Boeing, Embraer agree to KC-390 joint venture

Sur le même sujet

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  13 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  South Korea’s KAI looks to enter military transport market

  By: Brian Kim SEOUL — Korea Aerospace Industries is considering adding military transport planes to its product line with the goal of partnering with foreign aircraft manufacturers, Defense News has learned. This would be an “unexplored business field” for the South Korean company, according to a source with KAI, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “For KAI, the transport aircraft market is an unexplored field, which has high potential for localization,” the source said. “The technology intensity of transport aircraft is lower than that of fighter jets, while the market of maintenance, repair and overhaul of transport planes remains profitable.” Founded in 1999, KAI has developed a successful portfolio of indigenous aerospace products including trainer jets, helicopters, fighter aircraft and satellites. The development of an indigenous fighter aircraft, codenamed KF-X, is underway with a goal of unveiling a prototype in the first half of 2021. KAI's internal analysis of the domestic transport aircraft market suggested about 100 transport aircraft would be in demand over the next three decades given the life span of aircraft flown by the military, the source told Defense News. In addition, the company believes there will be a chance to sell about 100 airlift planes overseas, the source explained. “To keep up with the demand for addressing increasing nonmilitary threats, such as national disaster, infectious disease and humanitarian aid, the needs for military transport airplanes are likely to grow,” the source added. The South Korean military operates about 60 transport aircraft built by foreign firms. The Air Force operates C-130s and CN-235s, mainly for airlift operations, while the Navy has P-3Cs and P-8As for maritime patrol missions. The oldest planes among the P-3C fleet were adopted 25 years ago. In line with efforts to take back wartime control of its forces from the U.S. military, South Korean military authorities want to acquire more aerial assets for independent intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions. KAI expects it will be able to build its own transport aircraft in seven years with an investment of about $2.7 billion, according to the source. Following the development of a military version, the company envisages it could modify it into a commercial plane with a seat capacity of 100. To that end, KAI is eyeing international partnerships, the source said, specifically European company Airbus Defence and Space, Ukraine's Antonov, and Brazil's Embraer. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/11/12/south-koreas-kai-looks-to-enter-military-transport-market/

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  21 juin 2018 | International, Sécurité

  Synthetic biology raises risk of new bioweapons, US report warns

  Ian Sample Report warns that swift progress in our ability to manufacture viruses is making us vulnerable to biological attacks The rapid rise of synthetic biology, a futuristic field of science that seeks to master the machinery of life, has raised the risk of a new generation of bioweapons, according a major US report into the state of the art. Advances in the area mean that scientists now have the capability to recreate dangerous viruses from scratch; make harmful bacteria more deadly; and modify common microbes so that they churn out lethal toxins once they enter the body. The three scenarios are picked out as threats of highest concern in a review of the field published on Tuesday by the US National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Department of Defense. The report was commissioned to flag up ways in which the powerful technology might be abused, and to focus minds on how best to prepare. Michael Imperiale, chair of the report committee, and professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, said the review used only unclassified information and so has no assessment of which groups, if any, might be pursuing novel biological weapons. “We can't say how likely any of these scenarios are,” he said. “But we can talk about how feasible they are.” In the report, the scientists describe how synthetic biology, which gives researchers precision tools to manipulate living organisms, “enhances and expands” opportunities to create bioweapons. “As the power of the technology increases, that brings a general need to scrutinise where harms could come from,” said Peter Carr, a senior scientist at MIT's Synthetic Biology Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. More than 20 years ago, Eckard Wimmer, a geneticist at Stony Brook University in New York, highlighted the potential dangers of synthetic biology in dramatic style when he recreated poliovirus in a test tube. Earlier this year, a team at the University of Alberta built an infectious horsepox virus. The virus is a close relative of smallpox, which may have claimed half a billion lives in the 20th century. Today, the genetic code of almost any mammalian virus can be found online and synthesised. “The technology to do this is available now,” said Imperiale. “It requires some expertise, but it's something that's relatively easy to do, and that is why it tops the list.” Other fairly simple procedures can be used to tweak the genes of dangerous bacteria and make them resistant to antibiotics, so that people infected with them would be untreatable. A more exotic bioweapon might come in the form of a genetically-altered microbe that colonises the gut and churns out poisons. “While that is technically more difficult, it is a concern because it may not look like anything you normally watch out for in public health,” Imperiale said. The report calls on the US government to rethink how it conducts disease surveillance, so it can better detect novel bioweapons, and to look at ways to bolster defences, for example by finding ways to make and deploy vaccines far more rapidly. For every bioweapon the scientists consider, the report sets out key hurdles that, once cleared, will make the weapons more feasible. One bioweapon that is not considered an immediate threat is a so-called gene drive that spreads through a population, rewriting human DNA as it goes. “It's important to recognise that it's easy to come up with a scary-sounding idea, but it's far more difficult to do something practical with it,” said Carr. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/19/urgent-need-to-prepare-for-manmade-virus-attacks-says-us-government-report

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  29 octobre 2020 | International, C4ISR, Autre défense

  Texas A&M to lead $100m hypersonic research consortium for Pentagon

  Garrett Reim The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded Texas A&M University's Engineering Experiment Station a 5-year contract worth $20 million per year to establish and manage the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics. The consortium will coordinate research and development efforts for technologies needed for hypersonic flight, such as new propulsion and guidance systems. It is also intended to help develop expertise in hypersonic flight within the USA, but also with allied nations Australia, Canada and the UK. The University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics is expected to start operating this fall. It will coordinate joint projects between the US companies, universities, military services, defence research agencies, as well as other US government organisations, such as NASA and the Department of Energy, says the Pentagon on 26 October. “The consortium will concentrate on developing hypersonic technologies, investigate efficiencies related to the industrial base, and strengthen partnerships with small and large companies to transition technology and reduce system development timelines,” it says. Ultimately, the DoD wants to transition academic research to operational weapons faster by joining with research institutions that have modelling and testing capabilities. “We often have difficulty transitioning [Defense] Department-funded basic research from universities through industry to operational applications,” says Mark Lewis, acting deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering. “It is a particular challenge in hypersonics, where multiple disciplines must intersect precisely to move forward. The consortium will help us link a deeper understanding of our operational requirements to the exceptional research being conducted across the nation.” While Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, a state-run research centre located in College Station, will lead the effort, the consortium will also be guided by a board of national experts. Those additional experts will be drawn from the California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Morgan State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Purdue University, University of Arizona, the University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Tennessee Space Institute. Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station says it has heard from 41 additional institutions committed to participating in the consortium. The DoD anticipates participation will grow further to include institutions from Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Those countries are members of The Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance with the USA (New Zealand is the fifth alliance member, but wasn't mentioned as part of the consortium). Typically, Five Eyes allies are trusted with the most sensitive national intelligence information, in this case the latest research on hypersonic technology. https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/texas-aandm-to-lead-100m-hypersonic-research-consortium-for-pentagon/140824.article?referrer=RSS