Brazil prepares international competition for armed recon vehicle

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  25 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR

  South Korean military to upgrade ‘friend or foe’ ID capability

  By: Jeff Jeong SEOUL — Thousands of South Korean jet fighters, helicopters, warships and missile systems will be fitted with sophisticated identifications technologies by the mid-2020s under a major weapons upgrade program, according to the military and defense companies. For the $2.2 billion deal to switch the decades-old Mode-4 Identification Friend or Foe, or IFF, system to the latest Mode-5, South Korea's arms procurement agency has started issuing a request for proposals. “The number of equipment eligible for the Mode-5 upgrade account approximately 2,000 related to 70 weapons systems,” according to a spokesman for the Defense Acquisition Program Administration. “The request for proposals will continued to be issued separately by the types of weapons systems over the coming weeks.” The upgrade program is in line with the transfer of IFF systems to the Mode-5 version by the U.S military, as the South Korean military conducts key operations with U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula under the authority of the Combined Forces Command. By 2020, all NATO nations are required to introduce the Mode-5 systems, using advanced cryptographic techniques to secure their systems against electronic deception by adversaries. “This is a huge program as for the numbers and budget, and is strategically important to upgrading the battlefield capability of the South Korean military and its joint operations with allied forces,” said Kim Dae-young, a military analyst at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. “The new encrypted system will allow South Korean and its allied troops to work safely together, reducing the risk of friendly fire incidents, and it will also offer commanders a better view of the battlefield,” Kim added. IFF works by sending coded signals, with equipment on friendly planes and ships able to receive and instantly decode the encrypted challenge message, then send the appropriate response to identify themselves. Three South Korean defense manufacturers are competing for the IFF upgrade contract by teaming up with foreign IFF developers. They are Hanwha Systems, teaming up with U.S. company Raytheon and Hensoldt of Germany; LIG Nex1, with Italy's Leonardo and Thales of France; and Korea Aerospace Industries, joining hands with BAE Systems of the United Kingdom. Unlike the installation of the Mode-4, the technologies of which belong to foreign IFF makers, domestic companies are involved in the Mode-5 systems development and will locally produce the equipment for cost-effectiveness and sustainable integrated logistics support, according to Defense Acquisition Program Administration officials. Hanwha Systems, a leading defense electronics company formerly known as Samsung Thales, claims it has the advantage of having know-how related to IFF integration and design. “Our company was in charge of almost all Mode-4 upgrade programs in cooperation with foreign partners,” said Yoon Seok-joon, a consultant with Hanwha Systems' avionics business team. “Through the experience, we have much better knowledge of IFF design and functions than other local competitors. This is a clear advantage.” LIG Nex1, a precision missile developer, formed a task force in 2016 for Mode-5 upgrade work to seek related technology for localization. As a result, the company successfully localized a Mode-5 system for its KP-SAM Shin-Gung (or Chiron) shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles with the help of Thales, which is contracted to provide Mode-5 technologies for ground weapons systems. “Based on the successful development of a Mode-5 device for Shin-Gung, we're now able to independently develop Mode-5 equipment for other weapons systems, such as Hybrid Biho air defense system; Chunma short-range surface-to-air missile; and TPS-830K low-altitude radar,” said Park Jung-ho, program manager of LIG Nex1's Mode-5 upgrade team. To help facilitate the certification of its Mode-5 systems by the U.S. Defense Department, LIG Nex1 recently signed an agreement with the U.S. defense system certification contractor KBR. Korea Aerospace Industries is expected to win contracts for Mode-5 devices to be fitted on advanced aircraft, including F-15K fighters, T-50 trainer jets and Surion utility helicopters. KAI develops the Surion platform. “We own thousands of platforms around the world with this product, so we have lots of experiences in the U.S. and other countries as well as with this IFF piece of equipment,” said Rob Peer, president of BAE Systems in Korea. “It's advanced technology with low weight, low power and cost effective. All of those things make it very effective.” Peer stressed that he feels BAE Systems' Mode-5 is the best fit for the systems of the F-35 fighter jet, which South Korea is to deploy in the coming years. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2018/09/24/south-korean-military-to-upgrade-friend-or-foe-id-capability

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  29 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval

  U.S. Navy Orders Four MH-60R Helicopters for Greece

  Richard R. Burgess ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has placed an order with Lockheed Martin for four MH-60R Seahawk multi-mission helicopters for the government of Greece. The Naval Air Systems Command, through the Foreign Military Sales Program, awarded a $194 million contract modification to Lockheed Martin for the helicopters and three airborne low-frequency sonar systems to be used by the helicopters, according to an Oct. 26 Defense Department contract announcement. The MH-60R is the U.S. Navy's maritime strike and anti-submarine helicopter. The helicopter type also has been exported to the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Danish Air Force, and the Royal Saudi Navy. Greece would be the fifth operator and has stated an intent to procure seven. Other nations intent on procuring MH-60Rs are the Republic of Korea and India, which have announced plans for 12 and 24 helicopters, respectively. Work on the contract modification is expected to be completed in February 2025. https://seapowermagazine.org/u-s-navy-orders-four-mh-60r-helicopters-for-greece/

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  25 novembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Lockheed And Pentagon Joust Over Lucrative F-35 Data Rights

  Steve Trimble, Lee Hudson and Michael Bruno An ongoing legal dispute between the U.S. government and Lockheed Martin over intellectual property (IP) rights in the F-35 program has emerged as the source of a 2.5-year delay in activating a key system required to complete initial operational testing and the full-rate production decision. Involving the Pentagon's largest single weapons program ever—and with full-rate production critical to Lockheed's long-term profitability—the dispute has waylaid progress for both sides. But not only is the matter holding up the program, it may set a precedent for the military's increasing reliance on software and the government's desire to reap data-based rewards. “We still do have concerns,” says U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, F-35 program executive officer. “We don't need all the data, but the data that we need, it's important that we pursue it.” “We also have fundamental standards that we need to set down so that it is very, very clear,” adds Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. The military's open-air test ranges lack the capacity to fully test the F-35's advanced capabilities, so the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) office is relying on the activation of the Joint Simulation Environment (JSE). The JSE creates a synthetic world that allows operational testers to gauge the F-35's performance in theater-level scenarios, with multiple aircraft flying against an adversary's full arsenal of fighters, missiles and electronic warfare capabilities. The JSE was supposed to be activated in late 2017 but now is scheduled to achieve the first-use milestone in July 2020, Robert Behler, the head of DOT&E, told lawmakers Nov. 13 during a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on F-35 readiness. The DOT&E has completed 91% of open-air missions during the Initial Operational Test & Evaluation phase required to qualify the F-35 for a full-rate production decision, but the testers still need to use the JSE to complete all of the testing. According to Fick's testimony, the IP dispute has delayed activation of the JSE. The JSE requires Lockheed to supply the software to enable a function nicknamed “F-35 in a Box,” he says. This is a software module that allows the JSE to virtually replicate each of the F-35's sensor subsystems, along with the sensor fusion brain embedded in the operational flight program. The government would then add software modules to replicate various threats, including aircraft, weapons and sensors of various adversaries. A dispute arose because Lockheed asserted an IP claim over nine specific algorithms that were included in the “F-35 in a Box” software package, the general says. The program office responded by bringing in the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) to review Lockheed's records. The DCAA's auditors determined they could not find the proof in Lockheed's records that the nine algorithms had been developed solely at Lockheed's expense. Since Lockheed failed to prove its claim, the DCAA determined the nine algorithms belonged to the government. Lockheed has appealed the DCAA's decision to the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, where it is still being adjudicated, the general told lawmakers. The dispute over the JSE feeds into a larger source of tension between the government and contractors over IP rights. Lord testified that her office is in the final stages of approving a new, Pentagon-wide policy on preserving the government's rights to IP in acquisition contracts. The policy will be modeled on an approach adopted late last year by the Army, which requires program managers to establish the government's IP rights on specific systems up front, rather than treat the issue as an afterthought. “Before we put together an acquisition strategy, you have to think about what information is critical to a program, particularly in terms of sustainability, so that you're not always held hostage to the prime on that through the life of the contract and [so] that you can find better cost solutions through a variety of different providers,” she said. Still, the new approach could challenge the business models of prime contractors and suppliers, who traditionally have eaten costs up front or bid low to win weapons contracts, with the intent of making money in the two-thirds of the life cycle of the program that includes sustainment. At an Aviation Week defense conference years ago, defense executives were asked to address the idea of giving up IP rights to the government and were determined to resist. “No!” yelled one executive in the closed-door gathering. Indeed, the new policy—which will not require explicit congressional blessing, as it is internal rulemaking—still faces questions by industry lobbying groups, including the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). John Luddy, AIA's vice president for national security policy, said IP policymaking is “probably the most important” issue currently between his trade lobby group and defense leaders. Industry is not yet behind the emerging Pentagon policy, he indicated during the ComDef 2019 conference in October, because it does not strike the proper “balance,” in industry's view, to allow it to reap profits while letting the government contract to sustain weapon systems more affordably. “We think [it] is headed toward the right kind of balance, but I would just encourage that to continue—we're engaged quite a bit with the department on that,” Luddy said. “We have to find that balance.” Diana Maurer, director of defense capabilities and management at the Government Accountability Office, noted that her auditing office flagged the IP issue in 2014 and is happy to see the Pentagon make progress on the issue. But the changing nature of warfare systems means the issue will likely only grow. “Weapon systems today are essentially flying or sailing or moving pieces of software, and the intellectual property is an important piece of that.” https://aviationweek.com/defense/lockheed-and-pentagon-joust-over-lucrative-f-35-data-rights