Epirus, DroneShield combine on UAS-roasting air defense

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  15 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval

  Reaper Replacement Reveals Bold New GA-ASI Vision

  Steve Trimble In December 2018, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems executives still felt the bitter sting of a losing bid two months earlier for the U.S. Navy MQ-25 contract, but a clearly disappointed company president vowed to return for the next competition against the aerospace industry's largest companies. “If the [request for proposals] comes out for a major program of record, we're all-in,” said David Alexander in that December 2018 interview in his offices in Poway, California. “We'll maybe have a few more lessons learned on what to do and what not to do,” he added. "But we'll go in with both feet planted again and go after it.” Eighteen months later, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) is doubling-down on Alexander's commitment, releasing exclusively to Aviation Week a concept rendering of a next-generation unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that reflects the characteristics the company's designers view as essential for the class of aircraft that could replace the MQ-9 by the early 2030s. Ultra-long-endurance UAS proposed GA-ASI hints at propulsion advances GA-ASI was among at least five industry teams that responded to the U.S. Air Force's request for information (RFI) for a next-generation intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike UAS to enter service in fiscal 2030. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin shared concepts for next-generation UAS designs on Sept. 11. Boeing and Kratos also responded to the Air Force RFI by the July 15 deadline but declined to release concepts at this nascent stage of the bidding process. Arguably, GA-ASI invented the role of the ISR/Strike UAS with the MQ-9, and the company's concept for the Reaper is no less provocative, featuring a jet-powered aircraft with distinctive, tear-shaped inlets and a long, high-aspect-ratio wingspan that appear optimized for ultra-long-range flight at high altitudes. “We're embracing ultra-long endurance to keep our next-generation ISR/Strike UAS in the fight for longer periods than many ever imagined possible,” Alexander said in a statement to Aviation Week. Although GA-ASI released no specifications with the rendering, it is clear Alexander means the next-generation concept should have even longer range that the 27-hr. endurance currently offered by the Air Force's MQ-9. The Air Force Research Laboratory defined ultra-long-endurance in 2019, when a popular light sport aircraft, the Pipistrel Sinus, was modified to fly autonomously for 2.5 days over the Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The modified aircraft was called the Ultra-Long-Endurance Aircraft Platform. How the new GA-ASI concept achieves ultra-long endurance is likely to include intriguing surprises beyond the disproportionately long, thin-chord and highly swept wings. The tear-shape inlets appear to feed airflow through parallel ducts down the middle of the fuselage into a mysterious propulsion system. Alexander's statement hints that the aircraft's engine is a critical element of the ultra-long-endurance capability. “Our advancements in propulsion technology will give commanders a longer reach than ever before,” Alexander said. In the late-1990s, GA-ASI designed the MQ-9 to perform the hunter-killer UAS mission's three “F's”—find, fix and finish—by itself if necessary, with a targeting sensor embedded beneath the nose and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles along with GBU-12 laser-guided or GBU-38 GPS-guided gravity bombs under the wing. GA-ASI's next-generation UAS concept appears capable of performing the role in a similar stand-alone fashion. A faintly visible bulge under the leading edge suggests capacity for a large payload bay, allowing the future concept to carry sensors and weapons internally, unlike the MQ-9. But the Air Force's concept of operations is changing. Whether manned or unmanned, any aircraft in the future combat fleet must be capable of finding and striking targets on their own, but they are expected to be able to operate as part of a network. Data from onboard sensors must be shared to the network, and data coming from other sensors elsewhere on the network must be receivable. GA-ASI's concept is adapted to that approach, Alexander said. “We envision [the] next-gen ISR/Strike [aircraft] as a conduit, supplier and consumer of information,” hesaid. “We believe it is imperative that future unmanned systems are able to communicate, share information and collaborate—together and intuitively with their human counterparts—across systems and domains in record time.” The next-generation UAS also addresses the workforce needed to operate the MQ-9, including separate teams of pilots and sensor operators during cruise flight and takeoff and landing. GA-ASI notes that the company has already qualified technologies to enable the existing fleet to taxi, take off and land automatically as well as a ground control system that allows a single pilot to control six UAS. “Our team has been developing and delivering automation solutions for years,” Alexander said. https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-conference/reaper-replacement-reveals-bold-new-ga-asi-vision

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  22 juin 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  U.S. Hypersonic Defense Plan Emerges, But Not Cash

  Steve Trimble A U.S. hypersonic defense system has evolved from wide-open concept studies two years ago into a densely layered architecture populated by requirements for a new generation of space-based sensors and ground-based interceptors. Over the next two years, the first elements of the Defense Department's newly defined hypersonic defense architecture could advance into operational reality if all the pieces can overcome various challenges, including the Pentagon's so far ambiguous commitment to long-term funding. Space-based hypersonic tracking is possible in 2023 New sea-based interceptor will possibly be ready by mid-2020s Pentagon seeks Congressional add-ons to finance plan The Space Development Agency (SDA), with assistance from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), next year will start launching satellites into orbit with new forms of tracking technology optimized to perform the challenging task of remotely targeting hypersonic missiles as they maneuver in the atmosphere hundreds of miles below. At the same time, the MDA and DARPA will soon begin demonstrating a new class of kinetic and nonkinetic interceptor technologies. In addition to solving the guidance and thermal challenges posed by hypersonic flight, this new class of missile defense weapons must be guidable by satellites potentially perched far over the horizon, not by sensors integrally linked on the ground to their launching systems. Pentagon officials began conceiving a hypersonic defense architecture a year after launching multiple offensive weapons programs in 2017, seeking to close gaps in the ballistic defense system that missiles now fielded by adversaries are designed to exploit. With the ability to maneuver hundreds of miles off a ballistic trajectory, hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and cruise missiles are designed to evade the MDA's network of stationary ground-based and slow-moving sea-based radars dotted around the globe. By gliding or powering through the atmosphere against the warm background of Earth, the same missiles appear 10-15 times less luminous during the midcourse phase than the boost-phase, exoatmospheric objects that the MDA designed the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites to detect, according to Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Closing those gaps will require serious investment. Despite plans to infuse more than $10 billion to field at least three different rocket-boosted HGVs by 2025 as offensive weapons, the Pentagon's financial commitment to field a defensive capability is not as clear. The MDA, for example, submitted a fiscal 2020 budget request in February 2019 that included around $157 million in hypersonic defense. A month later, the agency submitted an unfunded-priorities list to Congress, asking for another $720 million for hypersonic interceptors and tracking sensors. Congress met the MDA more than halfway, adding $400 million to the final appropriations bill. A similar shortfall then appeared in the MDA's fiscal 2021 budget request. The agency included $207 million for hypersonic defense but asked Congress to chip in another $224 million on top of the budgeted amount, according to a March report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) Missile Defense Project. Moreover, the Defense Department's long-range forecast for hypersonic defense spending shows an ambiguous commitment at best. The MDA plans to launch a competition to select a Regional Glide-Phase Weapon System (RGPWS) in fiscal 2021 but only if Congress approves the additional $224 million identified in the unfunded priorities list. At the same time, the new SDA plans to start demonstrating MDA's Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking and Surveillance System (HBTSS) alongside the SDA's own tracking layer in orbit. But the unclassified version of the Future Years Defense Program, which details the Defense Department's five-year spending forecast, shows declining support for hypersonic defense after next year. If Congress approves the extra $224 million for MDA, hypersonic defense spending would peak at around $450 million next year, then average about $112 million annually from fiscal 2022 to 2025, according to the CSIS data. The implication seems clear: Despite the MDA's public commitment to a hypersonic defense system, the agency prefers to finance the development mainly by annual congressional add-ons. Although the MDA's long-term funding plan for hypersonic defense is limited, the potential threats are no longer speculative. In December, the Russian government announced it had achieved operational status for the Avangard, a nuclear-tipped HGV launched by a modernized SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile. Two months earlier, Gen. Paul Selva, then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained the implications of an adversary with a nuclear-armed HGV: Imagine if NATO attempted to blunt a move by Moscow to occupy a Baltic state, and Russian strategic forces responded by threatening to launch an Avangard missile. The now-retired general warned that a single Avangard could arc over the Arctic Ocean, and as it reached the northern tip of Hudson Bay, Canada, could change course. It could then veer to target the U.S. East Coast or strike the West Coast, Selva says. U.S. forces currently have no ability to deter or defend against such a capability. To solve that problem, a new space-based tracking system is needed. The Pentagon's existing satellites are either looking for a more luminous signal than that of an HGV or a hypersonic cruise missile or are using a very narrow field-of-view sensor to minimize background clutter, says SDA Director Derek Tournear, who spoke with Aviation Week during a June 4 webinar. The first attempt to solve that problem is scheduled for launch in fiscal 2024. Forty satellites in SDA's Tranche 1 constellation in low Earth orbit carry sensor payloads for tracking hypersonic missiles. Unlike the SBIRS or other space-based capabilities, the sensors will neither have a narrow field of view nor be optimized for tracking only during the boost or exoatmospheric phases of a missile's trajectory. Instead, the spacecraft in Tranche 1 will carry a wide-field-of-view infrared sensor. “However, the jury is still out on whether [the sensors] will be able to form a track that is high enough quality to actually give you that fire control solution so that you can fire [interceptors] on [a] remote [track],” Tournear says. The backup to the SDA sensor will be demonstrated under MDA's HBTSS program. The MDA is developing what Tournear calls a medium-field-of-view system, which falls between the narrow-field-of-view format of existing satellites and the SDA's wide-field-of-view design for Tranche 1. Ideally, the SDA's wide-field-of-view sensors will detect an HGV or a cruise missile and pass the data in orbit to the HBTSS sensors, which will then develop a target-quality track. That data will be passed down to interceptor batteries on the ground. Modified interceptors, such as Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, will augment new kinetic and non-kinetic options to shoot down hypersonic missiles. Credit: Missile Defense Agency Within a few years, the SDA will find out how the concept works. By the end of 2022, eight Tranche 0 satellites equipped with the SDA's wide-field-of-view sensors should be in low Earth orbit. A year later, the MDA plans to launch two satellites into low Earth orbit with medium-field-of-view sensors. The Tranche 0 constellation—aided by 20 communications-relay and data-processing “transport” satellites—will provide a limited operational capability and validate that the sensors work as designed. The next step comes in 2024, when the SDA plans to launch the 40 satellites in the Tranche 1 constellation. “We would have, in essence, regional persistence of [infrared satellites] over any area of the globe that we choose,” Tournear says. There is a catch, however. The launch of the Tranche 1 satellites in 2024 fall within the five-year spending plan but so far remain unfunded. Shortly after the scheduled Tranche 1 layer is activated, the MDA plans to field RGPWS, the new interceptor optimized for HGVs. If Congress adds the funding, RGPWS could be fielded as early as the “mid-2020s” with the Navy's Mk. 41 vertical launch systems on ships and submarines, followed later by air- and land-launched versions. The design requirements for RGPWS are classified, but it's possible the interceptor may benefit from an ongoing DARPA program. Glide Breaker, which includes Aerojet Rocketdyne as a supplier, seeks to demonstrate a “critical enabling technology” for a hypersonic defense missile. The MDA also plans to demonstrate an “extreme power” microwave weapon against “very long-range” missile threats within two years. At the same time, the MDA is adapting existing point defenses against atmospheric threats. Lockheed Martin is studying improved versions of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, called “Dart,” and of the Patriot, called “Valkyrie.” In addition to the extreme power microwave, Raytheon also is studying a new variant of the SM-3 called Hawk. Editor's note: The article has been updated to correctly identify the names of the hypersonic defense concepts under study for THAAD and Patriot. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/us-hypersonic-defense-plan-emerges-not-cash

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  12 septembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  DSEI : Raytheon anticipates international boom in counterdrone sales

  By: Jen Judson LONDON — Raytheon is expecting a boom in international sales of its counter-UAS system already battle-tested with the U.S. Army. The Howler system — which includes a Ku-band Radio Frequency Sensor, a command-and-control system, and a Coyote unmanned aircraft system designed to take out enemy drones — could soon see an abundance of buyers. The system could also include a high-energy laser defeat solution and a high-powered microwave capability to provide a non-kinetic approach to knocking drone threats out of commission, according to company officials. “We have experienced quite a bit of interest from our international friends, partners and allies,” James McGovern, Raytheon vice president of mission systems and sensors in its Integrated Defense Systems business, told Defense News during an interview at DSEI, a defense exposition in London. “It's exploded: Counter-unmanned aircraft systems is the in-vogue discussion on weapon space and solution set at every trade show we've been to. It's a nonstop revolving door of interested customers in our solutions,” he added. Over the past five years, drone threats — cheap, commercial off-the-shelf ones — have proliferated in use, posing a threat on the battlefield as well as to airports, sports stadiums, government buildings and urban areas. Raytheon is preparing to reach initial operational capability with the U.S. Army of its Block II version of the Coyote, which is a variant that makes the Block more missile-like in appearance. The IOC goal is for the first quarter of 2020, according to Pete Mangelsdorf, director of the Coyote and rapid development programs within the land warfare systems portfolio at Raytheon. In the meantime, the company is soon expecting congressional notification for a sale to its first foreign country, Mangelsdorf said. Raytheon expects to see roughly 15 more countries issue letters of request for the Howler system to include Block II Coyote rapidly following the first congressional notification, he added. The company has license to separately sell sensors abroad, but generally customers are not just interested in what the sense-and-detect capability sensors would bring but rather want full-up systems that include all of Howler's elements. Raytheon's Howler system is flexible and can integrate into other systems and platforms, according to McGovern. Currently, Howler is used on a U.S. Army truck, but it could be integrated onto a pallet at a fixed site or mounted on a different truck depending on customer needs, McGovern said. The U.S. Army system was developed in response to a joint urgent operational need statement to find something that could counter drones as well as rockets, artillery and mortars, according to Mangelsdorf. The Block I version of the Coyote, which looks more like a plane or loitering munition than a missile, was the interim capability in response to the joint urgent operational need statement. The system is scalable in size. McGovern said Raytheon has used its gallium nitride technology to scale down the radar array while maintaining range and detection sensitivity, and while fitting it onto a smaller vehicle in the event a customer has a need for increased mobility, like in the case of special operations forces. The radar has the ability to see singular drones and identify drone swarms with high fidelity. Other radars might just pick up a drone swarm as one big blob, McGovern noted. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2019/09/11/raytheon-anticipates-international-boom-in-counter-drone-sales