April 5, 2018 | International, Aerospace

Switzerland names contenders in $8 billion ‘Air 2030’ program

COLOGNE, Germany — Swiss officials have unveiled details of their envisioned reboot of the country's air-defense complex, setting the stage for purchases of aircraft and ground-based missiles totaling more than $8 billion.

The head of Switzerland's defense and civilian protection department, Guy Parmelin, on Friday unveiled a list of requirements for the “Air 2030” program that the neutral country wants to begin fulfilling in the mid-2020s to defend its skies and repel intruders.

The existing fleet of decades-old F/A-18 and F-5 jets is considered too outdated for the task.

New aircraft under consideration include the Airbus Eurofighter, Dassault's Rafale, Saab's Gripen, the F/A-18 Super Hornet from Boeing and Lockheed Martin's F-35A, according to the March 23 list of requirements published by the defense department.

Ground-based weapons on the short list are the Eurosam consortium's SAMP/T system; the David's Sling missile shield from Israel; and Raytheon's Patriot system. Swiss officials want to protect an area of 15,000 square kilometers with ground-based weapons, which is more than one-third of the country. They also seek to intercept targets up to 12 kilometers high and 50 kilometers away.

The envisioned concept of operations dictates that a fleet of roughly 40 aircraft will intercept those targets outside of the ground weapons' range. Officials want enough capacity to have four planes in the air at any given time during crises.

Request for proposals for an acquisition program are expected to be published in the summer, Renato Kalbermatten, a spokesman for the defense department, told Defense News in an email Tuesday.

Before a referendum is held about the project in the first half of 2020, ministry officials want to finish qualification of all potential vendors. That includes studying the data from a first round of proposals and collecting final offers from those still in the running at that time, according to Kalbermatten.

Referendums are a key tool of the Swiss political process. Asked by a Swiss news agency this month if the country would still have an air force if the population voted against spending money on Air 2030, Parmelin responded dryly: “That's policymaking in Switzerland.”

The Swiss won't be asked which type of aircraft the country should buy, only about the program as a whole. Government analysts would then decide which system is best suited for the task, Parmelin said.

A 2014 plebiscite saw the acquisition of Sweden's Gripen defeated, a rare outcome for a referendum on security policy matters, Swiss national broadcaster SRF commented at the time.

Notably, Germany's future TLVS air and missile defense system, a development based on the trinational Medium Extended Air Defense System, is missing from the lineup of candidate ground-based weapons. That is because the Swiss consider that system suitable only for short and medium ranges, according to Kalbermatten.

“As Switzerland has not had a defense system for long ranges since 1999, the first goal is buying a long-range system,” he wrote.

Exactly how much money will go to aircraft purchases and how much to ground weapons will depend on the interplay between the two program components ultimately picked, according to officials. However, previous estimates assume that $6 billion or $7 billion would be spent on planes.

Winning bidders must agree to arrange for 100 percent of the program cost to flow back into the Swiss economy through so-called offset agreements. Those can be negotiated after final contracts are signed, according to the defense department.

The government is looking for aircraft and missile hardware as is, meaning few to no “Helvetizations,” or Swiss-specific tweaks, would be made to the weapons, the new requirements document states. The ministry wants to purchase a single plane type under a “one-fleet policy.”

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/03/27/switzerland-names-contenders-in-8-billion-air-2030-program/

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July 6, 2020 | International, C4ISR

Kratos Receives $30 Million in C5ISR Contract Awards
San Diego, July 2, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS), a leading National Security Solutions provider, announced today that it has recently received approximately $30 million in contract awards for Command, Control, Computing, Communication, Combat, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Systems, focused primarily on missile defense related combat systems. Kratos is an industry leader in the rapid development, demonstration and fielding of affordable leading technology products and solutions in support of the United States and its allies' national security missions. Kratos C5ISR Modular Systems Business is an industry leader in manufacturing, producing and delivering C5ISR Systems for Missile, Radar, High Power Directed Energy, Ballistic Missile Defense, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Chemical, Biological, Radiation, Nuclear and High Explosive (CBRNE) and other programs and applications. Work under these recent program awards will be performed at secure Kratos manufacturing and production facilities. The majority of the performance under these contract awards will be completed over the next 24 months. Due to customer, competitive and other considerations, no additional information will be provided related to these U.S. National Security related program awards. Tom Mills, President of Kratos C5ISR Business, said, “These recent contract awards to support critical national security related systems and programs are representative of the confidence of Kratos' customers in our ability to meet their mission critical needs and requirements, on schedule and on budget. Our entire organization is proud to support the Department of Defense, other customers, government agencies and the warfighter in the execution of their mission.” Eric DeMarco, President and CEO of Kratos Defense, said, “We believe that these recent contract awards are representative of Kratos' positioning as a disruptive leading technology systems, products and intellectual property company, including our focus on unmanned jet drones, space and satellite communications, microwave electronics, next generation jet engines for tactical systems, missile defense and hypersonic vehicles. At Kratos, affordability is a technology, and we are executing on our plan to be an alternative provider to our DoD and National Security customer base in our key focus areas.” About Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:KTOS) develops and fields transformative, affordable technology, platforms and systems for United States National Security related customers, allies and commercial enterprises. Kratos is changing the way breakthrough technology for these industries are rapidly brought to market through proven commercial and venture capital backed approaches, including proactive research and streamlined development processes. Kratos specializes in unmanned systems, satellite communications, cyber security/warfare, microwave electronics, missile defense, hypersonic systems, training and combat systems, and next-generation turbojet and turbo-fan engine development. For more information, go to www.KratosDefense.com Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are made on the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of the management of Kratos and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Kratos undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although Kratos believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements involve many risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from what may be expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. For a further discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of Kratos in general, see the risk disclosures in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Kratos for the year ended December 29, 2019, and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings made with the SEC by Kratos. Press Contact: Yolanda White 858-812-7302 Direct Investor Information: 877-934-4687 investor@kratosdefense.com View source version on Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc.: https://ir.kratosdefense.com/news-releases/news-release-details/kratos-receives-30-million-c5isr-contract-awards
May 31, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

Eyeing China, Biden defense budget boosts research and cuts procurement
U.S. President Joe Biden’s first budget request for the Department of Defense slashes procurement by $8 billion, whacking scores of legacy weapons and systems as a way to deliver a $5.5 billion boost for the development and testing of cutting-edge technologies that could deter China.
October 2, 2020 | International, C4ISR

Pentagon’s CIO shop teams with armed services to prep for move to JEDI cloud
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's top IT official said Wednesday that his office has spent the last few months preparing the armed services to migrate to the department's long-delayed enterprise cloud as soon as it becomes available. “We're doing a lot of work with the services on getting them prepared to move their [software] development processes and cycles to DevOps so when the [Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure] cloud finally does get awarded, we're not starting at Day One,” Dana Deasy, Pentagon chief information officer, said during a Defense Writers Group roundtable. The JEDI cloud contract was originally awarded to Microsoft over Amazon Web Services 11 months ago, and then was halted by a federal judge in February. Though the court case remains unresolved, Deasy said the services must now identify tools, integration environments and directories that need set up to connect users into the cloud when it's available. Despite the judge's decision, “that's all work that we can do because it sits inside our ownership all ready,” Deasy said. While the Department of Defense has faced criticism for its single-award structure, particularly as cloud technologies have advanced during the yearslong delay, Deasy insisted the JEDI cloud still fills a critical capability gap the department needs to deliver to the war fighter: data at the tactical edge and DevOps. The JEDI cloud is the platform the department still envisions for those needs and is an important piece of the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, an initiative through which the services want to connect sensors and shooters. Deasy said the DoD has solutions in place to form that connection, but still needs “that tactical cloud out at the tactical edge.” “JADC2 is going to point out, time and time again, about the need of being able to swiftly bring data together. And guess what? That data is going to be of different classifications, and bringing that together in a cross-domain way in a very quick-to-need [way] is something that is still a need we have across the Department of Defense that JEDI was specifically designed to solve for,” Deasy said. Cloud, data and artificial intelligence are core elements to enabling JADC2. Using data for joint war fighting is the top priority of the department's forthcoming data strategy, which Deasy said he expects will be released in the next 30 days. The department has a lot of data, but it is not necessarily prepared or stored in a way that is ready to be used for any sort of operations. The data strategy is expected to outline how to approach those challenges. The DoD's new chief data officer, Dave Spirk, will finalize the data strategy. After he started in June, Spirk went on a “listening tour” across the department to inform the strategy. Deasy said Spirk was told by many components that the department needs to set goals to ensure data is visible, understandable and trustworthy, while also easily within classification levels. They also said the data needs to be interoperable and secure, while also linked and integrated between sensors and shooters. The Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, the department's AI hub that's situated under Deasy's office, is tackling joint war fighting this year under a new project that uses AI to link intelligence gathering systems to operations and effects systems for commanders. The JAIC recently awarded its Joint Common Foundation contract to Deloitte. The company is to provide an environment for an enterprisewide AI development platform. That platform, which uses the Air Force's Cloud One enterprise cloud, was originally supposed to operate inside the JEDI cloud. Therein lies the challenge for the DoD: Components that have been waiting for the JEDI cloud have had to look elsewhere — a problem Deasy recognizes he'll have to grapple with. Right now, Deasy is encouraging components that are waiting for JEDI but have an “urgent war-fighting need” to look elsewhere for platforms. “That is obviously OK in the short term, but over time that starts to become problematic because now you're starting to set up a lot of different solutions in different environments where you're going to have to go back and sort out in an enterprise way,” Deasy said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/09/30/pentagons-cio-shop-teams-with-armed-services-to-prep-for-move-to-jedi-cloud/

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