July 4, 2024 | International, Security
Microsoft Uncovers Critical Flaws in Rockwell Automation PanelView Plus
Microsoft reveals critical security flaws in Rockwell Automation devices, allowing remote code execution and DoS attacks.
January 11, 2019 | International, Aerospace
UK Defence Secretary sets sights on next century of British air power
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson sets sights on next century of British air power as major fighter jet milestones are reached
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has today revealed that Britain's combat air power has reached new heights whilst speaking in a brand-new hangar displaying one-hundred years of fighter jets.
Speaking at RAF Marham, the Defence Secretary announced the UK now has nine F-35 Lightning jets ready to be deployed on operations around the world.
The F-35 Lightnings will form the backbone of the UK's combat air fleet alongside the Typhoon jets, which the Defence Secretary also announced have now been fitted with a state-of-the-art complex weapons suite to vastly increase its capability.
Under ‘Project Centurion', worth £425m over the past three years, the Typhoon now has deep strike cruise missile Storm Shadow, air-to-air missile Meteor and the precision attack missile Brimstone at their disposal.
It means the jets have boosted capabilities to intercept airborne missiles and strike ground based targets, seamlessly taking over from the Tornado's attack role as it nears retirement.
Completed on-time and to budget, the upgrades transform the fleet into a world-leading multi-role combat air platform for decades to come.
Military engineers and personnel have worked together with hundreds of UK workers from British defence firms including BAE Systems, MBDA and Leonardo to reach the milestone.
The Defence Secretary made the announcement in front of four different aircraft, in a brand-new maintenance hangar at RAF Marham, which he opened today along with a state-of-the-art new training centre.
These facilities, along with resurfaced runways and new landing pads to accommodate the jet's ability to land vertically, are a key part of the £550m being invested in the Norfolk base.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said:
As we bid farewell to the RAF's first century, we are setting our sights on the next 100 years. Our nation is moving into a new era outside the EU, and our huge achievements in air capability make our commitment to a role on the world stage clear to both our allies and our enemies.
The incredible F-35 jets are ready for operations, a transformed Typhoon has the power to dominate the skies into the 2040s and we continue to look even further into an ambitious future. The RAF has long shown Britain at its great and global best, and today it lifts our nation to even greater heights.
The year ahead will see the F-35 Lightning pilots and ground crew continue learning how to operate and maintain the jets in the new centre, which features state-of-the-art simulators, classrooms, and physical aircraft mock-ups.
The facility provides a real-life training environment replicating the challenges that both pilots and crew will face in supporting and operating the F-35 Lightning.
Pilots from 617 Squadron, who are already based at RAF Marham, will practice flying the next generation aircraft from four full mission simulators.
Having the F-35s ready for operations on time is a huge landmark in what is the biggest defence project in history, which the UK has been a leading partner in for almost 25 years.
Around 150 UK personnel had been working with the jets in the US before the first batch of aircraft came to the UK last summer.
Not only does the programme offer the UK a game-changing military capability, but with British industry manufacturing 15% of a global orderbook of over 3,000 jets, it supports around 25,000 UK jobs and is projected to be worth around £35bn to the national economy.
The Defence Secretary made the announcement in front of four aircraft, which represent the past and future of British fighter jets.
They included the Tornado, which has been in-service since 1979, making its combat debut in the 1991 Gulf War, and which will be retired later this year.
Its unique capabilities have now been transferred to the Typhoon.
In addition to the Typhoon and F-35, the Tempest concept fighter jet model was also on show.
The model, which represents an example of what the UK's future capability might look like, was unveiled last Summer at Farnborough International Air Show, when the Defence Secretary launched the nation's Combat Air Strategy to ensure the UK remains a world-leader in the sector for years to come.
The aim is then for a next-generation capability to have initial operational capability by 2035.
Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier said:
I am proud to confirm that the RAF's Combat Air capability has taken yet another significant step towards the realisation of our Next Generation Air Force. With its cutting-edge stealth technology, our F-35s are now ready to deploy on operations and, alongside our combat-proven Typhoon, offer a step-change in our ability to employ air power around the world.
Furthermore, the successful integration of Stormshadow, Brimstone and Meteor on Typhoon completes and enhances the transition of world-class capabilities from Tornado and allows a stalwart of the RAF's Combat Air inventory to retire from service.
The successful attainment of these milestones and the potential offered by Project TEMPEST will continue to assure the RAF's ability to protect the nation, defend the United Kingdom's interests and support the national prosperity agenda now and well into the future.
The RAF has already trialled its Typhoon and F-35 Forces' interoperability.
In a series of operational trials, the evidence clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of both platforms when operating alongside one another.
With its larger payload and increased agility and range, the Typhoon will operate in concert with the stealthy F-35 and its next-generation sensors, making the RAF one of the few air forces with the ability to exploit the synergy of 4th and 5th generation combat aircraft and delivering the UK a potent force equipped to counter evolving threats in the global environment.
The UK is a world-leader in the combat air sector, which supports over 18,000 highly skilled jobs with a mix of skills and technologies unique in Europe.
The sector delivers a turnover in excess of £6bn a year and has made up over 80% of defence exports from the UK over the last ten years.
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June 22, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR
U.S. Hypersonic Defense Plan Emerges, But Not Cash
Steve Trimble A U.S. hypersonic defense system has evolved from wide-open concept studies two years ago into a densely layered architecture populated by requirements for a new generation of space-based sensors and ground-based interceptors. Over the next two years, the first elements of the Defense Department's newly defined hypersonic defense architecture could advance into operational reality if all the pieces can overcome various challenges, including the Pentagon's so far ambiguous commitment to long-term funding. Space-based hypersonic tracking is possible in 2023 New sea-based interceptor will possibly be ready by mid-2020s Pentagon seeks Congressional add-ons to finance plan The Space Development Agency (SDA), with assistance from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), next year will start launching satellites into orbit with new forms of tracking technology optimized to perform the challenging task of remotely targeting hypersonic missiles as they maneuver in the atmosphere hundreds of miles below. At the same time, the MDA and DARPA will soon begin demonstrating a new class of kinetic and nonkinetic interceptor technologies. In addition to solving the guidance and thermal challenges posed by hypersonic flight, this new class of missile defense weapons must be guidable by satellites potentially perched far over the horizon, not by sensors integrally linked on the ground to their launching systems. Pentagon officials began conceiving a hypersonic defense architecture a year after launching multiple offensive weapons programs in 2017, seeking to close gaps in the ballistic defense system that missiles now fielded by adversaries are designed to exploit. With the ability to maneuver hundreds of miles off a ballistic trajectory, hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and cruise missiles are designed to evade the MDA's network of stationary ground-based and slow-moving sea-based radars dotted around the globe. By gliding or powering through the atmosphere against the warm background of Earth, the same missiles appear 10-15 times less luminous during the midcourse phase than the boost-phase, exoatmospheric objects that the MDA designed the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites to detect, according to Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Closing those gaps will require serious investment. Despite plans to infuse more than $10 billion to field at least three different rocket-boosted HGVs by 2025 as offensive weapons, the Pentagon's financial commitment to field a defensive capability is not as clear. The MDA, for example, submitted a fiscal 2020 budget request in February 2019 that included around $157 million in hypersonic defense. A month later, the agency submitted an unfunded-priorities list to Congress, asking for another $720 million for hypersonic interceptors and tracking sensors. Congress met the MDA more than halfway, adding $400 million to the final appropriations bill. A similar shortfall then appeared in the MDA's fiscal 2021 budget request. The agency included $207 million for hypersonic defense but asked Congress to chip in another $224 million on top of the budgeted amount, according to a March report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) Missile Defense Project. Moreover, the Defense Department's long-range forecast for hypersonic defense spending shows an ambiguous commitment at best. The MDA plans to launch a competition to select a Regional Glide-Phase Weapon System (RGPWS) in fiscal 2021 but only if Congress approves the additional $224 million identified in the unfunded priorities list. At the same time, the new SDA plans to start demonstrating MDA's Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking and Surveillance System (HBTSS) alongside the SDA's own tracking layer in orbit. But the unclassified version of the Future Years Defense Program, which details the Defense Department's five-year spending forecast, shows declining support for hypersonic defense after next year. If Congress approves the extra $224 million for MDA, hypersonic defense spending would peak at around $450 million next year, then average about $112 million annually from fiscal 2022 to 2025, according to the CSIS data. The implication seems clear: Despite the MDA's public commitment to a hypersonic defense system, the agency prefers to finance the development mainly by annual congressional add-ons. Although the MDA's long-term funding plan for hypersonic defense is limited, the potential threats are no longer speculative. In December, the Russian government announced it had achieved operational status for the Avangard, a nuclear-tipped HGV launched by a modernized SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile. Two months earlier, Gen. Paul Selva, then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained the implications of an adversary with a nuclear-armed HGV: Imagine if NATO attempted to blunt a move by Moscow to occupy a Baltic state, and Russian strategic forces responded by threatening to launch an Avangard missile. The now-retired general warned that a single Avangard could arc over the Arctic Ocean, and as it reached the northern tip of Hudson Bay, Canada, could change course. It could then veer to target the U.S. East Coast or strike the West Coast, Selva says. U.S. forces currently have no ability to deter or defend against such a capability. To solve that problem, a new space-based tracking system is needed. The Pentagon's existing satellites are either looking for a more luminous signal than that of an HGV or a hypersonic cruise missile or are using a very narrow field-of-view sensor to minimize background clutter, says SDA Director Derek Tournear, who spoke with Aviation Week during a June 4 webinar. The first attempt to solve that problem is scheduled for launch in fiscal 2024. Forty satellites in SDA's Tranche 1 constellation in low Earth orbit carry sensor payloads for tracking hypersonic missiles. Unlike the SBIRS or other space-based capabilities, the sensors will neither have a narrow field of view nor be optimized for tracking only during the boost or exoatmospheric phases of a missile's trajectory. Instead, the spacecraft in Tranche 1 will carry a wide-field-of-view infrared sensor. “However, the jury is still out on whether [the sensors] will be able to form a track that is high enough quality to actually give you that fire control solution so that you can fire [interceptors] on [a] remote [track],” Tournear says. The backup to the SDA sensor will be demonstrated under MDA's HBTSS program. The MDA is developing what Tournear calls a medium-field-of-view system, which falls between the narrow-field-of-view format of existing satellites and the SDA's wide-field-of-view design for Tranche 1. Ideally, the SDA's wide-field-of-view sensors will detect an HGV or a cruise missile and pass the data in orbit to the HBTSS sensors, which will then develop a target-quality track. That data will be passed down to interceptor batteries on the ground. Modified interceptors, such as Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, will augment new kinetic and non-kinetic options to shoot down hypersonic missiles. Credit: Missile Defense Agency Within a few years, the SDA will find out how the concept works. By the end of 2022, eight Tranche 0 satellites equipped with the SDA's wide-field-of-view sensors should be in low Earth orbit. A year later, the MDA plans to launch two satellites into low Earth orbit with medium-field-of-view sensors. The Tranche 0 constellation—aided by 20 communications-relay and data-processing “transport” satellites—will provide a limited operational capability and validate that the sensors work as designed. The next step comes in 2024, when the SDA plans to launch the 40 satellites in the Tranche 1 constellation. “We would have, in essence, regional persistence of [infrared satellites] over any area of the globe that we choose,” Tournear says. There is a catch, however. The launch of the Tranche 1 satellites in 2024 fall within the five-year spending plan but so far remain unfunded. Shortly after the scheduled Tranche 1 layer is activated, the MDA plans to field RGPWS, the new interceptor optimized for HGVs. If Congress adds the funding, RGPWS could be fielded as early as the “mid-2020s” with the Navy's Mk. 41 vertical launch systems on ships and submarines, followed later by air- and land-launched versions. The design requirements for RGPWS are classified, but it's possible the interceptor may benefit from an ongoing DARPA program. Glide Breaker, which includes Aerojet Rocketdyne as a supplier, seeks to demonstrate a “critical enabling technology” for a hypersonic defense missile. The MDA also plans to demonstrate an “extreme power” microwave weapon against “very long-range” missile threats within two years. At the same time, the MDA is adapting existing point defenses against atmospheric threats. Lockheed Martin is studying improved versions of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, called “Dart,” and of the Patriot, called “Valkyrie.” In addition to the extreme power microwave, Raytheon also is studying a new variant of the SM-3 called Hawk. Editor's note: The article has been updated to correctly identify the names of the hypersonic defense concepts under study for THAAD and Patriot. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/us-hypersonic-defense-plan-emerges-not-cash
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March 9, 2021 | International, Aerospace
DoD SBIR/STTR Component BAA Open: Space Development Agency (SDA) HQ085021S0001
The DoD Small Business and Technology Partnerships Office announces the opening of the following Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) topics: Space Development Agency (SDA), HQ085021S0001 SBIR Topic HQ085021S0001-01: Free-Space Optical Communication (FSOC) Technology for Optical Intersatellite Links (OISLs), published at: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/7e60b2b1a9014888925a1d4b4fecd0df/view SBIR Topic HQ085021S0001-02: L-Band Multiband/Interleaved Electronically Scanned Array (ESA) Antenna, published at: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/6b1fd1d4efca4e3aad5d7ad4699ac4eb/view SBIR Topic HQ085021S0001-03: Advanced Space Mesh Networking, published at: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/338239928d54409ea01ee400325b2e5e/view STTR Topic HQ085021S0001-04: Advanced Space Mesh Networking, published at https://beta.sam.gov/opp/002cf1a4efcb472dbb5f87c9e23aab26/view SBIR Topic HQ085021S0001-05: Mesh Network NSA Certifiable Cryptographic Solution, published at https://beta.sam.gov/opp/262cd2b6216e4002bdd6b15789d5a73e/view STTR Topic HQ085021S0001-06: Mesh Network NSA Certifiable Cryptographic Solution, published at https://beta.sam.gov/opp/533dbc7e30e4452eb3cc814b882c21a7/view IMPORTANT DATES: March 9, 2021: Topic Q&A opens March 9, 2021: BAA opens, begin submitting proposals in DSIP March 24, 2021: Topic Q&A closes to new questions at 12:00 p.m. ET March 31, 2021: BAA closes, full proposals must be submitted in DSIP no later than 12:00 p.m. ET Full topics and instructions are available at the links provided above. Topic Q&A Topic Q&A is available for proposers to submit technical questions at https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login beginning today, March 9, 2021. All questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing. Topic Q&A will close to new questions on March 24, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET but will remain active to view questions and answers related to the topics until the BAA close. Proposers are advised to monitor the Topic Q&A during the BAA period for questions and answers, and frequently monitor the beta.SAM.gov link above for updates and amendments to the topic. Learning & Support Visit the Learning & Support section for Job Aids and Help Videos to guide you through submitting and viewing questions and answers in the Topic Q&A, preparing and submitting your proposal in DSIP, and more: https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/learning-support/training-materials DSIP Help Desk Contact Info Phone Number: 703-214-1333 Email: DoDSBIRSupport@reisystems.com Hours: Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET Thank you for your interest in the DoD SBIR/STTR Program. DoD SBIR/STTR Support Team To sign up and receive upcoming emails, please follow this link: https://secure.campaigner.com/CSB/Public/Form.aspx?fid=667492&ac=g9gk