Taiwan F-16 upgrade aims for 2023 completion

On the same subject

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  August 12, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Pentagon requests 30-day extension for re-awarding JEDI

  Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense has requested 30 extra days to review vendor proposals as it prepares to make another award decision for its massive enterprise cloud contract, according to a Monday night court filing. The DoD is currently reviewing new revised proposals for its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, which it awarded to Microsoft over Amazon Web Services in October last year. In the filing, the DoD said that it “recently identified the need to reopen limited discussions related to certain aspects of the offerors' pricing proposals.” The request, made in the Court of Federal Claims, is yet another delay for the controversial JEDI cloud. The department was supposed to re-award the contract by Aug. 17 after receiving a 120-day stay to take corrective action on the contract. It's now asking to delay that decision to Sept. 16. “During the remand, DoD has identified areas of concern with respect to the revised proposals received from both offerors, resulting in multiple solicitation amendments, rounds of proposal revisions, and exchanges with the offerors,” the court filing said. AWS, which filed the protest late last year in the Court of Federal Claims after losing the contract, argues that the department made several technical errors while evaluating its proposal and also accuses President Donald Trump of political interference in the contract. AWS does not oppose the Pentagon's new motion, the court document said. In late July, DoD CIO Dana Deasy told reporters that the DoD would “probably sometimes towards the very end of August, barring any last minute, unforeseen additional issues that are raised.” The court filing says that the department “anticipates” that the re-evaluation process will wrap up in early September. The JEDI cloud has been delayed continuously throughout the entirety of the procurement process. Last year, the initial award decision was delayed for months due to a pre-award protest by Oracle. Earlier this year work on JEDI was further delayed when the court placed a temporary restraining order on any work on the JEDI cloud, finding that AWS was “likely to succeed” in proving DoD erred in the evaluation process. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/08/11/pentagon-requests-30-day-extension-for-re-awarding-jedi/

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  January 10, 2024 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  From drones to sonobuoys, AUKUS partners betting on AI

  The U.S. Department of Defense requested $1.8 billion for artificial intelligence in fiscal 2024.

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  May 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Three European air forces approve performance benchmarks for next-gen fighter jet

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The air forces of Germany, France and Spain have agreed on a set of performance benchmarks to help their governments guide the development of a next-generation fighter jet set to fly in 2040, the German military announced Tuesday in a statement. The document, approved earlier this month, is meant to help officials identify what features from a collection of 10 possible system architectures are worth keeping when the time comes to settle on a path forward for the Next-Generation Weapon System, or NGWS. That system, with the manned next-gen fighter at its heart, is slated to become the central element of the Future Combat Air System, or FCAS, the most ambitious and expensive weapons program in mainland Europe. As envisioned, a small fleet of attack and surveillance drones, or “remote carriers,” would accompany each jet, and all elements would be interlinked by an artificial intelligence-powered “combat cloud,” according to a project description. The 10 different system architectures for NGWS currently in the mix lean in different directions — for example, when it comes to armaments, maneuverability and range of the main jet and its companion drones, the German Bundeswehr statement explained. The three air force top officials — Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz of Germany, Gen. Philippe Lavigne of France and Javier Fernandez of Spain — also agreed on a “Common Understanding Connectivity,” a guide for connecting national systems into the future FCAS scenario. The document will enable the program's partner nations to “synchronize” their respective development programs, according to the German statement. The industry leads for the Future Combat Air System program, Airbus of Germany and Dassault of France, unveiled a mock-up of the future fighter jet at the Paris Air Show last year. The plan is to begin testing a prototype in 2026. Earlier this year, France and Germany formally kicked off the next phase of the overall program, with each government contributing $85 million toward the development of technology demonstrators. German lawmakers, who fear an overtly strong French industry influence in the FCAS program, have linked the project to progress on the Main Ground Combat System, another highly visible bilateral program aimed at building a common battle tank. France has the lead on the next-generation fighter, while Germany leads the tank project. The German parliament's strategy of keeping a close watch on the aerial program by approving only relatively small tranches of money has Dassault CEO Eric Trappier worried about the ability to hit deadlines, French newspaper La Tribune reported last week. Speaking before a French Senate committee in mid-May, Trappier proposed a Franco-German programming law to ensure a more rapid development pace, according to the newspaper. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/05/26/three-european-air-forces-approve-performance-benchmarks-for-next-gen-fighter-jet/