MBDA unveils Land Precision Fires family

On the same subject

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  August 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Land

  Missile Defense Agency Reveals Hypersonic Defense Vision

  August 07, 2020 Lockheed Martin will propose a new, sea-based variant of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense interceptor for the Regional Glide-Phase Weapon System. Credit: Missile Defense Agency A newly released vision by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency shows how an organization already burdened with the increasing sophistication of rogue-state ballistic missile threats intends to tackle the... https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/missile-defense-agency-reveals-hypersonic-defense-vision

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  July 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Defense Innovation Unit issues contract for unmanned orbital outpost

  Nathan Strout The Defense Innovation Unit has awarded Sierra Nevada Corporation a contract to build an orbital laboratory that would serve as a kind of unmanned space station, the company announced July 14. The unmanned orbital outpost will be placed in low Earth orbit to be used for experiments and demonstrations. The autonomous, free flying vehicle will be able to host payloads and support space assembly and manufacturing, microgravity experimentation, logistics, training, testing and evaluations. Under the contract, Sierra Nevada Corporation will repurpose their Shooting Star transport vehicle into a scalable, autonomous space station that can be used for experiments and demonstrations. The Shooting Star vehicle is a 16-foot attachment to the company's Dream Chaser space plane that was developed for NASA Commercial Resupply Services 2 missions. The vehicle was initially designed to provide extra payload storage and cargo disposal upon re-entry. “We're excited by the multi-mission nature of Shooting Star,” Fatih Ozmen, SNC's chief executive, said in a statement. “It was originally developed for NASA resupply missions to the International Space Station, and since then we keep identifying new capabilities and solutions it offers to a wide variety of customers.” The company's press release notes that while the initial orbital outpost will operate in LEO, future orbits could be placed in other orbits, including cislunar. “The current Shooting Star is already designed with significant capabilities for an orbital outpost and by adding only a few components we are able to meet Department of Defense needs.” added Steve Lindsey, senior vice president of strategy for SNC's space systems. “We are proud to offer our transport vehicle to DoD as a free-flying destination for experimentation and testing, expanding beyond its current payload service capabilities for Dream Chaser cargo missions.” According to the original DIU solicitation released June 2019, orbital outposts will need to be established in low Earth orbit within 24 months of the award. A DIU spokesperson told C4ISRNET at the time that the “the prototype will explore the military utility of exclusive DoD access to an unmanned orbital platform in order to perform experiments with no risk to human crew or other non-DOD payloads.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/07/16/defense-innovation-unit-issues-contract-for-unmanned-orbital-outpost/

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  April 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  Lockheed Martin to integrate Project Blackjack satellites

  Nathan Strout Lockheed Martin will perform the first phase of satellite integration on Project Blackjack for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the company announced April 24. With Project Blackjack, DARPA hopes to demonstrate the value of a proliferated constellation of low earth orbit satellites for the Department of Defense. And while Project Blackjack is expected to consist of just about 20 satellites, the lessons learned will feed into a constellation of hundreds. From early on, the Space Development Agency has said that it planned to build off of the advances made with Project Blackjack for its own proliferated constellation, which will perform tasks ranging from beyond-line-of-sight targeting to tracking hypersonic weapons. The SDA's current plan is to put 20 satellites on orbit in the summer of 2022, adding more and more in two year cycles until the agency's constellation includes hundreds of satellites. Under the $5.8 million contract, Lockheed Martin will define and manage interfaces between the bus, payload and Pit Boss, a system that will be able to process data collected by the satellites in space and disseminate that information to users on Earth without any human input. BAE Systems, SEAKR Engineering, Inc and Scientific Systems Company Incorporated were each awarded contracts in 2019 to design Pit Boss. Lockheed Martin will also perform testbed validation of vehicle interfaces. “Lockheed Martin has built and integrated a variety of payload types and sizes for every type of mission and we bring all of that experience to the Blackjack program,” said Sarah Reeves, vice president of missile defense programs at Lockheed Martin. “This is an exciting new approach to plug-n-play design for LEO and we are up for the challenge.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/04/27/lockheed-martin-to-integrate-project-blackjack-satellites/