10 septembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Sebastian Sprenger
PARIS — Underway in Europe are two high-profile sixth-generation aircraft efforts: the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System, and Britain's Tempest fighter. But will they converge? Defense News asked the chief executive of the European Defence Agency, Jorge Domecq, for his take on the future of these programs.
It's quite possible the FCAS program by Spain, Germany and France and the British Tempest program will lead to a situation of two fighters. What's your assessment?
We'll have to see, but FCAS is not going to be just one platform. It's going to be a system of systems. It will be a very complex program; it will take many years. It will be very important for it to be sustainable, that it has the economies of scale that are necessary. And at the same time, as we have these three initial member states signing up, I do not exclude this would bring on other member states as we go long.
What will happen with the Tempest project, I cannot say.
But as the person that oversees FCAS, you would like to see some convergence, right?
Europe would probably have to see convergence toward having a single system of systems, but as I underlined, it's not an issue of platform. As always, thinking of the competitiveness of the European defense industry, we have to think of program sustainability. Is the next generation of combat aircraft sustainable with several systems of systems in Europe? I have my doubts.
Speaking of consolidation, there have been calls to consolidate the defense industry. What is the level of urgency for that?
I think the urgency is there. In the next five to 10 years, the defense industry is going to know a real evolution of technology; disruptive technologies are going to change how we do business in defense. That is going to have an impact on the defense industry.
The only way forward for defense in general is cooperation. Cooperation is the only way Europe will remain a credible partner in operational terms but also in technology-related industrial terms.
That requires we pull together to do as many defense cooperation projects in the future. And the consolidation of the industry will happen around those cooperative endeavors.
4 août 2023 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Issued under the General Services Administration’s ASTRO contract vehicle with a one-year base period and four one-year options, the scope of work is similar to our past support of the...
15 octobre 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Secretary of the Army Hon. Christine Wormuth talks to Defense News' Jen Judson about a range of topics at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference.
15 juin 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau The Army is holding what it calls software solariums as a way to improve the business side of the service's multi-billion software efforts during the life of programs. “Software has become both a critically important element to readiness and a critically under-managed element of our capability portfolio,” Maj. Gen. Randy Taylor, commander of Communications and Electronics Command, said at the event held May 22-23. “Cohesive software management is a necessary enabler to maintaining overmatch in the multi-domain battle.” Providing software updates to units in austere field locations can be challenging. Prolonging such updates can make the systems they run on vulnerable. The Army has sought to develop new and innovative ways for automated software updates to these units. As the Army is also undergoing major IT modernization, both to its tactical and enterprise networks, software becomes a critical enabler in that future end state. “I believe that we are literally in the midst of the largest modernization of our networks,” Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford, the Army CIO who began the software solariums as commander of CECOM, said at the recent event. “And that's all of our networks, from the tactical to the enterprise, to the business to the intelligence systems in the last 30 years.” With these modernization efforts, the Army realizes it must be better stewards of overall software costs. “We've got to be more holistic on how we approach this, especially when you consider that we, the U.S. taxpayer, spend 55 to 70 percent of a program's lifecycle on that post-acquisition and post-operations sustainment. That's a pretty big bill,” Taylor said. During a March conference, Crawford noted the service spends about $3 billion over a five year period on enterprise software sustainment. The previous solariums, officials said, have included new patching solutions and a goal to have no more than two fielded software baselines at any one time for all programs of record. Army leaders said CECOM will coordinate with stakeholders to finalize recommendations in the coming months. Those goals then will be submitted to the Army level Information Technology Oversight Council for approval and implementation. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/06/14/the-army-wants-a-better-way-to-update-software-buy-smarter/