SAIC awarded $757M U.S Army contract for software management services

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  January 10, 2019 | International, Land, C4ISR

  The Army and Marine Corps are looking at what troops will need to fight in megacities, underground

  By: Todd South A recent Army and Marine war game that included engineers, academics and other defense representatives evaluated how troops could use experimental technologies to fight in dense urban areas and underground. The U.S. Army Subterranean and Dense Urban Environment Materiel Developer Community of Practice is a working group that has conducted three prior workshops that set the challenges of fighting in those environments. “Fighting in dense urban environments and the unique challenges it presents is still not totally understood, and this study was the front-end look at identifying and defining those materiel challenges to drive where investments need to be for this operational environment,” said Bob Hesse, technical lead coordinator for the Community of Practice. The most recent “tabletop” exercise looked at the gear troops might need to get through those intense battle scenarios, according to an Army release. Soldiers and Marines worked as friendly and enemy forces during the exercise, evaluating 48 experimental future technologies. One such piece of tech would be using sensors that attach to the exterior building wall to help troops visualize the interior layout. And every advantage in these terrains can help. “Everything that Marine formations or Army formations have to do is more difficult when you take it into an urban environment,” explained Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Christian Wortman, commanding general of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and vice chief of Naval Research. The Marines recently launched Project Metropolis II, a five-year effort to better prepare Marines for likely future urban battles. “Across the warfighting functions — whether it's intelligence, surveillance or reconnaissance, collections, maneuver, force protection, command and control, logistics and sustainment — all of those things are complicated and challenged by the compartmentalized terrain that's present in the urban environment and the three-dimensional nature of the urban environment,” Wortman said. And that multi-dimension challenge grows with the subterranean. For both above ground and underground, robotics will play a major role. The Squad X project by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for example, is blending robots into dismounted formations. Soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division and 101st Airborne Division along with Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are experimenting with four submissions for the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport gear mule that will carry fuel, water, ammunition and equipment for a squad through rough terrain over 60 miles on a 72-hour mission. Lt. Col. Calvin Kroeger, battalion commander for the 35th Engineering Battalion, ran one of the blue teams during the tabletop exercise. Participants ran scenarios such as a high-intensity fight, a traditional counter-insurgency and a security force-assisted mission, all under the conditions of a megacity. But the wargaming went beyond simply clearing buildings and attacking objectives. Teams countered enemy social media campaigns, communicated underground, and assessed the second- and third-order effects of engaging the enemy with lethal munitions, which could impact local power, gas and water networks. “How we employ our capabilities changes as you move from a high-rise platform to urban cannons,” Kroeger explained. “But you're also looking at everything under the ground as well, where you can't use a conventional means like a mortar system to shape the battlefield, so that the enemy doesn't shape it for you.” As team members fix on what materiel needs might best serve troops, Hesse said the subject matter experts will assess how well the tech will meet military goals. For example, if there is an aerial technology that might help troops locate enemy forces, even though the troops can't see them because of the skyline, his team would then analyze that technology and determine how well it meets Army standards and if it needs to be modified. “We will now transition from the workshop learning to live experiments and replicate the unique conditions in real venues. We're taking the materiel campaign of learning and now transforming that into action,” Hesse said. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/01/09/the-army-and-marine-corps-are-looking-at-what-troops-will-need-to-fight-in-megacities-underground/

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  January 17, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Space-based interceptors and drones with lasers: the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Review wish-list revealed

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The long-delayed Missile Defense Review, which will be formally introduced by President Donald Trump at the Pentagon Thursday, will call for research and investments to ensure America's security for the next several decades: laser technology, the F-35 as an ICBM killer, and potentially putting interceptors in space. Trump will roll out the report at 11 a.m. Thursday as part of his third visit to the Pentagon since taking office. Expected to attend the rollout is a who's who of national security officials, including vice president Mike Pence, national security adviser John Bolton; Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan; Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson; Army Secretary Mark Esper; Pentagon policy head John Rood; Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord; Pentagon technology head Mike Griffin; and Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, a leading advocate for missile defense. A senior administration official, speaking to reporters ahead of the report's release, confirmed a number of new technologies that Defense News has learned are highlighted in the report. The official told reporters that overall, the review looks at “the comprehensive environment the United States faces, and our allies and partners face. It does posture forces to be prepared for capabilities that currently exist and that we anticipate in the future.” It's been a long road for the MDR to finally emerge. Pentagon officials originally said the document would be released in late 2017 — then February, then mid-May and then late in the summer. In September, Rood, who as undersecretary of defense for policy is the point man for the MDR, indicated the report could come out in a matter of weeks. And in October, Shanahan, then the deputy secretary of defense, said the document had been done “for some time.” There is also widespread speculation in the missile defense community that the review has been delayed, at least in part, because of the warmed relations between the Trump administration and North Korea. Notably, the mid-May time frame for release, which was floated by Shanahan in April, lined up President Donald Trump's planned meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. While that meeting was canceled and then eventually happened in June, there was a sense the Pentagon did not want to do anything that could jeopardize those talks, such as releasing a report discussing how the U.S. could counter North Korean capabilities. Ironically, Trump will be rolling the report out just hours before a high-level North Korean delegation is expected to arrive in Washington for talks with the administration. However, Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korean expert with Tufts University‘s Fletcher School, doesn't expect that to impact any negotiations. “North Korea has the upper hand and is playing hard to get,” Lee said, and so won't make a big deal out of the MDR's statements on North Korea. “Their propaganda machinery at home may issue a statement a couple of days later, but [lead North Korean official Kim Yong Chol] would be foolish to address it while he's in D.C," he added. Technological changes Much of the technology discussed in the MDR will require many years of development, and in some cases will never come to fruition. But the following points give a good sense of the let's-try-everything approach the Pentagon is putting forth with the report: Turn the SM-3 and F-35 into ICBM killers: The SM-3 Block IIA ship-launched interceptor is designed for dealing with regional threats. But the Pentagon intends to test the weapon as a counter-ICBM system in 2020, as part of a goal of creating an extra layer of protection for the homeland. In essence, the department wants to offer as many options as possible, scattered around the globe, for making sure nothing gets through the safety net. The department has previously said the F-35 could be used in some capacity for missile defense, but the MDR calls for the testing and development of a new or modified interceptor which could shoot down a ballistic missile in the boost phase; expect early R&D funding for such a weapon to be in the FY20 budget request. There is also the possibility of using the F-35, equipped with its array of sensors, to hunt and track mobile missile units, which is a key part of North Korea's doctrine. Lasers on drones: The idea of using directed energy weapons, more commonly known as lasers, to take out a missile in the boost phase is not new, but it has received a boost in the past year in comments from technological leaders inside the building. In theory, putting a drone equipped with a laser high in the air at around 60,000 feet would keep it safe from any missile defense systems, while providing overwatch on potential launch sites. However, this idea feels more far-flung than others, in part because both the scaled up laser that would be needed for such capabilities has yet to be invented, let alone paired with a system that would be able to stay that high for long periods of time. In the meantime, DoD is developing a low-power laser demonstrator to evaluate and test what technologies would be needed to make such a system a reality, despite the fact that airborne laser weapons are perhaps the hardest directed energy system to develop. Space-based sensors: In the FY19 defense authorization bill, Congress required the missile defense agency to fully study and prototype ways to increase the space-based sensor layer. It's been another focus area for Griffin during his time in the Pentagon. “A space-based layer of sensors is something we are looking at to help give early warning, tracking and discrimination of missiles when they are launched,” the administration official said. “We see space as an area that's very important as far as advanced, next-level capabilities that will help us stay ahead of the threat.” Just what that layer looks like, however, remains to be seen. Expect some form of disaggregated architecture, relying on many smaller systems rather than the expensive, highly-capable systems that the U.S. has traditionally relied upon. Hosting sensor payloads on commercial satellites could also be in play. The hope is to demo some form of space-based sensor layer by early in the 2020s. Space-based interceptors: Perhaps the most controversial of the ideas being considered in the document comes from the idea of having interceptors placed in orbit to take out ballistic missiles. Picture a satellite equipped with 10 rockets that, when triggered by the sensor net, can target and launch against an incoming missile. The MDR does not call for investment in space-based interceptors at this point. Instead, the department will launch a study, lasting perhaps six months, to look into the most promising technologies and come up with estimates for cost and time; after the study is done, the department will look to move forward if it makes sense. But don't expect lasers in space anytime soon, with the administration official saying nothing has been determined, only that “we're going to study it and we'll see whether or not it's feasible.” Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2019/01/17/space-based-interceptors-and-drones-with-lasers-the-pentagons-missile-defense-review-wish-list-revealed

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  February 9, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  Design Gets Underway on DARPA’s ‘LongShot’ Drone

  Feb. 8, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen Development of a new breed of unmanned aircraft is now underway, as three major defense companies earned contracts to start designing a future system known as “LongShot.” The LongShot program wants to create an unmanned weapons porter that can be shot from another plane before firing multiple air-to-air missiles itself, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which runs the effort. DARPA announced Feb. 8 it has funded General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to start design work in the project's first phase, but did not disclose how much money is part of those contracts. “The objective is to develop a novel [unmanned air vehicle] that can significantly extend engagement ranges, increase mission effectiveness, and reduce the risk to manned aircraft,” DARPA said in a release. “It is envisioned that LongShot will increase the survivability of manned platforms by allowing them to be at standoff ranges far away from enemy threats, while an air-launched LongShot UAV efficiently closes the gap to take more effective missile shots.” The project first appeared in DARPA's fiscal 2021 budget request as a prospective addition to the Air Force and Navy's inventories. The budget called for a plane that uses “multi-mode propulsion” to tackle multiple airborne threats at once, Air Force Magazine previously reported. The program called for $22 million in its first year. “LongShot will explore new engagement concepts for multi-modal, multi-kill systems that can engage more than one target,” DARPA wrote. “LongShot can be deployed either externally from existing fighters or internally from existing bombers.” Last year, the research agency suggested the aircraft could fly slowly toward its target at first to save fuel, then speed up once it gets close. “This approach provides several key benefits,” DARPA said. “First, the weapon system will have a much-increased range over their legacy counterparts for transit to an engagement zone. Second, launching air-to-air missiles closer to the adversary increases energy in terminal flight, reduces reaction time, and increases probability of kill.” The Pentagon hasn't said what weapons LongShot would carry, or how autonomous its software might be. On paper, LongShot appears similar to other efforts like the Air Force's previous Gray Wolf missile program, which looked to create a munition that could carry other weapons inside. That was discontinued in favor of the service's Golden Horde swarming bomb project. Later in the LongShot program, DARPA said, the companies will fly a full-scale prototype that is “capable of controlled flight before, during, and after” it is fired. The agency did not immediately answer how long the initial design phase will last. The fiscal 2021 budget also called for a new program entitled “Gunslinger,” a new air-launched missile armed with a gun that would be designed for Air Force and Navy missions. But that appears to have a murkier future than the LongShot. “The Gunslinger program has yet to formally launch and, at this time, we have no information on when that may happen,” DARPA spokesman Jared Adams said in December. https://www.airforcemag.com/design-gets-underway-on-darpas-longshot-drone/