August 19, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

Trio of prototyping contracts brings new approach for collecting military weather data

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force hopes its prototype low-Earth orbit weather satellites will entice commercial businesses and allied nations to partner up on the project, reducing the cost of delivering critical weather data to the war fighter.

The U.S. Air Force has been trying to replace the aging Defense Meteorological Satellite Program for years, ever since Congress opted to can it in 2015. Two capabilities in particular have proven a challenge for replacement: cloud characterization and theater weather imagery.

But now the Space Force thinks it has the answer. By leveraging the increasingly popular low-Earth orbit architecture demonstrated by SpaceX's Starlink constellation and other experiments, the military believes it can lower the cost of individual satellites, increase the resiliency of the systems and attract new partnerships.

In a recent interview with SpaceNews, Space and Missile Systems Center Portfolio Architect Col. Russell Teehan explained the thinking behind the new approach. The Air Force previously struggled to attract partners due to the sheer cost of the systems, he said. After all, when a single satellite costs more than $700 million, it's difficult to find someone to share the load. That price point forced the Air Force to build exquisite systems, comprised of just a handful of satellites operating in higher orbits. As the Pentagon has come to understand with its other exquisite systems, in wartime this leaves the military's space-based capabilities dependent on just a few satellites that are difficult to defend.

A proliferation low-Earth orbit, or P-LEO, constellation may solve both of those problems. Smaller LEO satellites can deliver the same capabilities at a fraction of the cost per satellite, while the sheer number of targets in the constellation means that the loss of a single satellite isn't crippling.

“The goal is in doing that, that ideally the commercial and allied sector would increase their desire to partner on those activities,” Treehan said. “[T]he activities in the past were generally $700 million-plus individual systems, which forced us into architectures that were [made up of less than five satellites] that were significantly vulnerable if we were in a time of conflict.”

The Space Force is targeting satellites in the $30-50 million range, Treehan added.

The Space Force has issued a trio of prototype contracts this summer for new space-based sensors that can collect cloud characterization and theater weather imagery from low Earth orbit. Raytheon Technologies, General Atomics and Astra are leading separate prototyping efforts after receiving contracts from the Space Enterprise Consortium.

The Space Force is asking for $131 million to continue these efforts in fiscal 2021.

The decision to settle on LEO for this critical weather data follows years of disarray as the Pentagon has worked to find a replacement for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, or DMSP. For decades, the military has relied almost entirely on that program for weather data. The first satellite was launched in the 1960s, with the constellation being replenished with updated generations of weather satellites over the years. Today, there are just four DMSP satellites in operation.

But no satellite is built to last forever, and there are no new DMSP satellites coming. As those satellites reach the end of their service life, they leave the two vital gaps of cloud characterization and theater weather imagery.

Foreseeing this problem, Congress in 2015 directed the Air Force to launch a new weather satellite program to replace DMSP. The Air Force began working on a new constellation to launch in 2024, but there was a problem: a four-year gap between the projected end of DMSP's service life in 2020 and the launch of the new satellites.

To fill that gap, the Air Force collaborated with NASA on ORS-8, a satellite to be launched just before DMSP expired. While a contract was awarded to Sierra Nevada Corp. to build that gap-filling satellite, it was protested, rescinded and ultimately canceled by the Air Force after the service determined DMSP's end-of-life date would extend beyond 2024.

In 2019, the Air Force proposed a new solution: a free-flying space vehicle that would operate in low Earth orbit. The Pentagon asked for $101 million to begin the effort in fiscal 2020, with plans to launch it in 2024.

But that plan didn't last the year.

In September, the Air Force told Congress it wanted to scrap the free-flying space vehicle in favor of a new approach. Based on a space-based environmental monitoring capability assessment and strategy review completed in April 2019, the Air Force found it best to switch to an LEO architecture for scalability and increased resilience. Though skeptical, Congress ultimately swapped the funding for the free-flyer space vehicle to the new program.

“Across the board in our weather strategies ... we're looking at multilayers of an architecture, how to most cost-effectively move forward in capability. They can be incrementally delivered over time. So that becomes a mix of large satellites that do missions and smaller satellites that we can launch in order to grow capability over time,” Col. Dennis Bythewood, program executive officer for space development at the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, said in September 2019. “We're finding much more capable sensors being delivered in small packages that we think we can grow mission sets over time. Those are the types of things that we are looking at within our strategy.”

https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/08/17/trio-of-prototyping-contracts-brings-new-approach-for-collecting-military-weather-data/

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August 14, 2019 | International, Aerospace

Is this the first step to military passenger drones?
By: Kelsey D. Atherton The “passenger drone” is a flying contradiction. It is an autonomous vehicle, with a human inside. Current language has yet to capture this disparity — the weird balance between terms indicating that no human, not even a pilot, is onboard, and the fact that this is a robot people step inside and which then transports them. Regardless of the terminology, the whole category of machine is fascinating: what could people do with autonomous robots they can ride? On Aug. 4, 2019, Japan's NEC Corp demonstrated its autonomous flying passenger vehicle. With three wheels and four rotors, the craft is informally dubbed a flying car, though like most autonomous flying passenger vehicles it most closely resembles an oversized quadcopter. Long promised by science fiction and technologists alike, flying cars have yet to become a part of daily life. Yet there's something compelling about the drive, and modern attempts can inform what this new avenue for mobility might actually look like. While the vehicles are primarily designed for urban and commercial markets, any advance in vertical mobility in that space is worth watching for military planners. Taking advantage of commercially driven developments could subsidize new military machines, and it's not inconceivable that, if the technology becomes as prevalent as its designers hope, we could see versions modified like Hi-Luxes to become improvised weapons of future urban warfare. The most significant development in modern car-sized flying autonomous vehicles is the use of rotors or ducted fans for vertical takeoff and landing. Winged cars, a few of which have been developed, are clunky beasts, awkward on roads and in the air alike. VTOL, though, allows a vehicle like this to operate from helipads or even smaller areas, and to land where people might actually want to go. Freed from the runways and hassles of an airport, VTOL taxis could, for a certain set of extraordinarily well-off commuter, bypass rush-hour traffic. It's a promise that has attracted investment and development from companies like Uber and Bell, as well as multiple others. While the promise of carrying a person remains the distant dream of such machines, the easier-to-realize more immediate reality will be cargo and logistics, with the possibility of maybe evacuating a human in a pinch. The chief advantage offered by the car-sized vehicles over jetpacks, hoverbikes, jet bikes and flying boards is the stability and interior offered by the larger size. The technologies that enable vehicles like this are largely the same ones that enable drones at smaller and larger scales. Remote direction, autonomous stabilization, powerful batteries, the ability to maneuver in vertical space and potentially operate in cities, all of this could create a vehicle that provides a capability the commanders of the 2030s, who grew up with drones, might want in a machine. There is still much work to be done to transform the prototypes from experiments to useful machines. That there are multiple companies on multiple continents pursuing it should be a promising sign for the industry as a whole, and for any military designers looking to piggyback on a drone-like flying car into a new urban battle machine. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2019/08/08/this-flying-taxi-drone-could-inspire-new-technicals/
April 1, 2024 | International, C4ISR

Indo-Pacific security hinges on cross-domain technology
Opinion: The Pentagon’s CJADC2 efforts are a signal to China, experts say, especially as China pursues its own version known as Multi-Domain Precision Warfare.
September 25, 2020 | International, C4ISR

How the Marines want to provide information on demand
Mark Pomerleau The Marine Corps wants to provide information on demand. However, sensing, harnessing and acting upon the vast amounts of data produced daily is an enormous challenge and now the Corps is turning to its 2019 blueprint for the information environment. “If you were building a house, you would never just hire plumbers, framers, roofers and say build me a house,” Jennifer Edgin, Assistant Deputy Commandant for Information, said Sept. 22 during a virtual panel as part of Modern Day Marine. Rather, she noted, most would start with the design of the house and how things connect. “That's how we began with our journey in the Marine Corps Information Environment Enterprise, by publishing a blueprint. That outlined our future state vision, our case for change and the major muscle movements that we were tackling with that,” she said. Published in March 2019 and classified as “controlled unclassified information,” the blueprint is a unified technical, physical and business model that documents the design of the Marine Corps Information Environment, Edgin told C4ISRNET in written responses to questions. It connects users with data to support a mission and codifies the policies, standards, services, infrastructure, technical design and architectural elements required to deliver capabilities to Marines. Extremely technical in nature, the blueprint is meant to guide the development and employment of capabilities needed and provides acquisition officers guidance and constraints while also conveying a common language. The first iteration covers five key areas to include digital transformation, governance, transitioning to the cloud, standardization and information dominance. “The future state of warfare requires the Marine Corps to think differently, encourage innovation, and embrace new business models for change that focus on enhancing the access, capabilities, and user experience throughout the Information Environment,” Edgin said. “This blueprint unites and aligns efforts to digitally equip Marines for the future ... The benefit of the blueprint is that it articulates information that cannot easily be visualized. For example, it is very easy to see physical assets like trucks or planes however, it is difficult to articulate information technology assets and visualize how they are employed.” Edgin noted yesterday that the Marine Corps Enterprise Network modernization plan followed the blueprint, taking the blueprint and breaking it down into action plans. Taken together, both documents are meant to guide a transformation the office of the Deputy Commandant for Information is seeking to realize, one that provides secure information on demand leveraging technologies such as cloud computing, resilient mesh networks and emerging technology such as machine learning. “Information doesn't have a geographic boundary,” she said, “you're seeing more of that cross functional team, cross functional approaches where we can really harness all of the best and brightest of authorities and ideas so that we can provide that information on demand.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2020/09/24/how-the-marines-want-to-provide-information-on-demand/

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Trio of prototyping contracts brings new approach for collecting military weather data

On the same subject

Indo-Pacific security hinges on cross-domain technology Opinion: The Pentagon’s CJADC2 efforts are a signal to China, experts say, especially as China pursues its own version known as Multi-Domain Precision Warfare.

Indo-Pacific security hinges on cross-domain technology
Opinion: The Pentagon’s CJADC2 efforts are a signal to China, experts say, especially as China pursues its own version known as Multi-Domain Precision Warfare.