11 octobre 2023 | International, Sécurité
Canada is sending more munitions to Ukraine, including artillery rounds and aircraft bombs, Defence Minister Bill Blair announced in Brussels on Wednesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the meeting of allies who are helping am his country.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-donating-more-artillery-shells-bombs-ukraine-1.6992204
16 juillet 2024 | International, Naval
The UK Royal Marines expand its existing fleet of ATVs while also refurbishing its existing littoral vehicles that are up to 20-years-old.
11 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance and SpaceX have won the Space Force's next-generation rocket contract, locking the two companies in as the Defense Department's launch providers of choice for the foreseeable future. ULA — a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing — was awarded $337 million, while SpaceX will be getting $316 million for phase two of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, the Pentagon announced Aug. 7. They beat out Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman. Phase 2 of the NSSL program is the U.S. military's vehicle for ordering launch services from fiscal year 2022 to 2027. ULA is slated to get 60 percent of the manifest, with SpaceX getting the remainder. “We don't think this is the last round of innovation that we're going to see,” Will Roper, the Air Force's acquisition executive, told reporters during an Aug. 7 roundtable. “Although we're excited for the next five years, we're looking ahead to ‘Phase 3' five years from now and wondering what new leap-ahead, lower-cost technologies might be on the forefront to make assured access to space not just assured, but cheaper.” The award pays for the first three missions in 2022, which include two ULA launches and one for SpaceX. All are classified, Roper said. There is no ceiling on the number of launches that the Pentagon can order in Phase 2, but Roper expects about 32 missions. Funding for those missions will be distributed in future task orders. The NSSL Phase 2 award moves the U.S. military one step closer to eliminating its dependence on the Russian RD-180 engine, which is used in ULA's Atlas V rocket. The Defense Department has until 2022 to stop RD-180 procurement, and Roper said he was confident was on “a low risk path” to ensure it will meet that deadline. For the Phase 2 SpaceX offered the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, which are both certified and in use. ULA proposed a new rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, which is under development and expected to make its maiden flight in 2021. “Vulcan Centaur is the right choice for critical national security space missions and was purpose built to meet all of the requirements of our nation's space launch needs,” said Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO, said in a statement. Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman were also in the process of creating new launch systems under a 2018 agreement with the Space and Missile Systems Center. That organization will now work with those companies on how to best halt the government's involvement in that development, Roper said. “We will tie off the [launch service agreement] contracts as soon as we can, at a point that makes sense,” he said. “We want to make sure that work that's in flux, that we're able to document what the vendors have done. Where the government has rights to the data and the work, we want to make sure we retain them.” Unless the companies protest the contract award, the next opportunity for Northrop, Blue Origin or other challengers to compete for national security launches is NSSL Phase 3, but the department's approach and timeline for that effort is still being determined. “If funding were available for a Phase 3 launch service agreement, there's no prohibition on how early we could start Phase 3,” said Roper, who added that studies have shown “some strategic benefits for doing that sooner rather than later.” https://www.defensenews.com/space/2020/08/07/after-a-hard-fought-competition-ula-and-spacex-to-remain-militarys-rocket-launch-providers/
2 juin 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — Former acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly hadn't been out of the job more than a month before the Navy canceled an ongoing study he'd launched into the future of aircraft carriers — a review he optimistically termed “Future Carrier 2030.” Modly and his predecessor, Richard Spencer, had been excited by the prospect of fielding smaller, more risk-worthy carriers that could reduce the chance of China or Russia landing a major punch in a conflict simply by sinking or disabling a single ship, such as a Nimitz- or Ford-class aircraft carrier with thousands of sailors and tens of billions of dollars of hardware aboard. But very soon after Modly's spectacular departure, former acting Secretary James McPherson canceled the study until further notice. Still, as the effort to move to a smaller carrier seems frozen — as it has been for decades every time someone suggested it — the Navy is forging ahead with preparing its big-deck boats — the amphibious assault ships — for operating with the Marine Corp's F-35B. The Corps' F-35 fighter jet is a short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variant. The Navy recently inked a $200 million contract with BAE Systems to upgrade the amphibious assault ship Boxer to be able to operate with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the fifth landing helicopter assault ship to be so amended. “The USS Boxer [dry-dock availability] will complete a combination of maintenance, modernization, and repair of the following systems: Hull structure, propulsion, electrical plant, auxiliary systems, and communications and combat systems, as well as alterations to prepare the ship for operations with the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (JSF),” according to a statement from Naval Sea Systems command. But the idea of smaller carriers is one the Navy has been flirting with more recently. Last fall, the Navy packed 13 F-35Bs on the amphibious assault ship America. Then-Navy Secretary Spencer later said the ship could hold up to 20. “I will tell you, we are augmenting the aircraft carrier with our ideas, such as this lightning carrier,” Spencer said at the Brookings Institution think tank. “Twenty F-35 Bravos on a large-deck amphib. My cost performance there is tremendous. Does it have the same punch? No, it doesn't, but it does have a very interesting sting to it.” The Boxer, which is an older class of big-deck amphib, could likely pack about 15 F-35Bs if it were dedicated for the purpose, according to Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.