US DoD unveils NDIS-IP to modernise defence industrial base

On the same subject

• 

  August 29, 2024 | International, Land

  Drone sightings near bases, infrastructure unnerve German officials

  German officials suspect Russia may be involved, though pinpointing a culprit has proven difficult.

• 

  June 26, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Pandemic doesn’t slow cyber training for the Army

  Mark Pomerleau While much of the national security community has had to rethink or delay operations and business practices because of the global pandemic, the Army's cyber school has been able to carry on business as usual due to prior investments in online tools and virtual training environments. “Our virtual training environment had existed prior to COVID and that was really what our students logged into and that's where our training ranges are and where we do a lot of coding and where we ... conduct our courses,” Col. Paul Craft, the Fort Gordon-based school's commandant told Fifth Domain in an interview. “Because we had that environment, we were already prepared, we were already postured.” This environment is called the Virtual Training Area or VTA. It is a conglomeration of open-source technologies that Army users can login from around the world on the open internet, not the closed DoD network, to access course prep materials, courses, tests or even to note curriculum changes. Now, all the officer courses are conducted remotely in the unclassified environment. With the empty classroom space this creates, the enlisted student body can now meet in person and still follow Centers for Disease Control mandated social distancing standards. For some of the classified material, officers still need to come into classes, also adhering to social distancing mandates and wear masks. “We did not change. For us, it just occurred over a weekend where our students backed out and said ‘I'm going to log in [from home]' ... continue to train like we were logging into that virtual training environment and we're still going to conduct the classes,” Craft said. “We set up for a success that we didn't know we needed to have.” This change is especially important as the cyber school expanded to teach “operations in the information environment,” which incorporates how cyber operations, electronic warfare and information operations interact. Within the last two years, the Army merged the electronic warfare and cyber branches together. While much of the rest of the world has been forced to either halt operations or drastically change practices, many within the military cyber community have been able to lean on technical advancements to continue training. In addition to the Army Cyber School, U.S. Cyber Command is conducting its annual major training event in June almost entirely remote relying on a virtual training platform for the first time called the Persistent Cyber Training Environment. Craft explained that when PCTE comes fully online for all of the Defense Department, the plan is to migrate operations from the VTA to PCTE to conduct their training. Migrating to an almost entirely remote environment on the officer side has also allowed the school to open up more seats to more trainees since they aren't limited to physical space. It's also reduced travel costs for those who need training, Craft said. For example, personnel can take courses from their home stations without having to travel all the way to Fort Gordon. Moreover, senior leaders are able to audit courses or even conduct guest speaking sessions right from their desks without having to travel to the cyber school. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/army/2020/06/25/pandemic-doesnt-slow-cyber-training-for-the-army/

• 

  July 26, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Coming in 2021: The B-21 Raider’s first flight?

  WASHINGTON — The Air Force's No. 2 officer has a countdown on his iPhone for the first B-21 Raider flight, and it may happen sooner than you think: December 2021, to be exact. “Don't hold me to it, but it's something like 863 days to first flight,” said Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson, according to Air Force Magazine. Wilson, who spoke July 24 at an AFA Mitchell Institute event, said he had recently visited B-21 prime contractor Northrop Grumman's facilities in Melbourne, Fla., and that the company was “moving out on that pretty fast.” The 863-day countdown — if it is accurate — would peg the Raider's inaugural flight to Dec. 3, 2021. And while there's still ample time for design problems and budget setbacks to delay that schedule, analysts said the Air Force's disclosure of the first flight date means that the secretive bomber program is likely moving along smoothly. “A lot can happen in two years. But if they feel that confident about the schedule it's a good sign that things are on course,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group. The short timeline between the contract award to Northrop Grumman in 2015 — which withstood a Boeing-Lockheed protest in 2016 — and first flight in 2021 could be a sign the B-21's air vehicle design is a smaller version of the B-2 Spirit, he said. “Which, of course, would mean a lot less risk and reasonably fast schedule,” Aboulafia said. “There's not a reason for the airframe itself to have to change radically. It's everything else about it that needs to be modernized, and it seems they think they can make do with a smaller system with less range. If you accept that thinking as the likely reality, then that would make for less risk and a relatively short development schedule. That all makes sense.” However, it is possible that there have been major design changes, in which case it's likely that several sub-scale or even full-scale demonstrators will fly before 2021, he added. Roman Schweizer, an analyst of Cowen Washington Research Group, said a 2021 first flight is a “significant new data point” that meshes well with the company's projected schedule of the program. “We believe the next major milestone for the program will be a Production Readiness Review that will clear the way for manufacturing the first prototype aircraft. Based on the program's next R&D funding step-up, we expect this could happen sometime later this calendar year to allow manufacturing to begin in FY20,” he wrote in an email to investors on Wednesday. In March, Bloomberg reported that procurement spending for the B-21 program would start in FY22 with $202 million in funding, shooting up to $2.4 billion the following year and $3.3 billion in FY24. “That could mean Low-Rate Production in FY23,” Schweizer wrote. “That would also make sense after flight test evaluations of the prototype (and possibly several others).” The Air Force has kept tight hold on details related to the Raiders development, keeping much of its budget in the “black” or classified portion of the funding request. The last major B-21 related disclosure was the December 2018 announcement that the program had completed its critical design review. Wilson's statements follow Acting Secretary of the Air Force Matt Donovan's visit to Northrop's B-21 Design and Development Headquarters in Melbourne., on July 19. Donovan was accompanied by Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which is responsible for executing the program. “We look forward to receiving the B-21 on time and incorporating it into our future force,” Donovan said after the visit. “The B-21 will be a significant component of our Air Force as we continue to modernize to meet the National Defense Strategy and is a game-changing capability to win the high-end fight.” By Valerie Insinna https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/25/coming-in-2021-the-b-21-raiders-first-flight/