Dassault Aviation livrera moins de Falcon que prévu, craintes sur le Rafale

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  6 octobre 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Space Development Agency orders 8 satellites to track hypersonic weapons

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON —SpaceX and and L3 Harris will contribute satellites to track hypersonic weapons to the Space Development Agency's planned mega-constellation, with the nascent agency announcing it had selected the two companies to build its first wide field of view satellites Oct. 5. Under the contracts, each company will design and develop four satellites equipped with wide field of view (WFOV) overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors. Operating in low Earth orbit, the sensors will make up the inaugural tranche of the SDA's tracking layer—the Pentagon's new effort to track hypersonic weapons from space. “This SDA tracking layer is going to consist of a proliferated, heterogeneous constellation of WFOV space vehicles that provide persistent global coverage and custody capability. That's going to combine with activities in the Missile Defense Agency as they build toward their Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) medium field of view (MFOV) space vehicles,” Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Research and Engineering Mark Lewis told C4ISRNET. According to the announcement, SpaceX will receive $149 million while L3 Harris will receive $193 million. According to SDA Director Derek Tournear, the awards were the result of a full and open competition, with the selection based purely on technical merit. SpaceX has made waves with its Starlink constellation—a series of satellites built to provide commercial broadband from low Earth orbit—and the Department of Defense has tested using Starlink to connect various weapon systems. However, the company does not have a history building OPIR sensors. According to Tournear, the company will work with partners to develop the sensor, which it will then place on a bus it is providing. SpaceX already has a production line in place to build a bus based on its Starlink technologies, added Tournear. “SpaceX had a very credible story along that line—a very compelling proposal. It was outstanding,” he said. “They are one of the ones that have been at the forefront of this commercialization and commodification route.” L3 Harris will develop an OPIR solution based on decades of experience with small satellites, small telescopes and OPIR technologies. “They had an extremely capable solution. They have a lot of experience flying affordable, rapid, small satellite buses for the department,” noted Tournear. “They had the plant and the line in place in order to produce these to hit our schedule.” Tracking hypersonic weapons The contracts are the latest development as the SDA fleshes out its National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), a new constellation to be comprised of hundreds of satellites primarily operating in low Earth orbit. These satellites are expected to make up tranche 0 of the SDA's tracking layer, which will provide global coverage for tracking hypersonic threats. The glue that holds the NDSA together will be the transport layer, a space-based mesh network made up of satellites connected by optical intersatellite links. Like most planned SDA satellites, WFOV satellites will plug directly into that network. “The idea is it connects to the National Defense Space Architecture—the NDSA transport layer—via optical intersatellite links,” said Lewis. “And that will enable low latency dissemination for missile warning indications. It will provide track directly to the joint war fighters.” SDA issued two contracts in August for its first 20 transport layer satellites. York Space Systems was awarded $94 million to build its 10 satellites, while Lockheed Martin was awarded $188 million. That transport layer capability is essential to the tracking layer's mission. Because they are so much closer to the Earth's surface than the U.S. Space Force's missile tracking satellites in geosynchronous orbit, the WFOV sensors will naturally have a much more limited field of vision. In order to track globe traversing hypersonic missiles, the WFOV satellites will have to work together. Once the first satellite picks up a threat, it will begin tracking it until it disappears over the horizon. During that time, it is expected to transmit its tracking data to other WFOV satellites over the transport layer. So as the first satellite loses sight of the threat over the horizon, the next WFOV is ready to pick it up, and so on and so forth. From there, the WFOV satellites will pass the tracking data — either directly or via the transport layer — on to the medium field of view satellites being developed by the Missile Defense Agency as their HBTSS. “SDA is developing the low cost proliferated WFOV space vehicles that provide the missile warning and the tracking information for national defense authorities, as well as tracking and cueing data for missile defense elements,” explained Lewis. “Meanwhile, the Missile Defense Agency is developing the high resolution HBTSS MFOV space vehicles — those can receive cues from other sources including the WFOV system—and they'll provide low latency fire control quality tracking data.” “The MFOV HBTSS satellites will then be able to hone in and actually be able to calculate the fire control solution for that missile, send those data to the transport satellites with a laser comms system ... and then the transport system will disseminate that to the weapons platform as well as back to [the continental United States, where MDA can broadcast that information],” added Tournear. MDA issued $20 million contracts to Northrop Grumman, Leidos, Harris Corporation and Raytheon to develop HBTSS prototypes in Oct. 2019. Tournear noted that proposals for HBTSS “are being written as we speak.” Together, HBTSS and the SDA's tracking layer are meant to provide the data needed to take out hypersonic threats—which Congress is increasingly concerned by. “It's part of an integrated DoD OPIR strategy. So the wide field of view sensors and the medium field of view sensors are really integral to this whole NDSA system and legacy strategic missile warning capability,” said Lewis, praising MDA and SDA for working together to build a heterogeneous solution. Spiral development Of course, this initial tranche won't provide global coverage up front. As part of its spiral development approach, SDA plans to continuously add satellites to its mega-constellation in two-year tranches, with each tranche including more advanced technology. The tracking layer is not expected to reach global coverage until 2026, said Tournear. But as the constellation is built out, the more limited initial capabilities will be used to help integrate the space-based assets with war fighters. “We call tranche 0 our war fighter immersion tranche,” said Tournear. “What that means is, its goal is to provide the data in a format that the war fighters are used to seeing on tactical timelines that they can be expected to see once we actually become operational. The whole purpose of tranche 0 is to allow the war fighters to start to train and develop tactics, techniques and procedures so that they can create operational plans for a battle where they would actually incorporate these data.” With tranche 1 in 2024, the tracking and transport layers will essentially reach initial operating capability, said Tournear. That will include persistent regional coverage. According to Tournear, the tranche 0 satellites are set to launch in September 2022. Tournear told C4ISRNET his agency is planning to issue a separate solicitation for launch services later this week. That solicitation will cover all of the tranche 0 satellites, including the 20 transport layer satellites the agency ordered in August, the eight WFOV satellites and the HBTSS satellites https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/10/05/space-development-agency-orders-8-hypersonic-weapon-tracking-satellites/

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  2 avril 2024 | International, Aérospatial

  U.S. Army Awards Lockheed Martin $483M JAGM, HELLFIRE Follow-On Production Contract

  This contract will provide JAGM and HELLFIRE procurement and production support for the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and international customers

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  3 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Editorial: A Code Of Conduct For Aviation’s Recovery

  Desperate times call for bold measures, and the $2.2 trillion coronavirus economic rescue package passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump certainly passes that test. Tucked into the gargantuan measure was $58 billion for airlines and cargo carriers, including $29 billion in grants to keep workers paid for the next six months, even if they are staffing empty flights. Boeing did not get the $60 billion directly that it had sought for aerospace manufacturers, but the aircraft giant and its suppliers still qualify for hefty rescue loans or guarantees. The secretary general of the United Nations has called COVID-19 the worst crisis the world has seen since World War II, and governments have a duty to ensure that this unprecedented pandemic does not wipe out vital industries. But the torrent of rescue money could have negative side effects, and it is imperative that governments step back when the crisis subsides. The market distortions of state aid already are apparent in the airline industry, where a lack of coordination among governments—even those within the EU—has tilted the playing field. And what if Boeing receives government backstops that Airbus has said it does not need? It is increasingly likely that when the pandemic subsides, the aviation industry will be facing a long uphill march to recovery, rather than the quick bounce-back that had been hoped for. As such, we urge the industry's stakeholders to start looking ahead and taking steps that will position them to recover as quickly as possible. Consider this Code of Conduct: Take care of your employees. You will need them to excel and work as a team when you recover. Do whatever possible to keep them healthy and well-informed. In the near term, furloughs, wage freezes and hiring freezes may be unavoidable to control costs. But prioritizing shareholders or senior executives over workers would create labor issues that could slow any recovery. Take care of your customers. You will only recover if they recover, so be flexible in responding to their issues during the crisis. Relationships cemented during hard times will pay off, while fractured relationships could cause long-term damage. Take care of your suppliers. Aviation manufacturers have spent decades pushing risk down to suppliers while trying to limit their rewards to reduce costs. If your suppliers do not survive or take too long to recover, all those risks will rebound onto you. Take care of your industrial base. The Pentagon wields an enormous amount of buying power at the taxpayers' expense. That should be deployed to keep its supply base healthy in the near term, even if it is at the expense of delaying long-term capabilities. Take care of your business. You need to come back more agile and flexible than ever to adjust to the immediate challenges of a recovery and to tackle future challenges unrelated to the coronavirus, such as climate change. And what about taking care of shareholders? Consider that in one recent year Boeing returned nearly six times as much money to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends as it invested in R&D. Or consider that U.S. airlines sent 96% of their free cash flow to shareholders over the last five years. Now that hard times have hit, taxpayers are being asked to step in and foot the bill to save the industry. Shareholders need healthy airlines and healthy manufacturers. They can wait their turn. https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/editorial-code-conduct-aviations-recovery