MDA group president notes opportunities for Canada in space

On the same subject

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  July 21, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Indonesia says it wants to buy Austria’s entire Typhoon fighter fleet

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — Indonesia has expressed interest in acquiring Austria's fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, in yet another surprise defense procurement plan from the southeast Asian country. Indonesia's defense minister, Prabowo Subianto, wrote a letter to his Austrian counterpart, Klaudia Tanner, seeking to initiate negotiations to buy all 15 Typhoons belonging to the Austrian Air Force. In his letter, which was published by Indonesian news outlets, Prabowo said the potential purchase will assist in his aims to continue modernizing the Indonesian Air Force. He added that he understood the “sensitivity” of his proposal, which was likely to be a reference to the continued controversy surrounding Austria's 2002 acquisition of the Typhoon. That purchase has been dogged by questions about cost and the effectiveness of the aircraft. More recently, there have been allegations of corruption related to the original contract award. These culminated in Austria's 2017 decision to retire the aircraft from service this year in favor of a “more effective and cost-effective” solution for the central European country's air defense needs. Indonesia's interest in the fleet comes two weeks after the surprise announcement that the U.S. State Department cleared the country to buy the Bell-Boeing MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. Indonesia has been seeking a fighter aircraft to serve alongside its fleet of 23 refurbished early-block Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Fighting Falcon jets. These are all former aircraft operated by the U.S. Air National Guard, and were delivered from 2014 onward. The decision to seek the Austrian Typhoons, which are all Tranche 1 aircraft configured primarily for air defense missions, is a blow to Russian aspirations to sell the Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker interceptor to Indonesia. Indonesia had selected the Su-35 as its next fighter to provide continuity with its existing fleet of Su-27 and Su-30s Flankers acquired in the early part of the last decade. Negotiations for the Russian jets ended in 2018, but Indonesia had been reticent to sign the $1.14 billion contract, reportedly over fears that it may be subject to American sanctions. The sanctions would come from a U.S. law, Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, that targets Iran, North Korea and Russia. CAATSA was passed by Congress in 2017 and is meant to discourage governments or entities from acquiring weapons or military hardware and parts from U.S. adversaries. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/07/20/indonesia-says-it-wants-to-buy-austrias-entire-typhoon-fighter-fleet/

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  April 14, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Is your GPS equipment vulnerable to spoofing? The government wants to test it.

  Nathan Strout This summer, the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate is hosting an event where owners and operators of critical infrastructure, manufacturers of commercial GPS receivers, and civil industry stakeholders can see how their equipment holds up under a spoofing attack. “Accurate and precise position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information is vital to the nation's critical infrastructure,” said Bill Bryan, the senior official performing the duties of the undersecretary for science and technology. “[The Science and Technology Directorate] established this program to assess GPS vulnerabilities, advance research and development, and to enhance outreach and engagement with industry. The objective is to improve the security and resiliency of critical infrastructure.” Slated for this summer, the 2020 GPS Equipment Testing for Critical Infrastructure event will be the third of its type hosted by DHS that allows parties to test their equipment against GPS spoofing in unique live-sky environments. This event will focus mainly on fixed infrastructure applications, though there will be some support for testing ground-based mobile applications. There are no registration fees for participants, and interested parties have until April 24 to sign up. Though originally developed as a military tool, GPS technology has become a constant presence in civilian life over the decades, enabling agriculture, telecommunications, financial services, weather forecasting, the electrical grid and more. An RTI International report released last year estimated that a 30-day GPS outage could result in economic losses to the tune of $35-45 billion. U.S. adversaries are well aware of the country's reliance on GPS, both in the civilian world and by the military, and they have developed tools to degrade, deny or spoof that signal. In recent months, the U.S. government has raised concerns that relying solely on GPS for PNT data leaves the nation's critical infrastructure vulnerable to attack. To help address this, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Feb. 12 calling for the U.S. to develop alternative sources of PNT data that can supplement or replace the GPS signal, should it become unreliable. Under that executive order, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy will be developing PNT services independent of GPS and other global navigation satellite systems, while at the same time working to increase the resiliency of critical infrastructure by having them incorporate multiple PNT sources. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/04/09/is-your-gps-equipment-vulnerable-to-spoofing-the-government-wants-to-test-it/

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  October 9, 2024 | International, Land

  Rheinmetall is supplying qualification rounds of a new generation of tank ammunition for a joint qualification of the Bundeswehr and the British Army

  The new 120 mm x 570 KE2020Neo kinetic energy ammunition continues the successful series of kinetic energy (KE) rounds from Rheinmetall.