The Army has outlined a technology wish list

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  June 19, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Indra moves forward as spain’s industrial coordinator and leader of the four key elements of the FCAS program

  Spain, June 16, 2020 - Indra, one of the world's leading global technology and consulting companies has made significant progress in its role as a national industrial coordinator in Spain and the leader of four of the eight core elements of the European Defence program NGWS / FCAS (Next Generation Weapon System / Future Combat Air System). Today, Indra signed the General Protocol that establishes the commitment given by Spanish companies to the Ministry of Defence in the program that will define the future of the Defence industry in Europe. The document sets out the responsibilities that the Ministry has assigned to each of these companies to provide Spain's Armed Forces with the required capabilities and at the same time to increase the sector's strategic autonomy. Ángel Olivares, Secretary of State, signed the agreement on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, while Ignacio Mataix, Managing Director for Transport and Defence signed on behalf of Indra. By signing this protocol, Indra strengthens its role as coordinator of Spanish industry within the program and as representative to the industrial coordinators appointed by France and Germany, Dassault and Airbus, respectively. In addition, this consolidates Indra's position as the Spanish leader of four of the eight core elements on which the program has been structured. The company leads the two main crossover elements (the system's Concept Study and the one related to coherence among other project elements), together with Dassault and Airbus. In addition, Indra is responsible for two of the technological elements: Sensors and the System of Systems, which involves the development efforts required to ensure that the different systems in each of the technological elements of the project can be managed as a whole, thus facilitating operations in Combat Cloud mode. Indra has made significant progress in its role as national coordinator and leader of four of the project's core elements. The company already signed an agreement with the coordinators from France (Dassault) and Germany (Airbus) to join the Joint Concept Study (JCS) that France and Germany started in February 2019. The contract that will make Indra a co-contractor together with Dassault and Airbus Germany is under final review, with the signing scheduled in the next few weeks. Since March this year, Indra has been negotiating its adherence to the ongoing contracts of Phase 1A Demonstrators, launched by France and Germany on February 20th, 2020 and related to the other program elements led by Indra. At that time, the Spanish Government signed a letter of intent to adhere to this new phase of the program and it is expected to be formalized at the end of July this year. In the meantime, the contractual amendments necessary for Spanish companies to join this Phase 1A will be made and expanded to other elements that were initially left out of the contract agreed by France and Germany; such as the Sensors element of the program. The signing of this Protocol with Spain's Ministry of Defence represents a new step forward in the implementation of the Spanish industrial strategy for the NGWS / FCAS program, the objective of which is to complete its incorporation as a full member on an equal footing with Germany and France. Indra's role as coordinator in the NGWS / FCAS program is intended to guarantee that Spanish industry reaches the maximum level of participation. Its development will generate significant know-how and added value for Spanish companies and will provide them with the opportunity to develop cutting-edge products, both in the Defence and Civil fields. Indra's appointment as the national industrial coordinator of the program ensures the maximum return of the program for Spanish industry and ownership of the technologies developed by its companies. Indra's commitment as the national coordinator in Spain is to ensure maximum return and for the NGWS/FCAS program to achieve the highest quality for Spanish industry as a whole (Defence and Civil). This all be achieved via business generation, development of its export capacity, creation of technologies that can also be used in the civil sphere and creation of high-value employment. Indra, as national coordinator, will represent the interests of Spanish industry as a whole, respecting the independence of the different companies involved in the project and strengthening its position in relation to companies from other participating nations. It is estimated that in the next decades the program will generate investments of billions of euros both in the development phase and later in the production phase. The first estimates indicate a potential economic value of the program of 300 billion euros in the next 40 years. About Indra Indra (www.indracompany.com) is one of the leading global technology and consulting companies and the technology partner for key business operations for clients worldwide. It is a leading global provider of proprietary solutions in specific segments of the Transport and Defence markets, and a leading company in digital transformation consulting and Information Technology in Spain and Latin America through its subsidiary Minsait. Its business model is based on a comprehensive range of proprietary products, with an end-to-end approach, high value and a high component of innovation. At the end of financial year 2019, Indra reported revenues of 3.204 billion euros, more than 49,000 employees, a local presence in 46 countries, and commercial operations in more than 140 countries. View source version on Indra: https://www.indracompany.com/en/noticia/indra-moves-forward-spains-industrial-coordinator-leader-four-key-elements-fcas-program

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  May 31, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Le Japon va acquérir 105 avions de combat américains F-35

  Le Japon va acheter 105 avions de combat américains F-35 supplémentaires, a annoncé lundi le président américain Donald Trump à l'issue d'un sommet avec le premier ministre japonais Shinzo Abe. « Les États-Unis soutiennent les efforts du Japon pour améliorer ses capacités de défense, et ces derniers mois nous leur avons envoyé une grande quantité d'équipements militaires », a déclaré M. Trump lors d'une conférence de presse, annonçant « l'intention du Japon d'acheter 105 F-35 neufs ». Le Japon, qui avait déjà annoncé fin 2011 l'achat de 42 F-35, est avec cette nouvelle commande le premier client international pour cet avion de combat de cinquième génération. En réalité, l'archipel s'était déjà engagé en décembre à cette acquisition, portant à 147 le nombre de ces chasseurs furtifs en sa possession, selon un communiqué du constructeur aéronautique américain Lockheed Martin publié à l'époque. Le gouvernement de Shinzo Abe, qui a annoncé en décembre un budget record pour la défense, a accru ses importations d'équipements militaires américains sous la pression de Donald Trump. Le but est de contrer la menace militaire de la Chine, mais aussi de réduire le déséquilibre commercial avec les États-Unis, régulièrement dénoncé par le président américain. Lancé au début des années 1990, le F-35 est produit par Lockheed Martin, et ses moteurs par un autre américain, Pratt et Whitney. Selon les derniers chiffres, 390 F-35 ont été livrés dans le monde. C'est le plus cher des programmes d'armement de l'histoire militaire américaine, avec un coût estimé au total à près de 400 milliards de dollars pour l'armée américaine, pour un objectif de près de 2500 appareils à produire dans les décennies à venir. https://www.lapresse.ca/affaires/201905/27/01-5227679-le-japon-va-acquerir-105-avions-de-combat-americains-f-35.php

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  January 14, 2021 | International, Land, C4ISR

  Army issues $17 million in contracts for TITAN development

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — The Army has issued agreements to Palantir Technologies and Raytheon Technologies in support of the design and software maturation of a new next-generation ground station. The Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) is intended to be a key piece in the sensor-to-shooter chain, connecting sensors from all domains to war fighters and systems in the field to enable beyond-line-of-sight targeting. The system will be capable of downlinking data from multiple domains, processing it with artificial intelligence to create targeting data, and then delivering those solutions directly to the Fires networks, which can then determine the best available shooter to respond with. Palantir and Raytheon will each receive an $8.5 million other transaction authority (OTA) agreements for 12 months of work in the project's first phase. That early stage will include a series of design reviews, software demonstrations and soldier touchpoints as the vendors mature the TITAN software and work on system-level design. The Army will eventually move to a single vendor for complete system prototyping for phase 2. The next stage will cover refinement of prototype capabilities, and the fourth and final phase will prepare a prototype that is ready to integrate future sensors and technology advancements. The Army has been practicing with TITAN surrogates, most notably during its Project Convergence learning campaign last year. During that event, the Army was able to take overhead tactical satellite imagery and downlink it to a TITAN surrogate located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. The TITAN surrogate then used the Prometheus artificial intelligence program to create targeting solutions from that data. Next, those solutions were transported to the main demonstration area at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where another AI program determined the best shooter to receive that targeting solution. “We found the threat rapidly. We were able to identify it as the real threat. We were able to put hit-grade coordinates on it in very near real time and then digitally send that from the TITAN surrogate unit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, down to the firing units that were located down at Yuma via tactical satellite communications. And all of that happened within seconds,” Willie Nelson, director of Army Futures Command's Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing Cross-Functional Team, told C4ISRNET following the exercise. Northrop Grumman has been tapped to build two TITAN prototypes. Those are expected to be delivered in 2022. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/01/13/army-issues-17-million-in-contracts-for-titan-development/