3 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau
The Air Force issued a formal proposal earlier this month for the Department of Defense's long-awaited cyber weapon system, known as the Unified Platform, sources tell Fifth Domain.
DoD officials have said the Unified Platform is one of U.S. Cyber Command's largest and most critical acquisition programs to date. Industry officials have said it is necessary to conduct cyber operations and is critical to national security.
Just as sailors rely on an aircraft carrier, pilots need airplanes or soldiers need tanks, cyber warriors require a system to which they launch their attacks. Pentagon leaders have said the Unified Platform will house offensive and defensive tools, allow for command and control, situational awareness and planning. Industry officials have referred to the programs as a “cyber carrier” used to launch cyber operations and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
But details on what the Air Force, which issued the request on behalf of Cyber Command, wants in a Unified Platform are scarce.
Sources told Fifth Domain a formal request for proposal was released through the General Services Administration's premier enterprise Alliant Governmentwide Acquisition Contract vehicle, which “provides flexible access to customized IT solutions from a large, diverse pool of industry partners ... [and] allows for long-term planning of large-scale program requirements.”
Under this model, GSA completes much of the initial contracting legwork and, in this case, allows the Air Force to focus on the specific technical requirements, sources said. Companies compete to be eligible for task orders under the Alliant contract and then GSA selects contractors who compete against each other for individual task orders on the final program. This means, only vetted companies would work on the program.
Alliant is also designed to streamline contracts for IT projects only, eschewing some of the documentation and financials in typical contracts enabling faster awards.
The Unified Platform proposal was only released to companies on the contract about two weeks ago, sources said, and is due in mid-July.
Today, each of the individual services use their own disparate systems, many of which are not linked together. The spokesman added that efforts are underway to review and consolidate existing service and Cyber Command's platforms.
Unified Platform seeks to take the best of breed of these and provide all cyber warriors a consolidated system.
“In concert with US Cyber Command and all Services, the Air Force as Executive Agent is directing development and deployment to ensure timely and relevant full-spectrum capabilities for our cyber warriors,” an Air Force spokeswoman said.
An Air Force spokeswoman said that the Air Force's Life Cycle Management Center will serve as the system integrator and will lead a multi-contractor, agile development/operations effort to launch and expand the Unified Platform.
Currently, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Booz Allen Hamilton are known to be competing for the contract. Sources said other companies may also be considering a bid.
The Air Force, in its research and development budget for fiscal 2019, asked for $29.8 million for the Unified Platform program this year. It requested $10 million for fiscal year 2020 and $6 million in fiscal 2021. The total cost of the program is not immediately clear.
Other companies are also working on Unified Platform prototypes in the interim.
Enlighten IT Consulting, a Maryland based company, was awarded earlier this year a sole source contract to provide a Unified Platform prototype, Duane Shugars, Enlighten's vice president of operations, told Fifth Domain.
Enlighten is providing a capability Cyber Command's cyber mission force is using in real world missions today in which they collect data, push it into their analytics to run and share it for intelligence fusion.
As the command continues to grow and mature leaders have said it will need its own infrastructure to conduct operations. As recently as 2015, top Pentagon officials acknowledged Cyber Command did not possess a robust joint computer network infrastructure capability, a robust command and control platform and systems to plan and execute fast-moving, large-scale cyber operations.
During his confirmation process to lead Cyber Command, Gen. Paul Nakasone said the organization needs its own infrastructure separate from the National Security Agency, which is currently co-located with Cyber Command and has traditionally shared personnel and infrastructure.
“Operating under the constraint of the intelligence authorities that govern NSA infrastructure and tools would severely limit USCYBERCOM's ability to effectively support wartime cyber operations,” he said.
15 août 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
Working with Region 10 cybersecurity, protective security, and election security advisors, the Idaho Secretary of State Office recently spearheaded a
17 novembre 2020 | International, Terrestre
The Robotic Combat Vehicle (Light), which can shoot missiles, launch mini-drones, and spot targets for artillery, combines a Marine Corps-tested unmanned vehicle with Army weapons and autonomy software. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. WASHINGTON: Robot-builder QinetiQ formally delivered the first of four experimental Robotic Combat Vehicles (Light) to the Army on Nov. 5, the company has announced. They will be used alongside four Textron-built RCV-Mediums in field tests. After their delivery, the Army plans to buy 16 more of each variant as it scales up to more complex experiments. Those 2022 exercises will determine the feasibility of the service's ambitious plans for a “forward line of robots” to precede human troops into battle. The RCV-Light is a “very collaborative effort” that pulls together technologies from QinetiQ, industry partner Pratt Miller, and the Army's Ground Vehicle Systems Center, QinetiQ's director of unmanned systems tells me in an email. It also builds on “years of testing” of earlier versions by the famed Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, Va., Jonathan Hastie says. The platform itself is Pratt Miller's EMAV (Expeditionary Autonomous Modular Vehicle), a low-slung hybrid-electric vehicle with tracks to cover rough terrain, with a maximum speed of 45 mph. It's robust enough to carry 7,200 pounds of payload – more than its own 6,800 lbs — yet compact enough to fit aboard a Marine V-22 tiltrotor or an Army CH-47 helicopter. This is the system tested by the Marines. QinetiQ provided much of the electronics and software: “the core robotic control and computing system, network and communications systems, perception and vision systems; and the safety control,” Hastie told me. Less tangible but even more critical is QinetiQ's implementation of a Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA), compliant with the Pentagon-defined Inter-Operability Profile (IOP) for ground robotics. This is the set of technical standards and common interfaces that let RCV plug-and-play a wide range of different equipment packages for specific missions. This specific vehicle features a Kongsberg CROWS-J weapon station – basically, a remote-controlled mini-turret combining a machine gun and a Javelin anti-tank missile launcher. Normally CROWS is installed on a manned vehicle, allowing the crew to operate their weapons and sensors without exposing themselves in an open hatch, but RCV includes a long-range control link to let humans operate it from different vehicle altogether. The robot can't open fire without a human pulling the trigger. (It also can't reload the Javelin without human help, so it effectively has one missile per mission, although there's plenty of machine gun ammo aboard). The RCV-L also carries a mini-drone, the HoverFly Tethered Unmanned Aerial System, which it can launch to look over buildings, hills, and obstacles while the ground vehicle stays hidden. The drone is physically connected to the robot by a power and communications cable, even during flight – hence the term “tethered.” That does limit its range but effectively allows it unlimited flight time. The Army's Ground Vehicle Systems Center provides the software to control both the drone and the weapons station. GVSC also developed the autonomy package. It's a version of the common software the Army is developing for a variety of robotic vehicles, allowing them to navigate cross-country and around obstacles without constant human intervention. The less help the machines need from humans, the more useful they can be in battle. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/qinetiq-delivers-armed-scout-robot-to-army-rcv-l/
22 août 2022 | International, C4ISR
In this week's Defense Dollars, Raytheon buys a satellite company and Booz Allen Hamilton extends a contract.