Northrop Grumman to Provide Key Electronic Warfare Capabilities for AC/MC-130J Aircraft

On the same subject

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  November 28, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  CYBERCOM Has a Vendor In Mind For Its Big Data Platform But Is Open to Options

  By Aaron Boyd The military's cyber branch plans to award a sole-source contract to manage and enhance its Big Data Platform but wants to know if other vendors are capable of bidding. Anyone with a passing understanding of cyberspace knows there's a lot of data out there. As the military command charged with fighting and defending that domain, U.S. Cyber Command needs a platform that can move, store and process all that data. CYBERCOM contracting officials posted a special notice Monday announcing plans to award a sole-source contract to manage the Big Data Platform program, which looks to help the command and military branches ingest and process huge swaths of data from across the internet. Officials intend to award the contract to Enlighten IT Consulting, however, they are reaching out to industry to see if a full competition is warranted. “Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the government,” the notice states, urging interested qualified vendors to respond by noon on Dec. 11. The vendor will be expected to develop prototypes for capabilities based on proofs of concept, design and build key components for those capabilities and integrate them with CYBERCOM infrastructure, as well as other military branches. “Critical tasks include data acquisition, processing and storing packet capture, engineering support, enhancing the BDP tool suite according to real-world conditions and beta testing with the user population that includes Cyber Protection Teams, Computer Network Defense Service Providers, and Regional Cyber Centers,” according to the statement of work. The work will include “sustainment and enhancement” of tools in the classified and unclassified areas. Program officials expect this effort to “significantly enhance” the platform's core capabilities. Officials are not looking for an overhaul of CYBERCOM's analytics capabilities, but rather the underlying metadata and tagging processes and existing data feeds that categorizes the data and help the analysts find what they are looking for. However, “The contractor shall support the testing, deployment, integration and sustainment of BDP analytics as required,” the document states. “The contractor shall also assess and evaluate implementing analytics as developed by others on the BDP.” Along with those capability enhancements, the vendor will also be expected to act as a system administrator, including ensuring the right people and teams have access to needed information and ensuring that information is properly stored and secured. The Big Data Platform is part of a suite of tools CYBERCOM is using to analyze threat data and act as an information clearinghouse for the military and defense industrial base, according to Lisa Belt, acting cyber development executive at the Defense Information Systems Agency. “Acropolis coupled with Big Data coupled with [the Cyber Situational Awareness Analytical Capabilities program] all come together to form what we consider the basis of our data brokering and analytics platform,” Belt said during DISA's Forecast to Industry day Nov. 5. The contract will run for up to three years, with one base year and two one-year add-on options. https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2018/11/cybercom-has-vendor-mind-its-big-data-platform-open-options/153032/

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  September 24, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  USAF Discussing Larger Fighters, Weaponized KC-46, Roper Says

  Steve Trimble Developing larger and longer-ranged fighters, weaponizing the Boeing KC-46 fleet, and possibly fielding a new type of unmanned, small and stealthy tanker are all now in discussion by U.S. Air Force leaders, assistant secretary of the Air Force Will Roper said on Sept. 23. As the head of acquisition, technology and logistics, Roper said he and the new chief of Air Mobility Command, Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, are “excited” now about the direction of the long-troubled KC-46 program, as the Air Force and Boeing continue to finalize the Remote Vision System 2.0 upgrade. The KC-46's turnaround, Roper said, is allowing acquisition and mobility officials to turn their attention to addressing another Air Force refueling problem: How to solve a yawning gap between refueling capacity and operational need for inflight refueling, especially at the forward edge of a ring of contested airspace, where large and, for now, relatively defenseless aircraft such as the KC-46 are most vulnerable. Building a more survivable and responsive air refueling capability that can be used in a contested war zone was the focus of a meeting this week between Roper and Van Ovost, he said. “One of those next strategic questions for the Air Force is going to be can you defend a tanker against an onslaught of fighters who know that every tanker you kill, it's like killing a lot of fighters or bombers or drones that it supports,” Roper said. Roper prefers not to take a one-size-fits-all solution, such as a single major new acquisition program that buys only one type of aircraft. Instead, the Air Force should evaluate the solution to the contested aerial refueling problem as an architecture, with multiple options that can be dialed back and forth. One option for reducing demand on tankers is a new fighter aircraft that is designed to carry more fuel. “Maybe having [the] small, currently sized fighters is not the way to go in [the] future,” Roper said. “And since we're all abuzz with digital engineering and thinking about what the future fighter force could look like, thinking about bigger fighters is a natural question.” Another way to make the KC-46 fleet more survivable, and thus operate closer to the forward edge of contested airspace, is to weaponize the aircraft, he said. “We don't put weapons and sensors on tankers to shoot down aircraft, but the current KC-46 is a big airplane with the ability to mount sensors and weapons under the wings,” Roper said. “We just don't do it because we can use a fighter combat air patrol to defend high-value assets.” The Air Force also may need a different kind of tanker in the future, he said. Two options are possible: A larger aircraft than the KC-46 that could carry more fuel, but needs to stay farther away from potential threats, or much smaller, unmanned and stealthy “micro-tankers” that could operate much closer or even inside defended airspace, Roper said. “I expect that as we really look at airpower in the truly contested environment that we'll be looking at fuel very strategically,” Roper said. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/usaf-discussing-larger-fighters-weaponized-kc-46-roper-says

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  December 2, 2024 | International, Naval

  Stealth destroyer to be home for 1st hypersonic weapon on a US warship

  The U.S. is working to catch up with Russia and China in developing hypersonic weapons that travel beyond Mach 5.