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  6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Australia releases weapons wish list amid defense spending boost

  By: Nigel Pittaway MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia plans to increase defense spending over the next decade to AU$270 billion (U.S. $187 billion) in response to what it says is a deteriorating regional environment. The July 1 announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the plan coincides with the launch of the government's 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the associated Force Structure Plan, which will raise projected spending from AU$195 billion as laid out in the 2016 Defence White Paper. “The simple truth is this: Even as we stare down the COVID pandemic at home, we need to also prepare for a post-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous and that is more disorderly,” Morrison said during the documents launch at the Australian Defence Force Academy on Wednesday. “We have not seen the conflation of global, economic and strategic uncertainty now being experienced here in Australia in our region since the existential threat we faced when the global and regional order collapsed in the 1930s and 1940s.” Morrison also cited trends including military modernization, technological disruption and the risk of state-on-state conflict as further complicating factors in the Indo-Pacific region, which he said has deteriorated more rapidly than forecast by the previous whitepaper from 2016. “The Indo-Pacific is the epicenter of rising, strategic competition. Our region will not only shape our future; increasingly though, it is the focus of the dominant global contest of our age,” he said. “Tensions over territorial claims are rising across the Indo-Pacific region, as we have seen recently on the disputed border between India and China, and the South China Sea and the East China Sea.” What do the documents say? The two defense documents forecast the development of closer ties with Australia's regional partners and with the U.S., but it also warns of the need for enhanced self-reliance, which Morrison said signals the country's “ability and willingness” to project military power and deter actions against it. “Relations between China and the U.S. are fractious at best as they compete for political, economic and technological supremacy. But it's important to acknowledge that they are not the only actors of consequence. The rest of the world and Australia are not just bystanders to this,” he said. “Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, the countries of Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Pacific all have agency, choices to make, parts to play, and of course so does Australia.” Additional capabilities to those already being acquired include long-range strike weapons, area-denial systems and cyber tools — including the establishment of an offensive cyber capability. Also included on Australia's shopping list is the Lockheed Martin AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missile, which would become the country's next air-launched maritime strike weapon under Project Air 3023 Phase 1. Defence Minister Linda Reynolds confirmed Thursday that Australia will acquire an unspecified number of LRASM weapons through a Foreign Military Sales deal with the U.S. Navy. Training on the weapon is to begin in the U.S. in 2021. The missile will initially be employed by the Royal Australian Air Force's fleet of 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighters, with an initial operational capability to follow in 2023. Reynolds said the missile will also be integrated with Australia's F-35A jets, which are also made by Lockheed. Australia is also seeking replacement fleets for the Royal Australian Air Force's Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Hercules, Airbus KC-30A Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft, Boeing E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control planes and EA-18G Growler electronic attack platforms. The country's Jindalee Operational Radar Network is also to be expanded to cover Australia's eastern approaches. The government is also backing the creation of a hypersonic weapons development program. The documents also call for the Royal Australian Navy to receive two new multipurpose sealift and replenishment vessels and up to eight mine countermeasures and tactical hydrographic vessels, to be based on the Arafura-class offshore patrol vessels now under construction in local shipyards. The Australian Army is to receive an active protection system for its Hawkei and Bushmaster fleets of protected mobility vehicles; two regiments of self-propelled howitzers, to be built locally; and a replacement for its Abrams M1A1 main battle tanks. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/07/02/australia-releases-weapons-wish-list-amid-defense-spending-boost/

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  31 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  FVL: The Army’s 10-Year Plan For FARA Scout

  The Army's urgently developing new air-launched drones, long-range missiles, and electronic architecture to go on the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft that Bell and Sikorsky are vying to build. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR WASHINGTON: The Army's Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program is much bigger than the two ambitious high-speed helicopters that Bell and Sikorsky will now get more than $1 billion to build. At least five other major moving pieces must come together on time to turn the final aircraft, whoever makes it, into a working weapon: a new Improved Turbine Engine built by GE; helicopter-launched mini-drones called Air Launched Effects (ALE); a new Long-Range Precision Munition (LRPM), with the Israeli Spike-NLOS as the initial version; an Integrated Missile Launcher (IML) to launch both the missile and the drones; and the underlying electronic framework of standards and interfaces to plug it all together, the Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA). The Army is “not just focused on the air vehicle, but focused on the weapon system,” said Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, Future Vertical Lift director at Army Futures Command, in a call this morning with reporters. Here's the current schedule for everything to come together: 2019 April: The Army awarded five contracts for “initial designs” of the FARA aircraft itself. 2020 March: The Army assessed the five initial designs – including each company's ability to deliver on budget and schedule. Yesterday, they chose Bell and Sikorsky to build prototypes. Each company has already received a “digital model” of how their design must conform to the Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA), which will allow the government to plug-and-play MOSA-compliant components from any company, not just the manufacturer, over the life of the program, program manager Dan Bailey said: “We, the government, will control the interfaces internal to the aircraft so we can efficiently upgrade.” December: The Army will conduct a Final Design Review of both designs to confirm “that they are postured for success and risk is acceptable,” Bailey said. “After that, they will begin to build the aircraft.” 2021 Bell and Sikorsky build their prototypes. Despite their very different designs, each company must incorporate certain common Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) provide by the Army. That includes a 20mm cannon; the GE T909 Improved Turbine Engine, which will also be retrofitted to existing Apache and Black Hawk helicopters; and the Integrated Munitions Launcher (IML), which will use MOSA interface standards to connect missiles and ALE mini-drones to the aircraft – without having to modify the aircraft each time a new weapon is developed. If the Army's 2021 budget request is approved, this year the service will buy $152 million of Spike NLOS (Non-Line-Of-Sight) missiles from Israel armsmaker Rafael as an interim Long Range Precision Munition. 2022 Bell and Sikorsky begin ground testing of their prototypes. The Army fields Spike-NLOS missiles on existing aircraft across three Combat Aviation Brigades (CABs), providing both immediate combat power and hands-on experience with the technology to refine either the Spike or a competitor into the full-up LRPM. November: The Bell 360 Invictus and Sikorsky Raider-X fly for the first time. Flight testing begins. 2023 Summer: The prototype aircraft move from their builders' test sites to Redstone Arsenal to begin Army flight testing with all-government crews. The Army finalizes its formal requirements for FARA based on how the prototypes actually perform. Fall: The Army conducts a Weapons System Preliminary Design Review – that is, not of the aircraft alone, but of how all the pieces work together – and, in context of that holistic assessment, selects either Bell or Sikorsky to build the aircraft. By December 31st: The Army launches an official Program Of Record (POR) to acquire FARA. While the first few aircraft will cost more, the service's long-term goal is to spend no more than $30 million per FARA, the same price as the current AH-64 Apache gunship. 2024-2025 The Air-Launched Effects (ALE) mini-drones begin to enter service on existing Army aircraft. As with the Spike missile, this early deployment provides both immediate military benefit and the necessary experience to refine the technology for FARA. 2028-2030 The first FARA aircraft enter operational service. The Army hasn't specified how many it ultimately plans to build or for what price. But the Army's Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Aviation, Patrick Mason, told reporters today that “I have no reason to disagree with” widely circulated independent estimates of 300-400 aircraft for $15-20 billion. “We've got a series of gates” over the years, Mason said. “This is a constant assessment as we go through, and this is really the beauty and benefit of the prototyping design of this program: We will get to see both vendors as they go to their final designs and they build their prototype air vehicle, as we simultaneously carry forward [with] the other elements that are part of the FVL ecosystem.” “We're going to see very, very clear indication of the technology maturity, the readiness, and the ability of the prototype aircraft to meet the requirements,” he said. Novel Contracts, Novel Technology, Tight Schedule It's worth delving into some detail on what happened yesterday, when the Army announced that Bell and Sikorsky would get the chance to build competing prototypes of FARA – the Bell 360 Invictus and the Sikorsky Raider-X – while designs from AVX, Boeing, and Karem were rejected. Each of the five companies had received up to $15 million for design work, while Bell and Sikorsky will each get up to $735 million more to build and test their prototypes. The exact figures are competition-sensitive, and each vendor has invested much of its own money in any case. The contracts call for one-third private funding and two-thirds government funding over the design and prototyping phases combined, but the companies have almost certainly outspent the government so far. Technically, FARA program manager Dan Bailey told reporters, “we actually aren't awarding anything at this time.” Instead, last April, all five contenders got Other Transaction Authority Prototyping (OTAP) contracts for both the design and prototyping phases, but with clauses allowing the Army to cut any vendor at any time. It's that option they've just exercised. Rather than making an award, Bailey said, “yesterday, we notified two that we would continue to fund them into Phase 2 and we notified three that we would stop funding them.” (Emphasis ours). This novel approach, among other benefits, is nigh-impossible for losing bidders to appeal against, Rugen said: “There really is no ability to protest per se with the GAO [Government Accountability Office]. There is legal recourse potentially through the courts but, again, our legal team has advised us the risk is low.” That's helpful because – as the JEDI cloud computing contract proves – legal battles can delay Defense Department programs for months. The Army has a tight timeline for FARA, which it sees as essential to fill the gap in its aerial reconnaissance capability left by the retirement of the aging and much-upgraded Bell OH-58 Kiowa. While the competing designs are very different, Army simulations so far show that either would meet the military needs “Both are advanced rotorcraft configurations,” Brig. Gen. Rugen said. “Both did very well with speed, range, endurance at range, in our European scenario.... The power [for] takeoff with payload out of ground effect was also, again, leap-ahead.” The Bell 360 Invictus is basically a conventional helicopter with small wings for added lift, using fly-by-wire and rotor technology developed for the civilian Bell 525. The Sikorsky Raider-X is a compound helicopter with coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller for added thrust, derived from Sikorsky's S-97 Raider – which is a real, flight-testing aircraft – and ultimately the award-winning X2. “The X2 technology continues to impress,” Rugen said. While Bell's design may not have struck some observers as revolutionary, he said, “the efficiency” with which Bell's engineers stripped out every possible bit of drag – allowing much higher speeds – “was truly innovative. “We've got two great competitors ... on a program that we must deliver for the Army,” Rugen said. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/fvl-the-armys-10-year-plan-for-fara-scout

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  6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Space Force walks back stimulus contracts for small launch providers

  Nathan Strout Less than two weeks after the U.S. Space Force invoked the Defense Production Act to prop up six small launch providers, those awards have been withdrawn. On June 16, the Space and Missile Systems Center announced in a beta.SAM.gov post that it was awarding rideshare contracts to six companies approved by the Industrial Base Council: Aevum, Astra, X-BOW, Rocket Lab USA, Space Vector and VOX Space. Each company was to be awarded two rideshare missions to be conducted over the next 24 months. The value of those contracts was not revealed. But as first reported by SpaceNews, SMC has withdrawn those awards. A new statement on beta.SAM.gov notes that the government “is re-evaluating its strategy on how best to proceed with this action” after receiving several responses to its decision. As a result, the contracts will not be awarded at this time. A Justification and Approval document was supposed to be made public within 14 days of contract award, but the withdrawal of the awards occurred before that deadline. While Space Force officials haven't spoken publicly about the Defense Production Act awards since they were announced online, the Pentagon was vocal in expressing concern about COVID-19 impacts on the small launch market in the months leading up to the announcement. On April 20, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord stated that the small launch market was one of three sectors she was most worried about. The Space and Missile Systems Center elaborated on her remarks in a statement to C4ISRNET. “There is concern that the current financial and market constraints resulting from the COVID-19 have reduced funding sources necessary to continue development and operations for the nascent small launch industry,” said Col. Rob Bongiovi, director of SMC's launch enterprise directorate. “Much of the industry have limited flight capability or are in the critical transition from development to flight and this funding restriction may prevent or delay these systems. The Space and Missile Systems Center is evaluating the impacts to the small launch industrial base to consider actions to enable a robust U.S. launch industrial base.” Shortly thereafter, the Space Force Acquisition Council held an emergency meeting to discuss how they could support industry partners negatively impacted by COVID-19. The council ultimately sent out a survey to members of the Space Enterprise Consortium to see what industry needed from the Department of Defense. Finally on June 16, the same day the announcement went live, SMC Commander Lt. Gen. John “JT” Thompson suggested that the Space Force would use Defense Production Act awards to support the small launch market. “In the small launch environment, Secretary Lord and [U.S. Space Force Service Acquisition Executive Will] Roper have both commented about how important small launch is to our enterprise, and I can't give you the details right now but I would anticipate here very shortly some very critical Defense Production Act awards to our small launch providers to keep that industry going,” Thompson said https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/07/02/space-force-walks-back-stimulus-contracts-for-small-launch-providers/