Les premiers entretiens de l’Europe de la défense à Panthéon Sorbonne

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  July 25, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  JSTARS Recap is officially dead

  By: Valerie Insinna LONDON — The Air Force scored a major win in the 2019 defense authorization bill: Not only will it be able to cancel the JSTARS recap program, it is getting additional funds for its alternative effort called Advanced Battle Management System. However, the service will have to make some concessions in terms of its plans to retire the existing E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System fleet, which is used for ground surveillance and command and control missions. The Air Force had planned to retire three E-8Cs in 2019 that had become “hangar queens” cannibalized for spare parts for the rest of the fleet, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said earlier this year. However, according to the new defense policy bill unveiled Monday, it will not be able to retire any of the 17 planes until “increment 2” of the ABMS system is declared operational, although Congress will allow the Air Force secretary to phase out planes on a case-by-case basis if an aircraft is no longer mission capable. While the Air Force has not spelled out to the public exactly what comprises its ABMS plan, it involves a host of different upgrades for existing platforms —for instance the MQ-9 Reaper and E-3 AWACS early warning aircraft — that will allow them to network together in new ways. A congressional aide told Defense News on July 24 that the Air Force have three ABMS increments in a series of classified briefings to members of Congress' defense committees. Phase one, which lasts from now until about 2023, involves upgrades to datalinks and some space-based technologies, as well as linking sensors from several stealth platforms and drones together, the aide said. Increments 2 and 3 quickly get into more classified territory, said the aide, who declined to provide greater specifics. The defense authorization bill would accelerate ABMS by adding $120 million for six MQ-9 Reapers, which the aide said could be used to help boost the architecture's ability to prosecute targets during a low-end conflict. It also included $30 million to continue development of the ground moving target indicator radar developed by Northrop Grumman for the JSTARS recap program. In addition, Congress levied a number of other restrictions and reporting requirements on the Air Force as part of the FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act, including: The Air Force's plan for modernizing and sustaining the current JSTARS fleet, including how it will increase the availability of the E-8Cs to support demands worldwide. Quarterly reports from the Air Force secretary on the progress of ABMS. Certification by the defense secretary that the Air Force has a long term funding plan that will allow it to retain JSTARS and that the ABMS acquisition strategy is executable. A report on ABMS from the Government Accountability Office, which provides independent oversight to Congress. The report will review the maturity of the plan and any risk associated with fielding or funding it. A directive to the Pentagon's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office to reexamine the cost and schedule for restarting a re-engine effort of the E-8C, which had begun in 2008 but was since abandoned. The Air Force “procured three ship-sets of engines, after investing $450.0 million, and the engines remain unused,” even though “the legacy E-8C engines are the number one issue driving excessive non-mission capable maintenance metrics for the E-8C fleet,” the bill stated. The end of the JSTARS recap program is bad news for Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, who were each vying for the prime contractor spot and the $6.9 billion contract for engineering, manufacturing and development. A total of 17 new planes were planned to be built throughout the program. Over the past year, Air Force leaders grew disenchanted with JSTARS recap, saying that new battle management planes would not be survivable in future, contested battlespaces. But while the Senate defense committees leaned in to support ABMS, House lawmakers sought to force the service to keep going with JSTARS recap. Will Roper, the Air Force's top acquisition official, told Defense News on July 17 that he was hopeful that Congress would move forward with ABMS. However, he still acknowledged that the Air Force had never modernized a “system of systems” like ABMS before. “It definitely needs to be a program where we embrace failure up front and prototype, because there's going to be a lot of learning to do about how do you make things work together as a team,” Roper said. “We get a sense of how commercial industry is solving it and I imagine we can use a lot of their lessons learned, but probably not all of them.” Infighting in Georgia What was once a disagreement between the House and Senate seems to have turned into a fight among the members of the Georgia delegation. In a surprising move, Republican Rep. Austin Scott pointed the finger at Sen. David Perdue, a fellow Georgia Republican, for allowing the recap program to be cancelled. Georgia's Robins Air Force Base is home to the 461st Air Control Wing, the joint Air Force-Army unit that operates JSTARS. “When Senator Perdue [...] withdrew his support of this program which the Georgia Congressional Delegation – including Senator Perdue – has overwhelmingly supported throughout the last seven years, it effectively ended the program,” said Scott. “Unfortunately [...] the replacement aircraft will not be fielded, forcing a higher risk to our men and women in uniform by continuing to fly the 48 year old legacy JSTARS aircraft which are in need of recapitalization.” Perdue hit back in his own statement, saying that ABMS is a better long term solution for Robins. “The Advanced Battlefield Management System will give us the capability to access both restricted and non-restricted airspace. This is a necessity in supporting our troops in harm's way as well as our overall intelligence gathering,” Perdue said. “With the solution I support, we save JSTARS jobs, maintain the JSTARS fleet into the next decade, accelerate the implementation of ABMS, and gain a new mission for Robins. All of this guarantees a very bright future for my hometown base.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/07/24/jstars-recap-is-officially-dead/

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  October 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  How coronavirus is permanently changing the defense industry's culture

  POLITICO spoke with managers at eight defense companies of varying sizes to see how their response to the pandemic has changed seven months in. JACQUELINE FELDSCHER From Zoom meetings to mental health check-ins during the work day to reconfiguring office spaces, most defense CEOs say the changes forced by the coronavirus will be permanent even after this crisis is over. The pandemic upended the industry in March, sending most employees who could telework home and requiring additional safety precautions for those who still had to go to the office. Companies quickly adopted best practices, such as frequent hand-washing, deep cleaning, distance between employees and eventually wearing masks. But over the past seven months, many companies have gone beyond these initial steps to protect the health of their employees and changed how they operate in other areas of their business. That includes adding benefits for the workforce, increasing the use of virtual communications and protecting supply chains. “We need to first calm down any sense of a focus on getting back to normal,” said Karl Hutter, the CEO of Click Bond, a supplier to defense companies. “There's not going to be a going back to normal.” A top challenge CEOs cited is trying to maintain a company's culture and community when at least some of the workforce is working from home full-time and it's still unsafe to gather for morale-building events such as anniversary celebrations or holiday parties. Industry leaders are also rethinking what their companies will look like in the future, including how many employees will continue to work from home full-time and how offices will be laid out. POLITICO spoke with managers at eight defense companies of varying sizes to see how their response to the pandemic has changed seven months in. Caring for the workforce The coronavirus pandemic has heaped stress on employees, many of whom are trying to juggle a full-time job with full-time child care amid a crisis that can make it anxiety-inducing to step outside. As a result, industry leaders almost unanimously said they have prioritized caring for employees' mental health in a new way to try to both give workers coping mechanisms and ease whatever stress they can. Click Bond, for example, has launched a pilot program in which about two dozen staff meet weekly for a 12-week program on wellness, including a focus on mindful movement and meditations. Hutter said he hopes the pilot, which is being used by many different demographics from younger workers to “hard-boiled tool makers,” will become a broader, long-term initiative. To help working parents, SAIC has given employees access to online tutoring help for their children to help ease the burden of working full-time while also helping children navigate the virtual classroom, said Amy Benson, SAIC's vice president of government affairs. United Launch Alliance and SAIC both established “leave banks,” which allow employees who won't use all of their vacation to donate that time off to colleagues who may need it. ULA CEO Tory Bruno said this will become a permanent benefit at his company once the pandemic is over. “It forces you to take on things like this, then you learn about them,” he said. “None of these benefits I just described will stop.” Companies have contracted with services to provide employees 24/7 virtual access to medical professionals for some health concerns. Managers are also making sure employees have access to health care. Huntington Ingalls Industries, for example, gave new hires health insurance immediately instead of making them wait 90 days, said Bill Ermatinger, the chief human resources officer at the shipbuilding company. Some companies are also regularly testing employees for Covid-19, both to keep facilities running by quickly diagnosing and quarantining any sick people and to ease the minds of those who report to work. “Employees have been very very grateful we're doing it,” said Mark Aslett, the CEO of Mercury Systems. “It's the only way to deal with employees at scale and get results back quickly enough to manage business continuity.” One of the top challenges for CEOs is making up for lost in-person interactions at company-wide events. Bruno has also gotten creative to try to replicate some of the morale boosting and team building that would come from a BBQ at a space launch, for example, by paying for employees to pick up meals from local small businesses. Hutter also stressed the importance of maintaining the culture of Click Bond, and is planning a “drive in theater event” for the company's annual holiday party as a way to safely gather and raise employees' spirits. Embracing virtual tools The inability to safely fly to visit vendors has forced businesses to get comfortable doing more virtually, which industry leaders say they will continue doing because it's more efficient. Anne Shybunko-Moore, the owner of GSE Dynamics, said her team can now check on the status of parts and address technical issues virtually. “I can see that impacting the way I do business going forward,” she said. “Vendor visits and building relationships are still critical in our supply chain, but maybe it's not necessary to fly to California. ... I could meet with eight vendors a day if I had to, virtually, all over the nation.” Some companies also had to overcome security concerns to use video meeting tools such as Zoom. United Launch Alliance did not allow employees to turn video on for virtual meetings before the pandemic out of a concern that something in the background, such as a model or a drawing of a rocket, would be either classified or controlled by international export laws. But after months of no in-person meetings, Bruno said he's instead issued workers rules for what can appear alongside them on camera. This is another practice that will continue after the pandemic is over, he said. “I started to worry about new employees never seeing their coworkers and feeling disconnected ... so we're enabling video everything and giving guidelines asking them to be careful about what's behind them,” he said. Planning for future business Heather Bulk, the CEO of Special Aerospace Services, said she is already knocking down walls at her company's Colorado headquarters to reconfigure the office to accommodate many who say they will feel safer coming back to work in a personal office with a door that closes. She also acknowledged she will need to update the break room, but is not yet sure what a space that is both communal and safe looks like now. “I like the idea that you can have 75 people in one room and they can all share a coffee pot and chat, but I don't foresee this pivoting back to the way it was in 2018 and 2019 for a while,” she said. “By making these changes and making them quickly, I'm able to move forward so in January of 2021, all these office changes should be up to date.” Bulk also said she is taking steps to bring more capabilities in-house, a trend she expects to see across the industry as CEOs work to mitigate disruptions at small businesses that produce critical parts. Many CEOs said they intend to keep some of the enhanced cleaning and distancing policies in place post-pandemic because they will keep the workforce healthy from diseases such as colds and the flu as well. As to what the future of telework looks like once it's safe to return to the office, CEOs are split over how much of their workforce is likely to remain at home. But most agree a hybrid model with some people in the office and some working from home at least part-time is likely to become the new normal. “Productivity has been good. It's been great in fact,” Bruno said. “If you're working a five-day work week, why can't one or two days be at home teleworking where you're not interrupted by a bunch of meetings?” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/28/coronavirus-changed-defense-industry-culture-433447

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  August 6, 2018 | International, Naval, C4ISR

  Navy satellite system approved for expanded use

  By: Maddy Longwell   U.S. Strategic Command has approved the Navy's new narrowband satellite communication system for expanded operational use, which could begin as early as this fall, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command announced Aug. 2. “MUOS' acceptance for operational use is an important milestone for the Navy, and it's one step closer for significant communications improvements for all our forces,” Rear Adm. Carl Chebi, the Navy's program executive officer for space systems, said in the release. The Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), built by Lockheed Martin, is a five-satellite constellation, which includes four operational satellites and an on-orbit spare, that works with ground relays to operate like a global military cellular network. The first satellite launched in 2012. The system can transmit voice, video and mission data on an Internet Protocol based system that can connect to military networks. Users can connect to Department of Defense communications networks such as the Global Information Grid and Defense Switched Network. Full Article: https://www.c4isrnet.com/c2-comms/2018/08/03/navy-satellite-system-approved-for-expanded-use