27 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
by Sandra Erwin
The Air Force is developing software and ground equipment to boost the protection of the Wideband Global satcom system. First in line for the upgrade are naval carrier strike groups. The Navy will get the new technology in 2022, about 18 months sooner than previously planned.
WASHINGTON — The Air Force is cyber hardening military satellite communications equipment amid worries that foreign hackers could infiltrate U.S. networks.
“Adversaries are getting better and more able to penetrate our unclassified or barely protected systems,” said Col. Tim Mckenzie chief of the advanced development division for military satellite communications at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center.
The bulk of military satcom services are provided by the Air Force Wideband Global Satcom, or WGS, satellites and by commercial operators. All these systems require additional protection from cyber attacks, Mckenzie told SpaceNews in a recent interview.
“Commercial satcom as well as our own purpose-built Wideband satellites were never designed to provide protection against some of the things we expect our adversaries to do in the near future,” he said.
In response, the Air Force is developing software and satcom ground equipment to boost the protection of WGS networks in the near term, and commercial systems at a later time. First in line for these upgrades are the Navy's aircraft carrier strike groups in the Pacific, Mckenzie said. The Air Force will have this technology available for carrier strike groups in 2022, about 18 months sooner than previously planned.
The central piece of the cyber security upgrade is anti-jam communications software — called the Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW). A ground system, the Protected Tactical Enterprise Service (PTES) will manage the transmission of the waveform over WGS satellites and terminals.
Boeing, which manufactures the WGS satellites, was awarded a seven-year, $383 million contract in November to develop the PTES.
“We are doing agile software development to enable early use of the PTW capability,” said Mckenzie.
The anti-jam software and ground system only will work initially with WGS networks, said Mckenzie. If a commercial provider opted to use the PTW waveform, the ground system could be updated to interoperate with that vendor's network.
Military satcom users will need to upgrade their satellite terminals with new modems to operate the PTW waveform. The Air Force two years ago awarded three contracts — $39 million to Raytheon, $38 million to L3 and $33 million to Viasat — to develop prototype modems. The Army, Navy and Air Force will run separate competitions to decide which modems they will acquire for their specific terminals. For carrier strike groups, the Navy will have to buy PTW-capable modems to upgrade its satellite terminals aboard ships.
In the long term, the plan is to add a new space component — either newly designed spacecraft or military communications payloads hosted on commercial buses. “Our goal is to have some protected tactical satcom prototype payloads on orbit in the fiscal year 2025 time frame,” said Mckenzie.
Whatever new hardware makes up the space segment, it will be compatible with the PTES ground equipment, he said. Mckenzie noted that the Air Force has been criticized for deploying satellites before the ground equipment is available. The PTW and PTES efforts reverse that trend. “We have learned lessons from being out of sync with terminals on the ground,” Mckenzie said. “We've been working for the last several years to develop modem upgrades that can be put into our existing terminals so we have terminals that can use PTW.”
To get fresh thinking on how to develop a secure satcom system, the Air Force Space Enterprise Consortium is funding four design and prototyping projects. These are four areas “where we're trying o reduce risk,” said McKenzie. The consortium was stood up in 2017 and given authorities to kick start projects with far less red tape than traditional Pentagon contracting. Mckenzie said the Air Force is interested in new ideas for constellation architectures, payload hosting concepts, advanced space processing and antenna designs.
McKenzie expects contracts for the development of protected tactical satcom payloads will be awarded in fiscal year 2020, with a goal to start launching new systems into orbit by 2025.
Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and X-Band LLC have entered into cost-sharing agreements with the Air Force — contracts known as Other Transactions Authority — to map out constellation sizes, layouts, design lives, and concepts such as hosting of military payloads as a commercial service.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and SSL have signed OTA agreements to develop phased arrays and array fed reflectors antennas.
BAE Systems, L3 and SEAKR Engineering received OTA deals to investigate requirements for secure satcom applications such as geo-location, waveform processing, and anti-jam. Boeing and Southwest Research Institute are studying hosting concepts, such as identifying interface commonalities between commercial and military bus providers and recommends ways to simplify the integration.
Tom Becht, military satcom director at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, said the protected tactical satcom effort has been underway for more than eight years and now is being accelerated as the Air Force seeks to respond to military commanders' needs in a more timely fashion. “The demand for protected satcom has significantly increased,” Becht said in an interview.
After the PTW, PTES and the new space segment are deployed, the next step will be to modernize the military's nuclear-hardened strategic satcom system, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency constellation. Most of the users of the AEHF system are tactical operators and the Pentagon eventually wants to have a dedicated strategic satcom constellation for nuclear command and control. “Tactical users will transition to the Protected Tactical Satcom system,” said Becht.
That transition could take decades, he said. “The aggregated [tactical and strategic] AEHF will be around until the mid 2030s or a bit longer.”
17 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Lockheed Martin received its first F-16 from the U.S. Air Force as part of the $900 million IDIQ contract to provide sustainment support and depot-overflow services for F-16 aircraft.
15 octobre 2019 | International, Terrestre
MELBOURNE, FLA., October 14, 2019 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) has begun initial deliveries of its new Enhanced Night Vision Goggle – Binocular (ENVG-B) that provides U.S. Army soldiers with improved situational awareness, mobility and protection. The delivery is part of an initial order under a $391 million ENVG-B Directed Requirement contract from the U.S. Army received in 2018. L3Harris delivered the first 40 combat-ready systems as part of an initial fielding that is expected to be completed by early 2020. This advanced binocular night vision goggle supports the Army's Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional team priorities. The ENVG-B includes L3Harris' high-performance white phosphor image intensification technology in a dual-tube goggle, as well as a separate thermal channel for image fusion and thermal target detection. This technology will enhance the ability to locate and engage threats and access common operating environment imagery. “The ENVG-B is the result of a year-long collaboration with the U.S. Army to deliver the most advanced night fighting system ever fielded,” said Dana Mehnert, President, Communication Systems, L3Harris. “This is the first networked night vison system that brings battlefield imagery and data directly to the soldier's eye, providing situational awareness beyond the capability of near-peer threats facing the U.S. military and our allies around the world.” Following the delivery of the first 40 units, L3Harris received two additional delivery orders totaling approximately $153 million for nearly 7,000 additional systems and logistics support. Combined with the initial $88 million delivery order, L3Harris has received orders to deliver just over 10,000 ENVG-B systems under the Directed Requirement contract. The ENVG-B includes a new high-resolution display and an embedded soldier wireless personal area network, rapid target acquisition and augmented reality algorithms to interface with the U.S. Army's Nett Warrior. The complete system will interface with the Army's family of weapon sights, while enhancing interoperability and data sharing. About L3Harris Technologies L3Harris Technologies is an agile global aerospace and defense technology innovator, delivering end-to-end solutions that meet customers' mission-critical needs. The company provides advanced defense and commercial technologies across air, land, sea, space and cyber domains. L3Harris has approximately $17 billion in annual revenue and 50,000 employees, with customers in 130 countries. L3Harris.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect management's current expectations, assumptions and estimates of future performance and economic conditions. Such statements are made in reliance upon the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and future trends to differ materially from those matters expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Statements about system capabilities, contract values and number of systems to be delivered are forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties. L3Harris disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. View source version on L3Harris Technologies: https://www.l3harris.com/press-releases/2019/10/88486/l3harris-technologies-providing-us-army-new-networked-night-vision-goggles-with-advanced-mobility-capabilities
22 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Sean Broderick What will it take to get parked aircraft back into service? Air Transport and Safety Editor Sean Broderick responds: Airlines are consulting with aircraft and engine original equipment manufacturers (OEM) for specific guidance, because most maintenance manuals do not cover how to idle aircraft/engines for a short period of time (30-90 days). Typical maintenance manuals' procedures for parking aircraft are focused on long-term storage, which most airlines aren't doing, because they plan to reactivate their fleets as soon as possible, with the exception of aircraft they might retire. Once these procedures are in hand, it's about having technical manpower that is able to follow a task card and operate aircraft systems. Some supplier opportunities exist—engine covers are hard to find, for instance, so operators are turning to foam inserts and other options—but that is more about keeping aircraft out of service longer versus bringing them back out. Another note: Some operators are keeping aircraft on “active maintenance” programs until they understand what their fleet needs will be post-pandemic. Basically, this treats an airframe as if it's flying even though it is not. Regular maintenance intervals such as daily and weekly checks are performed, but there may be some manpower issues, especially with operators that do not have sufficient tech ops talent in-house. https://aviationweek.com/mro/what-will-it-take-get-parked-aircraft-back-service