Airbus, Diehl aim at future air war with drone wingman, remote carrier

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  4 janvier 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Croatia gives Israel deadline for sale of US-made fighter jets

  Croatia urges Israel to overcome disagreement with the US by January 11 or says it will cancel deal. Croatia has urged Israel to overcome a rare disagreement with the United States and to confirm it can carry through on a deal to sell 12 used American-made fighter jets. Croatia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday it needed an answer from Israel by January 11 or the Balkan country's $500m order for a dozen F-16 aircraft would be cancelled. Israel made a tentative deal to sell the upgraded F-16 Barak fighters to Croatia in March pending US approval for allowing the jets to go to a third party. The deal ran into trouble after the US State Department hinted that Israel needs to strip off the upgrades that were added after Israel took delivery of the planes from the US some 30 years ago. Israel upgraded the jets with sophisticated electronic and radar systems, which was crucial in Croatia's decision to buy the planes from Israel rather than from the US. "If the planes are not in accordance with what we have agreed, the deal will not be carried out and we will have another purchase bid," Croatia's parliament speaker, Gordan Jandrokovic, said. Relations between the Trump administration and Israel have been very close, particularly on defence issues. But the sale of the jets to Croatia appears to be an exception. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday in Brazil but didn't agree on a way to end the impasse. "We are expecting final and clear stands from both Israel and the United States on this issue and then we will make a final decision," Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said. Croatian Defence Minister Damir Krsticevic said Thursday that Israel provided guarantees during the contract bidding process that US officials would greenlight the sale. The controversy over the bid has triggered calls for the defence minister's resignation. The deal is Croatia's largest single military buy since it split from the Yugoslav federationduring the 1991-95 war. NATO member Croatia faces a mini arms race with Russian ally Serbia, which recently received six used Russian MiG-29 fighter jets. SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES https://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2019/01/croatia-israel-deadline-sale-fighter-jets-190103180521852.html

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  27 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  Lockheed Seeks Commercial Tie-Ups to Chase 5G Work

  CEO Taiclet wants a leading role as U.S. and allied militaries build out their next-gen mobile networks. Marcus Weisgerber Commercial partnerships will be key as Lockheed Martin seeks to help U.S. and allied militaries move to 5G networking — and diversify its offerings beyond fighter jets and missiles, its CEO said in an interview this week. “I think, an imperative that we Lockheed Martin, and frankly the defense industrial base, partner with [the] commercial industry to accelerate the benefits of what I call 21st-century technologies into the defense [industrial] base, and into our national defense,” Jim Taiclet said in an Oct. 20 interview after his company's 3rd-quarter earnings call. A former telecom executive, Taiclet took the reins at the world's largest defense contractor in June amid an increased push by the Pentagon leaders to better connect the military's weapons, regardless of manufacturer, so they can more quickly share information on the battlefield. The Air Force alone plans to spend at least $9 billion over the next five years connecting its weapons through an initiative known as Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control. The Pentagon is conducting increasingly ambitious experiments with 5G wireless technology, which promises to link weapons with such high data-transfer rates that military commanders will be able to make decisions faster and with more information. “We're interested in operationalizing the technical capabilities of 5G waveforms and technology software and hardware to improve our defense products and our defense products' performance in an interrelated way,” Taiclet said Tuesday on the company's third-quarter earning call with Wall Street analysts. The Pentagon has been increasingly embracing commercial firms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft as the military shifts to the cloud. It's also been on a half-decade push to get more commercial tech firms to embrace defense work, which has been a bumpy relationship at times. Taiclet said the company would pursue partnerships not just in 5G, but also artificial intelligence, edge computing, autonomy, and additive manufacturing. “I think there's some incredible runway or open space there for us to be a leader in bringing some of those companies and some of those technology leaders in partnership with us,” Taiclet said in the interview. He raised the prospect of forming alliances or licensing commercial technology from telecom firms like Qualcomm, NextCom or Nokia. He also said the company could form joint ventures with commercial tech firms. It could include buying companies too. “We're just gonna open our aperture wider,” Taiclet said. “And we also want to get more active and mission systems too. So, we'll see what's available in that space as well ... closer to the home base here. I think there's a lot of optionality for us going forward.” On the earnings call, Taiclet also suggested Lockheed could offer “networking as a service, more of a subscription model” to the military. “Then we do the upgrades and the comm layer and make sure we tie it all together, just like you experience on your cellphone subscription,” he said. You don't know all the pieces that go into it. So every morning when you turn it on, it works and it works with the latest applications, and it works with the latest technology. “Those are the kinds of things we're going to explore,” he said. “It will take a little bit longer to get there, but we're positioning ourselves to do that as well.” https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/10/lockheed-seeks-commercial-tie-ups-chase-5g-work/169566/

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  5 février 2021 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  The Space Force considers a new mission: tactical satellite imagery

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force is still in its early days, but leaders are already considering adding a new mission for Guardians: providing tactical satellite imagery for beyond-line-of-sight targeting. “That's something that we're thinking through as we speak. I've got a group of folks doing some work on what that design might look like,” Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, the chief of space operations, said Feb. 3 during a Defense Writers Group call. The Space Force, like Air Force Space Command before it, provides the GPS signal, missile warning information, and wideband communications with its on orbit satellites. Tactical satellite imagery, however, has not been part of its workload. “That's largely been more on the intelligence community side,” Raymond said. Specifically, satellite imagery is generally the responsibility of two intelligence agencies: the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. While the NRO builds and operates the nation's spy satellites and contracts with commercial providers to access their imagery, NGA sets imagery requirements and transforms that raw satellite data into intelligence products. The military typically relies on NGA for geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) products. “I do think as technology has allowed for smaller satellites to be more operationally relevant and you can do so at a price point that is cheaper, that there is a role for operational level tactical satellites as you described and that the Space Force would have a role in that,” Raymond said “Again, it's early in the study efforts, if you will, and whatever we do we'll make sure that we do it in close partnership with our intelligence partners, because what we don't want to do is duplicate efforts,” he continued. “We want to save dollars and reduce taxpayer dollars, not duplicate.” The proliferation of small and relatively affordable small imaging satellites and the growing commercial satellite imagery market has sparked interest at the Pentagon in using satellites for beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) targeting. The U.S. Army has been at the forefront of that effort, launching its own small imaging satellite — Kestrel Eye — in 2017. More recently at the Project Convergence 2020 exercise, the Army used commercial satellite imagery to develop targeting data and shoot at BLOS threats. The Air Force and the Navy are also investing in tactical GEOINT products. The Air Force Research Laboratory is investing in commercial tactical GEOINT software to help them find moving targets with satellite imagery, while the Navy is paying for commercial synthetic aperture radar imagery and analytics. Elsewhere in the Department of Defense, the Space Development Agency has set BLOS targeting as one of the main capabilities it is pursuing for its new proliferated constellation in low Earth orbit, which will eventually be made up of hundreds of satellites. “That's where the Army is most affected and that's where we're working very closely with the Army to make sure that we're tied together. So this is the ability to detect and track and maintain custody of anything, say, larger than a truck and to be able to actually give a targeting fire control solution to a weapon in the field in real time anywhere on the globe,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said in 2019. “That's the goal. That's the capability.” The SDA is slated to become part of the Space Force in late 2022. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/02/03/the-space-force-is-considering-adopting-a-tactical-geoint-mission/