Rheinmetall’s Skymaster to bolster Austrian drone, missile defenses

On the same subject

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  October 2, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Alert: Over 700,000 DrayTek Routers Exposed to Hacking via 14 New Vulnerabilities

  14 new DrayTek router vulnerabilities, including critical flaws, could allow attackers to take control. Patch now

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  January 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  ‘Red Air’ providers prep for a big year of war games

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Last year, the Air Force tapped seven defense companies for a $6.4 billion opportunity for “Red Air” training where contracted pilots pose as aggressors in air-to-air combat. With the fiscal 2020 budget finally approved, those firms are hungry to hear for more information about when and where they start flying. The companies — Air USA Inc., Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC), Blue Air Training, Coastal Defense, Draken International, Tactical Air Support and Top Aces Corp. — currently find themselves waiting for the next phase of the competition, when the Air Force will issue individual work orders for a total of 22 bases that will allow contractors to begin flying this year. “I think we've all watched the Air Force program develop over the last two years kind of in awe at the size of it and the ambition, the commitment they're making to have enough adversaries out there to challenge their pilots,” said Russ Bartlett, CEO of Textron Airborne Solutions, which is the parent company of ATAC. “That's great for industry, because the Air Force knows they need to do that.” Unlike major programs for weapon systems, which have a dedicated line item in the budget, the work orders for adversary air services will be paid out of the operations and maintenance account, which is more flexible. While the Air Force's FY20 budget request flags a $151 million increase for “contract air training,” it's unclear how much of that amount will ultimately be set aside for that adversary air services. It will be up to Air Combat Command “to decide how much money they're going to put against the adversary air budget. So we're really just waiting to figure out how that all works,” said Russ Quinn, president of Top Aces. “We and the program office are looking very forward to hearing how Air Combat Command is planning on funding the contract.” Draken International is already conducting aggressor flights at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., as part of a five-year contract awarded in 2018. That work is helping the company keep its Red Air planes ready ahead of work at other bases, said Sean Gustafson, Draken's vice president of business development. "We're flying 6,000 to 7,000 hours a year out there right now,” he said. “We're excited for the task orders to come out shortly, looking to expand and set up operations on the East Coast and then supporting those bases.” The Draken pilots, who currently fly the Aero Vodochody L-159E Honey Badger and Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, regularly deploy from Nellis AFB and visit other installations, including Hill AFB in Utah, Eglin AFB in Fla., and Holloman AFB in N.M. The company will begin adding Mirage F1s to the mix next month, Gustafson said. “We're very excited about that, because that will be the first radar-equipped, supersonic aircraft in the industry. We have the first three [of 24 total] going out there in February,” he said. The company has also purchased 12 radar- equipped, supersonic Atlas Cheetah fighters that will help cover Air Force requirements outside of Nellis. Meanwhile, the other companies are doing training and modifications necessary to get their aggressor fleets ready to fly whenever the U.S. Air Force decides it needs those planes. Top Aces has purchased 29 used F-16s from an undisclosed user specifically for the Air Force's adversary air contract. Those aircraft are not yet in the United States, but Quinn is confident that the company will have the aircraft in hand in early spring, he said. After that, Top Aces will begin modifying each jet with an open architecture system that will allow the company to more easily outfit the aircraft with a range of radar, sensors, electronic warfare pods or other technologies that increase the capability of Red Air forces, he said. Depending on whether the company wins a contract with Germany for adversary air services, it may also have excess capacity with its Douglas A-4N Skyhawk fleet, which it could also offer to help supplement the U.S. Air Force's needs, Quinn said. ATAC plans to use its new fleet of Mirage F1 jets to meet the Air Force's requirements. So far, the company has fully trained one F1 pilot, who flew the first ATAC Mirage in August. Another two pilots were set to begin training in December, Bartlett said late last year. “On the airplane side, we're in really good shape. Sixty-three airplanes is a huge win for us. There are a lot of economies of scale that we intend to capitalize on,” he said. “The challenge is going to be — of course — hiring and retaining pilots. The services are trying keep their pilots and grow their pilot cadres; the airlines are hiring aggressively and paying lucrative salaries, and this industry is growing by leaps and bounds with just this Air Force program.” So far, recruiting pilots has not been a problem for Draken, Gustafson said. The company has employed 52 aggressor pilots to meet the demands of its contract with Nellis, and has a “stack of resumes” from pilots that jobs as the company expands to other bases. “We're doing well on [hiring],” he said. “Some folks, they don't want to go to the airlines. They recently retired from the military and they want to keep flying fighters.” The company is looking to grow its fleet with new aircraft, as well, he added. “We should have some pretty exciting news about five to six months from now,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/01/13/red-air-providers-prep-for-a-big-year

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  May 12, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  US Risks Losing 5G Standard Setting Battle To China, Experts Say

  "We need some coherency around what we're actually doing on the public policy front, and we need some more technical coordination ... so we could at least be at the stage where we're still on the field, versus sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out how to catch up," said Brookings fellow Nicol Turner Lee. By THERESA HITCHENSon May 11, 2020 at 3:46 PM WASHINGTON: The United States needs to take a stronger role in setting international standards for 5G networks or risk losing the international market to China and undercutting US national security. Washington is faltering due to a lack of coherent policy on a wide swathe of foundational issues such as spectrum management for 5G usage, network supply chain security, infrastructure development and data sharing, experts say. As Breaking D readers know, the question of spectrum access is at the heart of DoD's fierce battle to overturn the FCC's approval last month of a plan by Ligado to convert L-band spectrum for satellites to build a terrestrial 5G mobile communications network that DoD and many other US agencies say will jam GPS receivers. “The US-China competition is essentially about who will control the global information technology infrastructure and standards,” said Frank Rose, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and former assistant secretary of State for arms control, during a Brooking's webinar on Friday. “I think an argument can be made that in the 21st century, whoever controls the information infrastructure will dominate the world.” The webinar, called “Global China: Assessing China's technological reach in the world,” was based on a new series of Brookings' papers on topics ranging from Chinese plans for 5G, its progress in developing artificial intelligence (AI) weapons systems to biotechnology. The panel discussion echoed the concerns raised by a group of powerful Republican senators in an April 14 letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, the senators worried that the Trump administration's moves to blacklist Chinese 5G behemoth Huawei (about which Sydney has written extensively) are in effect pushing the US into international irrelevance as Washington struggles to set a unique domestic path for network development. Commerce put Huawei on its so-called entity list last May citing national security concerns, and in August expanded its list of related entities subject to restricted US sales. Despite President Donald Trump's wild swings on whether to keep or lift the ban, those restrictions still stand. “Since Huawei's designation on the Department's Entity List in May 2019, U.S. technology leaders have been constrained from full participation in 5G standards-setting bodies because of uncertainty over whether such participation is prohibited by the Commerce Department's export control regulations. We are deeply concerned about the risks to the U.S. global leadership position in 5G wireless technology as a result of this reduced participation, and the economic and national security implications of any diminished U.S. role in 5G,” the senators wrote. Such standards bodies include the influential private-sector Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the widely-recognized International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that sets global standards for spectrum usage. China's Houlin Zhao currently holds the ITU Secretary-General post, and China has been extremely active in ITU work to establish standards for 5G — an issue that the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission raised in its 2018 report to Congress. To remedy this, the senators called on the White House “to issue regulations as soon as possible confirming that U.S. participation in 5G standards-setting is not restricted by export control regulations.” And according to a May 6 article by Reuters, the Commerce Department is currently figuring out how exactly to do just that. Commerce, however, did not respond to a request for comment by press time. Nicol Turner Lee, a Brookings fellow specializing in Internet governance issues, told the panel while it was Europe that set the standards for 3G communications technologies, the US learned from losing that battle and so “stepped up” to lead the world in developing the technologies and standards for 4G LTE communication. US leadership on 4G in turn allowed it dominate the information revolution that underpins today's “digital sharing economy,” enabling tech giants Google and disruptive firms such as Uber. But the US now risks losing the 5G race to China, she argued, which will be at the heart of the next technological revolution. Mobile 5G cellular networks will provide the high speed and low latency (the time between data being broadcast and received by a user) communications capabilities required by the Internet of Things (IoT) and AI, both technologies hotly pursued by the US the Chinese militaries alike. In her paper, “Navigating the U.S.-China 5G Competition,” Turner Lee explained: “The United States and China are in a race to deploy fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks, and the country that dominates will lead in standard-setting, patents, and the global supply chain. While some analysts suggest that the Chinese government appears to be on a sprint to achieve nationwide 5G, U.S. government leaders and the private sector have been slowed by local and federal bureaucracies, restrictive and outdated regulations, and scarcity of available commercial spectrum.” The “current national security concerns of Huawei and ZTE, which are integral to the global supply chain for 5G equipment and software” not only are hindering the ability of US tech firms to play a leading role in international standard setting bodies, she said, but also cramping their ability to cooperate with firms in allied nations — leading to US market isolation. “To date, only five other partners have followed the U.S. lead in banning Huawei equipment in their communications infrastructures: Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand.25 Other U.S. allies, including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.K., are moving forward with their deployments with some restrictions,” Turner Lee wrote. Key to China's success in development of 5G networks has been the use of low- and mid-band radio frequency (RF) spectrum, according to experts, that for reasons of domestic regulation the US has been unable to match. Meanwhile, the US has been “spectrum stuck” — unable to move rapidly to figure out how different RF user communities — including military and commercial satellite operators and US military radar systems — can share the limited resources. Low-band spectrum, which includes the 600 megahertz (MHz), 800 MHz, and 900 MHZ bands, can cover longer distances and penetrate through walls of buildings. Mid-band spectrum is in the 2.0 gighertz (GHz) 6 GHz range, works at a higher speed and in some instances provides higher fidelity. Indeed, the mid-band includes portions of the L-band spectrum, in the 1 GHz to 2 GHz range, at the heart of DoD's battle with the Federal Communications Commission over Ligado. L-band signals, used by GPS, are less likely to be degraded by clouds, fog and rain and can pass through heavy foliage. DoD, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Transportation — and a wide range of private sector companies ranging from satellite operators to truckers — are convinced that Ligado's planned network will jam GPS receivers.They are supported by a number of powerful members of Congress, including Inhofe and SASC Ranking Member Sen. Jack Reed, as well as the leadership of the House Armed Services Committee. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith and Ranking Member Mac Thornberry, together with 20 other members representing both political parties, weighed in last Thursday in a letter to the FCC Commissioners questioning the Ligado decision and expressing concern: “Section 1698 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 prevents the commission from approving commercial terrestrial operations in these bands until 90 days after the commission resolves concerns of widespread harmful interference by such operations to covered GPS devices. We are concerned that your approval of any mitigation efforts not rigorously tested and approved by national security technical experts may be inconsistent with the legislative direction to resolve concerns prior to permitting commercial terrestrial operations. We urge the commission to reconsider and impose additional mitigation steps to address the concerns of these users.” HASC intends to hold a classified hearing to focus on the issue, including both DoD and the FCC. However, the Trump administration is divided on the worthiness of Ligado's plan — with the spat pitting Esper and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao against Pompeo, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, and Attorney General William Barr. Kudlow, Pompeo and Barr, who all are close Trump political allies, have praised the FCC's decision to approve Ligado's network — along with many in the terrestrial wireless industry — as a move towards helping the US gain primary over China in the 5G race. And the need for the US to move out quickly to establish 5G networks figures prominently in Ligado's various FCC filings. In a marathon SASC hearing last Wednesday, DoD CIO Dana Deasy and Research and Engineering head Mike Griffin strongly pushed back against that assessment. Griffin told the SASC that “5G is about capacity, latency, and scale. The Ligado proposal has absolutely nothing to do with latency and scale, and its capacity is on the order of three-and-a-half percent of the total spectrum capacity. Ligado's existence, plus or minus, makes absolutely no difference to the involvement of the US in the so-called 5G race,” he said bluntly. Deasy chimed in to back up Griffin, telling the SASC that “Ligado does not provide a 5G solution.” He explained that “the band in which Ligado operates is not even part of the FCC's 5G FAST Plan, which is the commission's blueprint for advancing US interest in 5G. The non-continuous bands that Ligado could bring the market are both fragmented and impaired.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last April approved the FAST Plan — for “Facilitate America's Superiority in 5G Technology — to free up some designated low-band, mid-band, and high-band spectrum now assigned to other uses use by 5G networks, as well as some spectrum currently unlicensed. That effort, however, has been complicated by squabbling among various operator communities. Deasy stressed that DoD “clearly recognizes the huge value of 5G not only for commercial use, but across the US military as well.” And for that reason, he said, DoD not only has a plethora of 5G projects underway, but also has launched a pilot project on how best to share mid-band spectrum being used by DoD radar systems with commercial 5G networks. DoD is partnering on the pilot with the National Spectrum Consortium, he said, which involves government, industry and academia. “The geopolitical battle is standard setting,” Turner Lee summed up during the Brookings' webinar. “We need some coherency around what we're actually doing on the public policy front, and we need some more technical coordination ... so we could at least be at the stage where we're still on the field, versus sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out how to catch up.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/us-risks-losing-5g-standard-setting-battle-to-china-experts-say