Boeing preps for next test of US Navy’s future aerial tanker drone

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  26 août 2020 | International, C4ISR

  BAE Systems Wins $495 Million Contract from USAF

  The U.S. Air Force has awarded BAE Systems a $495 million contract to continue to provide a wide range of instrumentation support and sustainment services to military and government agencies for the U.S. and its allies. BAE Systems has been involved in the Instrumentation Range Support Program (IRSP) for 35 years and this new contract extends the company's role in ensuring the accuracy and operational reliability of tracking systems in support of national security missions. The single-award contract has a ceiling amount of $945 million over seven years. “Since 1985, we have been the sustainment contractor of choice for the IRSP program to ensure test ranges are operational and mission ready,” said Pete Trainer, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems' Air Force Solutions business. “We are pleased to continue our instrumentation sustainment, engineering support, and maintenance services for the 27 IRSP test ranges worldwide. Our work improving the mission readiness of these systems ensures air, missile, and space situational awareness is provided seamlessly to the warfighter and decision makers.” BAE Systems will service components and subsystems for instrumentation tracking systems such as radars, telemetry and optical range mission systems, flight termination systems, data acquisition systems and global positioning systems. Under the firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee, and cost-reimbursable indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity contract, work will be performed on the 27 ranges globally that are part of the IRSP. They include those in the U.S. operated by the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as allied ranges operated in the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Republic of Korea and Switzerland. BAE Systems is a leading systems integrator supporting militaries and governments, and U.S. intelligence community members across the globe. The company is the world's premier provider of radar life-cycle support service, sustainment, and modernization for radar, telemetry, and optical tracking systems. http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/news?news/2937

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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/

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  19 septembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre

  Elbit Systems Awarded a $95 Million Contract to Supply Canister Configuration SkyStriker Loitering Munitions to a European Country

  As part of the contract Elbit Systems will provide several hundred SkyStriker units.