Northrop Grumman won’t bid on Air Force’s NGAD fighter

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  April 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  Global defense spending sees biggest spike in a decade

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — Global defense spending hit $1.917 trillion in 2019, a 3.6 percent increase over previous year figures and the largest increase in one year since 2010, according to the annual report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The United States remains the world's largest defense spender in 2019, with its $732 billion representing 38 percent of global military spending, SIPRI has reported. That was followed by China ($261 billion, at 14 percent of global total), India ($71.1 billion, at 3.7 percent), Russia ($65.1 billion, at 3.4 percent) and Saudi Arabia ($61.9 billion, at 3.2 percent). All told, the top five nations accounted for 62 percent of overall military spending. “Global military expenditure was 7.2 percent higher in 2019 than it was in 2010, showing a trend that military spending growth has accelerated in recent years,” SIPRI's Nan Tian said in a statement. “This is the highest level of spending since the 2008 global financial crisis and probably represents a peak in expenditure.” Large year-over-year increases were seen in China (5.1 percent), India (6.8 percent), Russia (4.5 percent), Germany (10 percent) and South Korea (7.5 percent). Regionally, military spending increased in Europe by 5 percent, Asia and Oceania by 4.8 percent, the Americas by 4.7 percent, and Africa by 1.5 percent. Combined military spending by the 29 NATO member states was $1.035 trillion in 2019. SIPRI is widely considered to be the authority on military expenditures and exports, having gathered such data for decades. Other key developments, as noted by the researchers: Together, the top 15 countries spent $1.553 trillion, 81 percent of global military spending. All but three countries in the top 15 had higher military expenditures in 2019 than in 2010, the exceptions being the U.S. (15 percent drop), the U.K. (15 percent drop) and Italy (11 percent drop.) Total military expenditures of the 11 countries in the Middle East for which data is available decreased by 7.5 percent to $147 billion, driven in part by an estimated 16 percent drop from Saudi Arabia. That overall percentage also decreased in 2018. SIPRI was unable to calculate totals from Qatar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Military spending in South America was relatively unchanged from the previous year, coming in at $52.8 billion. Fifty-one percent of that spending, $26.9 billion, came from Brazil. Combined military expenditures from Africa grew by 1.5 percent to an estimated $41.2 billion in 2019, the first time that region saw a spending increase in five years. That includes plus-ups in Burkina Faso (22 percent), Cameroon (1.4 percent), Mali (3.6 percent), the Central African Republic (8.7 percent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (16 percent) and Uganda (52 percent). Of the 149 countries SIPRI studied, 10 allocated 4 percent or more of their gross domestic product to the military, which the group defines as the “military burden.” Thirteen countries had a military burden of 3 to 3.9 percent of GDP; 24 had a military burden of 2 to 2.9 percent; 65 had a military burden of 1 to 1.9 percent; and 34 allocated less than 1 percent of their GDP to the military. Three countries had no military expenditures in 2019: Costa Rica, Iceland and Panama. https://www.defensenews.com/global/2020/04/27/global-defense-spending-sees-biggest-spike-in-a-decade/

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  September 19, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  How the Air Force plans to use space to project power in the 21st century

  By: Daniel Cebul NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.— As the National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategyhave made clear, space is set to become a crucial war fighting domain, as nearly every operation the military conducts relies on space assets. So when the leaders of the Air Force's Global Strike Command, Space Command, commander in Europe and Africa and special operations head all shared a stage at the Air Force Associations annual conference to discuss operations, its no surprise they chose to focus on how the service plans to leverage space assets to project power in the 21st century. One reason space is so important, not just to the Air Force, but all military services, is that space assets enable multidomain operations that are becoming the norm in the modern warfare. Citing the Air Force's successful strikes against Assad-regime chemical weapons manufacturing sites in Syria in April, Gen. Tod D. Wolters, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa, explained the mission was successful because “we had well-vetted and thorough multidomain operations.” Another key reason the Air Force is doubling down on space is because the outcome of a conflict with a near-peer will largely depend on winning the battle in space. “If deterrence fails I am convinced ... if we are up against a peer or near-peer we are going to have to fight for space superiority,” said Gen. John Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command. “As the National Defense Strategy talks about, that's going to require capability from multiple domains to come forward,” he added. Raymond noted the need to control assets in space was prioritized in the National Security Strategy, which talks about “unfettered access to and freedom to maneuver in space as a vital national interest. That's significant, it wasn't in the last National Security Strategy.” And unlike in previous endeavors beyond Earth's atmosphere, the U.S. is no longer going it alone. Looking at the spectrum of operations “from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief on one end to kinetic on the other end, there is nothing that isn't done without multidomain operations or integration of air, space and cyber together, and there is nothing we do not do without our allies," Raymond said. "So by definition multidomain, [and command and control] has to be coalition friendly.” Considering the need for U.S. partners in space and how the space environment has evolved, Raymond explained, "we haven't needed to have partners in space before. It was a benign domain.... That is not the case today and we are working really hard to develop those partnerships that we enjoy in all other domains than space.” But projecting power from space requires work to be done on terra firma by the U.S. and its allies. Gen. Timothy Ray, commander of U.S. Air Force global strike command, explained “The ability to improve much faster at our bases and our power projection platforms absolutely has to be an integrated conversation. We talk about integrating air space and cyber we fundamentally have to master the integration of our bases.” https://www.defensenews.com/newsletters/digital-show-daily/2018/09/18/how-the-air-force-plans-to-use-space-to-project-power-in-the-21st-century-2

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  July 23, 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/