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  June 12, 2020 | International, Naval

  BAE Systems to Produce More Vertical Launching System Canisters Under Five-Year U.S. Navy Contract

  June 11, 2020 - The U.S. Navy has awarded BAE Systems a contract to produce multiple types of Vertical Launching System (VLS) canisters with a total lifetime maximum value of $955 million. The initial contract was awarded in February with $24 million funded, followed by contract modifications of $99 million and $43 million received in March and May respectively. Options on the contract include additional canister types for future Navy production requirements. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200611005404/en/ “These canisters are a key element of the Navy's Vertical Launching System, and our experience includes 30 years of VLS production, integration and testing to support this world-class capability,” said Brent Butcher, vice president and general manager of the Weapon Systems product line at BAE Systems. “The Navy will continue to benefit from our high-quality canisters and lean, efficient operations, which translate into the best possible value for our customers.” VLS canisters serve in a multifaceted role as containers for missile shipping and storage as well as launch tubes when loaded into the VLS. They also provide identification and firing support to multiple missile types, including the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, Standard Missile-2, Standard Missile-3, Standard Missile-6, and the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile. Under this latest contract, BAE Systems will produce canisters not only for the U.S. fleet but also for allied nations under a Foreign Military Sales program. Deliveries for the initial order are expected to begin in early 2021, and if all options are exercised, the contract could support the production of canisters over a five-year period, with deliveries extending into 2025. Work on the new contract will be performed at the BAE Systems production facility in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with engineering and program support in Minneapolis. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200611005404/en/

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  December 20, 2017 | International, Aerospace

  Here’s how the Trump administration could make it easier to sell military drones

  WASHINGTON — The United States is actively pursuing a change to a major arms control treaty that would open the door for wider exports of military drones. The proposed change to the Missile Technology Control Regime would make it easier for nations to sell the systems, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, that fly under 650 km per hour, according to multiple sources who are aware of the efforts. The MTCR is an agreement among 35 nations that governs the export of missiles and UAVs. Under the terms of the MTCR, any “category-1” system capable of carrying 500-kilogram payloads for more than 300 kilometers is subject to a “strong presumption of denial.” Proponents of UAV exports argue that language, while appropriate for curtailing the sale of cruise missiles, should not group together expandable weapons and unmanned systems. Instead, they argue, UAVs should be looked at the same way fighter jets or other high-tech military vehicles are. As part of an effort to find a compromise, American officials floated a white paper during the latest plenary session on the MTCR in October, proposing new language to the treaty: that any air vehicle that flies under 650 kilometers per hour would drop to “category-2” and thus be subject to approval on a case-by-case basis. A State Department official confirmed to Defense News that the U.S. presented the white paper, and that American negotiators have zeroed in on the speed of the vehicles as a potential change to the treaty. However, the official declined to comment on the exact speed under consideration. “I can't confirm any specific numbers because it's treated — inside the MTCR — as proprietary ... particularly because there's a deliberative process,” the official said. “But I can tell you that speed is the thing that we, based on industry input and all, have looked at. And that's what we have discussed with partners. And I know other governments are also looking at speed as well, so we're all sort of coming to a similar conclusion.” Under the MTCR, a “presumption of denial” about exports for category-1 systems exists. In essence, that means countries tied into the MTCR need to have a very compelling case to sell them. However, the speed change, if adopted, would result in most drones used by the U.S. military dropping down from category-1 to category-2, allowing the U.S. to sell them through the traditional foreign military sale or direct commercial sale methods. “Treating drones as missiles is fundamentally incoherent. It reflects a 1980s view of the technology,” said Michael Horowitz, a former Pentagon official now with the University of Pennsylvania who has studied drone issues. “To the extent creating a speed delineation helps you get around that problem, it's a good practical solution.” The impact of speed Most medium-altitude, long-endurance systems like General Atomics' MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper fly at slow speeds, with the Reaper clocking in with a cruise speed of 230 mph or 370 kph, according to an Air Force facts sheet. Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude ISR drone, flies only at a cruise speed of about 357 mph or 575 kph. The 650 kph ceiling would also keep the door open for companies developing cutting-edge rotorcraft that could be modified in the future to be unmanned — a key request made by the companies involved in the Future Vertical Lift consortium, said one industry source. Those companies include Bell Helicopter and a Sikorsky-Boeing team, both of which are developing high-speed rotorcraft that can fly at excess of 463 kph, or 250 knots, for the Army's Joint Multi Role technology demonstrator program. However, the limitation would ensure that some of the United States' most technologically advanced UAVs stay out of the grasp of other nations. For example, it would prevent the proliferation of jet-powered, fast moving flying wing drones like Boeing's Phantom Ray and Northrop Grumman's X-47B demonstrators, both of which can cruise at near-supersonic speeds. While the UAV industry wants the U.S. government to pick up the pace on drone export reform, the State Department and other agencies argue that a prudent approach is needed. For example, any change to the MTCR that loosens restrictions on low-speed drones also needs to be closely examined to ensure that missile technology is still strictly controlled. “We don't want any unintended consequences, so it has to be crafted carefully. We don't want to inadvertently drop something else out like a cruise missile,” the State Department official said. The focus on speed is particularly smart at a time when countries are focused on increasing the speed of their munitions, Horowitz said. He pointed to growing investments in hypersonic weapons as an example where creating a speed delineation in the MTCR would allow the U.S. to push for greater UAV exports while “holding the line on exports of next-generation missiles.” Industry desires Industry has long argued that the United States has taken an overly proscriptive route, hamstringing potential drone sales to allies and pushing them into the arms of more nefarious actors such as China, the other major UAV producer on the worldwide market. Modifying the MTCR is just one facet of the Trump administration's review of drone export policy, which also includes taking a second look at domestic regulations that can be amended by the president at will. Because changes to the MTCR require consensus among the regime's 35 member countries, industry sees it as a direly-needed, but long-term solution. “Now we have lighter-than-air vehicles; we have intelligence, surveillance reconnaissance [UAVs]. We still have cruise missiles, we have aircraft that could autonomous for cargo and other purposes. But [the MTCR] doesn't distinguish between any of that, so a revisit of those MTCR rules is in order for things that fly and can fly autonomously,” said Aerospace Industries Association President David Melcher during a December 14 roundtable with reporters. American firms are particularly concerned about losing out on sales in the Middle East. China has already exported its Wing Loong — a medium altitude, long endurance UAV that resembles General Atomics' MQ-1 Predator — to multiple countries worldwide, including some close U.S. partners such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, sales of U.S.-made drones have been rarer, with many Middle Eastern countries such as the UAE only able to buy unarmed versions of American UAVs, even though those nations regularly purchase more technologically advanced weaponry like fighter jets from the United States. The State official noted that any change in the MTCR would not need to wait until the next plenary session, but could be introduced in some form as early as an April technical meeting. And at least one industry source was optimistic about the administration's MTCR reform plan. “They're taking a pretty smart process in not trying to tackle everything at once, but trying to get some of the language corrected in small bites,” the source said. “I don't see this as being an overnight process. I don't think we're going to end up in the next six months with a brand new MTCR policy.” However, Horowitz warned that the nature of the MTCR, where any single country could veto such a change, means getting any changes will not be easy. Russia, for example, could block the move not on technical reasons but geopolitical ones, given relations between Moscow and Washington. If that happens, Horowitz noted, the U.S. could potentially look to apply the 650 kph speed definition on its own, something possible because of the voluntary nature of the MTCR. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/12/19/heres-how-the-trump-administration-could-make-it-easier-to-sell-military-drones/

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  January 11, 2019 | International, Land

  Here’s how the Army acquisition chief plans to equip soldiers for the next war

  By: Todd South In the last year, the Army has embarked on several major modernization goals, creating cross-functional teams for major priorities and the new four-star Army Futures Command, the first such effort in decades. Bruce Jette has served as the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, and during that time he helped shepherd the Army's efforts to modernize following almost two decades of war. On Thursday, Jette sat down with reporters at a Defense Writers Group meeting to discuss the Army's ongoing modernization work. Your office now coordinates with the recently created Army Futures Command and the cross-functional teams. What is a concrete example of how work in priority areas has changed with the addition of these new organizations? I'll give you a prime example. In the past, we looked at air defense as systems. The way you do air defense [is], okay, I've got this altitude, that altitude and that altitude. I need a system that works at those altitudes. Okay, you told me to develop and build a system that can deal with a threat at this altitude, that altitude or another altitude. They were standalone concepts. The integration of them in a battlespace was purely done at the operator level. So, when I deliver a system under that methodology, I give you the Patriot battery. [It] stands alone, all you've got to do is put fuel in the thing, a couple of soldiers, and the thing works. So, we've taken a look at the overall threat environment. The threat environment has become more complicated. It's not just tactical ballistic missiles or jets or helicopters. Now we've got UAVs, we've got swarms, we've got cruise missiles, we've got rockets, artillery, mortar. I've got to find a way to integrate all of this. So, using the cross-functional teams, the technical side has come back and said, “Listen, normally if you want to deal with some of the inbounds that are not missiles, things like rockets, artillery and mortars, the radars that come with the Patriot battery are not the same radars you need to see RAM. Oh, by the way, we were working on this thing for the air defense that's called Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, delivering next December, systems that are deployable.” So, I don't deliver you a Patriot battery anymore — I deliver you missile systems; I deliver you radars; I deliver you a command-and-control architecture. They all integrate, and any of the C2 components can fire any of the sets, leverage any of the sensor systems to employ an effector against any of the threats. This has positioned us to put artificial intelligence in the backside to optimize against the threat that we see in the aggregate. What role does artificial intelligence play in the work that your office is doing, especially in Army technology? AI is critically important. You'll hear a theme inside of ASA(ALT), “Time is a weapon.” Undersecretary [of the Army] Ryan McCarthy has been active in positioning for being able to pick up on some of these critical new technology areas. AFC has responsibility to focus on AI for requirements and research. We've established a center at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for AI, and AFC has established a uniformed person and he's trying to put his arms around AI in an operational context and what has to go into the background. Meantime, the undersecretary and I and ASA(ALT) are going to be establishing for the Army a managerial approach to this. We're trying to structure an AI architecture that will become enduring and will facilitate our ability to allocate resources and conduct research and implementation of those AI capabilities throughout the force. There are AI efforts ongoing, it's just that we need to organize for combat, so to speak. So, here's one issue that we're going to run into. People get worried about whether a weapons system has AI controlling the weapon. And there are some constraints about what we're allowed to do with AI. Here's your problem: If I can't get AI involved with being able to properly manage weapons systems and firing sequences, then in the long run I lose the time window. An example is let's say you fire a bunch of artillery at me, and I need to fire at them, and you require a man in the loop for every one of those shots. There's not enough men to put in the loop to get them done fast enough. So, there's no way to counter those types of shots. So how do we put AI hardware and architecture but do proper policy? Those are some of the wrestling matches we're dealing with right now. Last year your office moved from an annual program review process to adding in monthly meetings to evaluate program progress. What's been the result of this change? Much less pain. We have System Acquisition Review reporting. We report to Congress on our Major Defense Acquisition Programs every year, and we have to tell them how it's going. At each level, we have certification requirements. In that process of doing those reports, we do these program reviews. I do basically a mini SAR review every six weeks with the entire Army staff senior leadership, with the secretary and chief present. If you figure out what's important and make a way to put metrics and reporting processes together, it makes it so much less painful. We report regularly, we report often, we report any change. If any change occurs that I need [the Army secretary] to know about, if it's a significant one, he gets an email that day, then an information paper comes to follow up, and then we'll update him at the next briefing. And then if it's an issue that's an ongoing one, then we go ahead and ensure things are done. In some cases, he gets in the plane and has flown up to meet with the CEO of the company. The [Army] secretary is very much about making us much more accessible to industry. Dinner every Monday night with a CEO of a company has been everything from a big defense contracting company to a second- or third-tier supplier. To know what did we do that we could do better, and what did we not ask for that we should be asking for? This much deeper involvement is making it much easier to keep on track. How are new approaches, such as ‘racking and stacking' groups of Army acquisitions and programs, being evaluated by senior leadership? We began something we call the deep dives. Funding is broken up into Program Element Groups, or PEGs, or groupings. Procurement is one of the PEGs. Money comes with different constraints on what we can and can't use it for. To manage those priorities and comply with the law, we have these PEGs. All procurement-style money gets managed through the equipping PEG. Last year, the secretary and the chief and I sat and went through every single program and said, “why are we doing this?” Because the truth of the matter is programs have momentum. So, why are we doing that? Because we did it last year. Do we need it? Is it the most important thing? Should we reallocate that funding against something else? We did this through all of the PEGs and prioritized all of the funding allocations for the Army. It was a very deliberate process we went through last year for the secretary and the chief to go through those things and prioritize where does the Army's operational effectiveness come from and are we properly funding and how much of that is just because of momentum and what should we do about it? We did that and a series of deep dive follow ups through the year. None of that stuff's been announced, and I'm not going to be the one to do it. That's the secretary's prerogative. He's got to go over and talk with Congress, tell them why we're doing things and sort through those pieces before he starts putting out details of what got cut and what got skinnied down or what got plussed up. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/01/10/heres-how-the-army-acquisition-chief-plans-to-equip-soldiers-for-the-next-war