Italie va vendre deux frégates FREMM à l'Égypte, autrefois cliente de l'industrie d'armement française. Rome souhaite également vendre de 12 à 24 Typhoon au Caire. L'erreur majeure de la France en Égypte continue d'exploser à la figure de Paris. Comme prévu, l'Italie va réussir à vendre au Caire deux frégates FREMM, qui était initialement destinées à la marine italienne, pour un montant de 1,2 milliard d'euros. Depuis la visite du 28 janvier 2019 d'Emmanuel Macron en Égypte où il s'était autorisé à donner la leçon sur les droits de l'homme au maréchal Abdel Fattah Sissi chez lui, la France s'est fait complètement sortir du marché de l'armement égyptien au profit notamment de l'Italie et de l'Allemagne. Les nouvelles ventes de Rafale et de corvettes Gowind semblent définitivement enterrées. La vente de deux FREMM italiennes va se concrétiser alors que l'affaire entre Le Caire et Rome portant sur l'étudiant italien Giulio Regeni, retrouvé mort et atrocement mutilé et torturé, n'a jamais été résolue en dépit des demandes de l'Italie. Quelle ironie du sort pour la France, qui a joué la carte des droits de l'homme début 2019 alors que l'Italie a quant à elle préféré la realpolitik même si elle tente de ménager son opinion publique : "Le gouvernement et les institutions italiennes continuent d'exiger la vérité des autorités égyptiennes par le biais d'une coopération réelle, efficace et effective", a assuré mercredi aux députés le ministre des Affaires étrangères Luigi di Maio. "La vente des frégates est une opération commerciale qui n'a rien à voir avec la recherche de la vérité sur la mort de Giulio Regeni. Au contraire, c'est seulement en maintenant les canaux ouverts que nous pouvons penser obtenir quelque chose de l'Egypte", ont pourtant expliqué des sources gouvernementales relayées par le quotidien La Repubblica. Un feu vert imminent Le gouvernement italien a donné jeudi soir son feu vert à la vente des deux frégates à l'Égypte. Ces deux frégates seront prélevées sur le programme de la Marina militare (9e et 10e) : Spartaco Schergat et Emilio Bianchi. Fincantieri s'est notamment appuyé pour cette vente sur un intermédiaire proche de Sissi, l'homme d'affaires Ahmed Elsewedy. Il ne reste plus que l'accord formel d'une administration en charge des exportations d'armements pour rendre définitive cette vente. Le feu vert pourrait être donné ce dimanche, selon nos informations. Le projet est financé à 100% par un crédit comme le souhaitait Le Caire. Il est piloté par Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) associé à la banque... https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/armement-l-italie-au-nirvana-en-egypte-la-france-aux-oubliettes-850137.html

  • Pentagon loosens cash flow for industry, more measures likely coming

    March 24, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Pentagon loosens cash flow for industry, more measures likely coming

    By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has opened up cash flow for the defense industry, the latest in a series of moves from the department to combat economic damage brought about by the new coronavirus pandemic. In a memo released Sunday, the department announced that progress payment rates for defense items under contract will increase from 80 percent of cost to 90 percent for large businesses, and from 90 percent to 95 percent for small businesses. The move will allow industry to receive more cash up front than under normal circumstances. The order was signed by Kim Herrington, acting principal director for defense pricing and contracting at the Department of Defense. In a statement, spokesman Lt. Col. Mike Andrews called the move “an important avenue where industry cash flow can be improved." The Defense Contracting Management Agency “will work on mass modifications to contracts where applicable (vs one by one) using DCMA authorities,” Andrews said. “In addition, the Department is accelerating payments through several means to prime contracts and directing prime contracts to expedite payments to subcontractors.” The increase in cash flow was sought by both industry and supporters in Congress. An increase in early payments was one of the requests made by the Maine delegation to Defense Secretary Mark Esper last week. The Pentagon plans to return to normal operations once the national emergency caused by COVID-19 has passed. Notably, the announcement of the move included a warning that “it is especially important to understand that during this crisis the [defense-industrial base] is vulnerable to adversarial capital, we need to ensure companies stay in business without losing their technology.” Over the last two years the department has focused on ensuring Chinese investment is limited in the defense-industrial base. The move comes after the DoD issued guidance to industry that defense contractors are considered “critical infrastructure” under a Department of Homeland Security definition, which should allow contractors to continue to work even if local governments issue orders to freeze work, as has happened in New York and San Francisco. However, that guidance was advisory in nature and does not have the full legal authority that industry leadership had sought, per a Friday letter to Esper from the Aerospace Industry Association. “Recent DHS and USD (A&S) memoranda have been helpful on a case-by-case basis, but they are advisory in nature and not legally binding; to establish stability for our operations across the nation, the federal government should legally establish national security programs and our workforce as essential,” read the letter, signed by AIA head Eric Fanning; Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden; and Kelly Ortberg, special adviser to the Office of the CEO of United Technologies. In an investors note, analyst Roman Schweizer of Cowen noted: “These new policies provide clarity on issues companies have been concerned about, but we do not think they alleviate all of industry's concerns nor do they eliminate all the disruption. But they are positive signs that DoD will help mitigate reasonable impact.” More efforts are likely to emerge in the coming days, including new measures from the Small Business Administration and its small business emergency loan program to help protect small key defense suppliers who are particularly vulnerable at this time. Major defense industry partners are also seeking relief in fulfilling contract milestones that could be impacted by the outbreak. “We encourage DoD to publish regulatory authority requiring contracting officers to consider financial relief as part of requests for equitable adjustments for measures we take in response to COVID-19,” the AIA letter read. “This includes relief related to bans, closures, quarantines and other travel restrictions, the loss of public infrastructure and public transportation, restricted access to resources and tools, and other public safety restrictions.” On Friday, the Acquisition and Sustainment division of the Small Business Office reached out to the defense industry's small businesses and is working with the Small Business Administration and its small business emergency loan program to help protect these companies. https://www.defensenews.com/coronavirus/2020/03/23/pentagon-loosens-cash-flow-for-industry-more-measures-likely-coming/

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