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  November 20, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  MOD awards £160m contract to prepare RAF Lakenheath for US F-35s

  The MOD has awarded a contract worth £160m to Kier VolkerFitzpatrick to deliver infrastructure to ready RAF Lakenheath for two squadrons of US F-35s. The Suffolk airbase will be the first permanent international site for US Air Force F-35s in Europe and continues the base's long and proud history of supporting US Air Force capability in the UK. Co-locating US and UK F-35 capability in the UK will help strengthen the historic military ties between the two nations as well as the partnership between the RAF and US Air Forces The contract awarded to Kier VolkerFitzpatrick includes the construction of a flight simulator facility, a maintenance unit, new hangars and storage facilities. The flight simulator will have the capacity to link to other simulators used pilots across the UK and beyond, allowing expertise to be shared and pilots from the UK and US to train together on a regular basis. At the height of construction, it is expected that there will be up to 700 contractors on site. The investment will also provide wider benefits to the local economy with over 1,000 personnel and family members living at the base. MOD is also working closely with Forest Heath District Council and Kier VolkerFitzpatrick to ensure that the opportunities to create employment and training are maximised to ensure they last beyond the end of construction. A ceremony, attended by representatives from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, US Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa (USAFE- AFAFRICA), Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC), Kier VolkerFitzpatrick and Forest Heath District Council, was held at the base to celebrate the award of the contract. Minister for Defence People and Veterans, Tobias Ellwood, said: For more than one hundred years now our armed forces have fought in defence of our common values and interests. Our two countries have developed the deepest, broadest and most advanced relationship of any two nations. Today marks another step towards reinforcing the strong partnership between our two nations and an exciting milestone for RAF Lakenheath. This investment will see substantial benefits to local economy, bringing 1,000 new personnel with their families and we will work hard to ensure that the benefits will last long after construction ends. USAF 48th Fighter Wing Commander, Colonel Will Marshall, said: This is an exciting milestone for the 48th Fighter Wing and for all our partners. We're transforming RAF Lakenheath together, and the work we do today is critical to the future security of the United States, the United Kingdom and the NATO Alliance. DIO Commercial Director, Jacqui Rock, said: We welcome this investment into RAF Lakenheath. This is an incredible opportunity for UK Defence and for the local area and DIO is pleased to be able to support the development of this key infrastructure which will make the beddown of the US F-35s possible. Managing director of aviation and defence at Kier, James Hindes, said: We're extremely proud to have been appointed to deliver another prestigious defence project for DIO. It builds on our extensive expertise in the defence sector delivering first-class projects within secure environments including facilities at MoD Lyneham and RAF Shawbury. We look forward to working closely with the DIO and our local supply chain to provide this crucial infrastructure and deliver this exciting opportunity ready for the arrival of the two permanent squadrons. Managing director of VolkerFitzpatrick's Civils division, Chris Evans, said: We are delighted to have been awarded this highly significant project with DIO. VolkerFitzpatrick has been working with the United States Air Force at RAF Lakenheath for over ten years and we look forward to bringing the knowledge we have gained to this new contract. The project will allow us to build on our substantial experience within the civil airports and defence sector, to deliver the highest quality infrastructure for the new F-35 Fighter Jet. The contract has been designed so that the enabling work can begin immediately on the award. Building work is programmed to start in the summer next year so that the base can welcome the first of the new aircraft in 2021. The contract award is the first in a wider programme of work to support US Air Force operations in the UK, with more than US$1bn expected to be in invested in the UK over the next seven to ten years. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-awards-160m-contract-to-prepare-raf-lakenheath-for-us-f-35s

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  December 4, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  This company wants to launch satellites into space via drone

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — Could drones hold the answer to putting satellites on orbit faster? Space logistics company Aevum is betting on it with its new Ravn X drone, which it built in the hopes of launching rockets into orbit every three hours. “Aevum is completely reimagining access to space,” said Jay Skylus, Aevum's founder and chief executive, said in a statement unveiling the new launch solution Dec. 3. “U.S. leadership has identified the critical need for extremely fast access to low Earth orbit. We're faster than anybody. “Through our autonomous technologies, Aevum will shorten the lead time of launches from years to months, and when our customers demand it, minutes,” he added. Founded in 2016, the company has been developing its product in stealth mode for years. On Dec. 3, they officially unveiled the new Ravn X autonomous launch solution ― an 80-foot long drone designed to launch small payloads into low Earth orbit. The company has yet to conduct its first test flight but is working toward airworthiness certification. Leaders hope to launch a payload for the military before the end of 2021. “We have a small launch vehicle that's more or less designed from scratch to be reusable and for responsive space access,” Skylus told C4ISRNET in an interview. “We do this by operating this sort of three stage launch vehicle stack. The first stage is an unmanned aircraft that is completely autonomous. The second and third stages are rocket systems.” Following take off, the drone rises to between 30,000 and 60,000 feet, where the rocket separates and ignites, launching the payload into orbit. Ravn X can take off and land horizontally on any airstrip at least one mile long. “The entire system is designed for a turnaround time and response time of about 180 minutes,” Skylus explained. The idea of launching satellites into space from the air isn't a new concept. For example, Northrop Grumman's Pegasus rocket ― designed to be launched into orbit from a carrier aircraft ― has been used for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force and NASA missions since the 1990s, with the most recent mission taking place in October 2019. A more recent entrant into the air-launch-to-orbit arena is Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket. The company's first test flight, which failed to reach orbit, was conducted in May 2020. Aevum thinks of itself as taking the concept one step further by adding autonomy to the launch process. “This entire process is more or less fully autonomous, and this allows us to basically reduce the cost of labor that's required by about 90 percent,” said Skylus. Aevum's approach also gets at one of the most frustrating issues with launch: weather. In 2018, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced the DARPA Launch Challenge, where small launch companies were asked to show that they could put a payload into space within just 30 days. While about 50 companies applied, by 2019 their were only three companies remaining in the competition. By 2020, there was just one: Astra Space. The company came close to achieving its goal, ultimately failing after inclement weather forced them to scrub multiple launch attempts. Ravn X is largely impervious to those issues. “Because of the architecture, we're really not dependent on weather and those types of things. We expect to be available more than 96 percent of the year,” said Skylus. The company is already drawing attention from the Department of Defense. Ravn X's first mission will be the ASLON-45 mission for the U.S. Space Force, a $5 million contract. With that mission, the focus is on showing how the company can get a payload into orbit in 24 hours or less, said Skylus. That launch is expected to be complete before the end of 2021. In addition, the company has received a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research award, a classified contract, and is one of eight company's to receive a $986 million indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for Orbital Services Program-4. “I'm excited to see the bold innovation and responsiveness in development today by our small launch industry partners to support emerging war fighter needs” said Lt. Col. Ryan Rose, Chief of the Space and Missile Systems Center's Small Launch and Targets Division, in a statement coordinated with Aevum's announcement. “The U.S. Space Force is proactively partnering with industry to support U.S. space superiority objectives. Having a robust U.S. industry providing responsive launch capability is key to ensuring the U.S. Space Force can respond to future threats.” The Pentagon has been pushing industry for responsive launch solutions, ensuring that they can place payloads into orbit with little notice. Aevum's focus on software and automation gives them an edge in meeting those elusive responsive launch requirements, Skylus said. “The responsive space launch type of problem has been a problem for several decades now, and the government has been seeking a solution to this. While others, our peers, are trying to tackle this from a technology/engineering perspective, Aevum is really tackling the problem from a system level perspective,” said Skylus. That's meant taking proven hardware solutions and applying autonomous software solutions to the ground processes and mission assurance elements. “If you look at our financials and things like that, we really do look more like a software company as opposed to a launch company,” said Skylus. “Which is great, because that means we're profitable right out of the gate.” For Aevum, the focus is on being that dependable, responsive launch service, and that may come at a premium for prospective customers, including the Pentagon. “We're not looking to be the lowest cost provider. That was never something that we claimed to be,” said Skylus. “Our focus has been: How do we make sure that we can go when our customers need to go? “Our niche market is going to be composed of customers like the Department of Defense who can't afford to wait a week to gather intel ... Or a customer like a commercial constellation customer who if they're down for over a week, they're going to lose more in revenue than they would be willing to pay for a launch,” he continued. “Those are the customers that we're really targeting.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/12/03/this-company-wants-to-launch-satellites-into-space-via-drone/

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  July 11, 2023 | International, Land

  Caracal: Germany and the Netherlands enter €1.9 billion framework contract with Rheinmetall for 3,058 airmobile vehicles

  As a first step, a firm order from the framework contract has been placed for 1,508 vehicles worth approximately €870 million, including value added tax