First F-16 fighter jets arrive in Ukraine, officials say

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  14 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Space Force picks launch provider for 44 technology demonstration satellites

  Nathan Strout VOX Space will launch 44 technology demonstrator satellites into orbit for the U.S. Space Force, the Space and Missile Systems Center announced April 10. Under the $35 million task order, VOX Space, a wholly owned subsidiary of Virgin Orbit, will provide launch services for Space Test Program-S28 (STP-S28), an effort to put demonstrator satellites on orbit to test and develop new space situational awareness and communications technologies for the military. VOX Space will launch the 44 small satellites into low earth orbit using three of their LauncherOne rockets. Unlike traditional launches where the rockets start from a vertical position on a pad, the LauncherOne rockets are launched in midair from a Boeing 747 aircraft. The first launch is tentatively slated for October 2021. While four companies are battling for five years of contracts under the National Security Space Launch effort, which will place the country's large exquisite satellites on orbit, the U.S. military and the intelligence community have looked to exploit the growing commercial small launch market under new contracting mechanisms. For instance, the National Reconnaissance Office has begun using its new “rapid acquisition of a small rocket” contract vehicle in 2020, successfully launching its first payload under that program with Rocket Lab in January. A second planned launch with Rocket Lab slated for March was delayed due to the COVID-19 situation. The VOX Space award is the first task order under Orbital Services Program-4 — an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract awarded to eight companies by the Space and Missile Systems Center in October. OSP-4 is a follow-on to OSP-3, which expired in November. Like it's predecessor, OSP-4 is the Defense Department's effort to leverage the growing commercial small launch market to put government payloads on orbit. The program enables the launch of payloads greater than 400 pounds to any orbit within 12-24 months after a task order is awarded. Last year, the Air Force said it expected to use OSP-4 to launch 20 missions over a nine-year period. “The competitive award of the STP-S28 task order is a prime example of the flexible and responsive contracting processes the Launch Enterprise is using to deliver resilient and affordable space capabilities to our Nation,” said Col. Rob Bongiovi, director of SMC's Launch Enterprise Systems Directorate. “In today's contested space domain, contracts must be flexible and responsive to meet the challenges facing the warfighter. I'm proud of the work the Small Launch and Targets Division accomplished in awarding the STP-S28 task order in only five months using the OSP-4 contract.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/04/13/space-force-picks-launch-provider-for-44-technology-demonstration-satellites/

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  29 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  The Flying Car Of the Future Looks to Flying Cars of the Past

  The Air Force is close to testing an experimental vertical takeoff prototype under its new program. The first contract in the U.S. Air Force's bid to acquire flying cars has gone to a company whose design harks back to a pioneer in the field. California-based Sabrewing Aircraft Company received a $3.25 million Phase II Small Business Innovative Research earlier this month to test its Rhaegal-B, a four-rotor craft that the company says can carry up to 5,400 pounds up to 200 knots some 1,000 nautical miles. With its four electric rotors, two on either side of the aircraft, the 60-foot Rhaegal-B somewhat resembles the M400X Skycar from Paul Moller. Moller is, in many ways, the Nikola Tesla of the flying car field. In the early 2000s, the Moller International Skycar became the first non-helicopter vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to actually get off the ground. The four motors would lift the car up and then swivel to propel it forward, like a V-22 Osprey. Even though the design worked, it never made it into showrooms. “For the engine, the most critical element is power,” Moller told The Futurist magazine in 2008. “Once you reduce the diameter of the propulsion system [making the propellor smaller] you go from a helicopter to a fan system. So you're moving less air, and the less air you move, the more power it takes to generate a certain kind of thrust. If I took a helicopter and made it one-half the diameter, I would have to immediately add 60% more power. I halve the diameter again, I have to add 60% more power, again. The M400 Skycar has over 1,000 horsepower.” Given the high cost to power it, the M400 Skycar was impractical for most locations outside of the Middle East, where oil sheiks would use them to traverse wide distances, Moller said at the time. Sabrewing CEO Ed De Reyes, who once worked for Moller, said his former boss was restricted by the engines of his time. The best-suited for the purpose were Wankel rotor engines, and internal combustion engines, which offered high speeds but limited torque. The electric motors that have arrived in recent years are far more promising: smaller, lighter, yet capable of producing more torque than an internal combustion engine. The Rhaegal-B design is highly but not fully autonomous, De Reyes said. A controller will command it from a ground station, but with the sort of low-effort, push-button interface you would encounter on a Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, rather than the more hands-on piloting needed for General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers. Something else that's come a long way since the early 2000s is the ability to detect and avoid objects in mid-air. Ssense-and-avoidance systems are a major stepping stone to more widespread use of drones in U.S. civilian airspace. A lot of drone manufacturers are hoping for the FAA's blessing for their versions. The Rhaegal-B combines radar and nine other sensors to give the aircraft a picture of the environment around it. It can take evasive action without any human control. (In fact, humans can't override it to accidentally steer the vehicle into something else.) If communication is cut off, it can continue to its destination with no additional imput from the ground operator. The appeal for the Air Force has to do with versatility and even detectability. During a webcast on Monday, Air Force Col. Pete White, with Air Force Warfighting Integrating Capability, said that traditional helicopters are noisy compared new vertical-lift aircraft. Thanks, in part, to the new electric motors. “Within feet of an enemy, they can't hear you,” He said that new, nimble electric air vehicles that could take off and land without a runway could help the military “maneuver around the battlefield at a pace that would be impossible today” The Air Force says it wants flying cars to evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield, among other missions. That means that they could be operating under fire. De Reyes says the military version of the aircraft has a Kevlar coating to protect it from small ballistics and can operate even when one of the motors is damaged. Air Force officials have also said that they are looking to fund and support U.S. flying-car companies, lest they migrate to China or accept lots of foreign investment. De Reyes says he's often approached by Chinese investors looking to gain a foothold in his company and other entrepreneurs in this space are as well. Sabrewing will test the Rhaegal-B at the Air Force's Edwards Air Force Base, hoping to meet safety requirements that will clear it for more military work and perhaps even commercial use. A June flight demonstration with its prototype has been postponed due to travel restrictions https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/04/flying-car-future-looks-flying-cars-past/164995

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  29 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR

  How Army Futures Command plans to grow soldiers’ artificial intelligence skills

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — With artificial intelligence expected to form the backbone of the U.S. military in the coming decades, the Army is launching a trio of new efforts to ensure it doesn't get left behind, according to the head of Army Futures Command. While speaking at an event Wednesday hosted by the Defense Writers Group, Gen. Mike Murray was asked about areas that need more attention as his command works to modernize the force. Murray pointed to a change in how the service does long-term planning, as well as two personnel efforts that could pay off in the long run. The first is something Murray has dubbed “Team Ignite,” which he described as “ad hoc, right now,” with a hope to formalize the process in the future. In essence, this means bringing in the teams that write the concept of operations for the military and having them work next to the technologists driving research and development efforts so that everything is incorporated early. “It has occurred to me for a long time that when we prepare concepts about how we will fight in the future, they are usually not informed by scientists and what is potentially out there in terms of technology,” Murray said. “And when we invest in technologies, rarely do we consult the concept writers to understand what type of technology will fundamentally change the way we fight in the future.” In Murray's vision, this means soon there will be “a concept writer saying, ‘If only I could [do something we can't do now], this would fundamentally change the way we would fight,' and a scientist or technologist saying, ‘Well, actually we can, you know, another 10-15 years,' and then vice versa,” he said. “Really using that to drive where we're investing our science and technology dollars, so that in 10 or 15 years we actually can fundamentally change the way we're going to fight.” The Futures Command chief also laid out two new efforts to seed understanding of AI throughout the force, saying that “a key component of the Army moving more and more into the area of artificial intelligence is the talent that we're going to need in the formation to do that.” Murray described a ”recently approved” masters program to be run through Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on bringing in “young officers, noncommissioned officers and warrant officers” to teach them about artificial intelligence. The course features four to five months of actual learning in the classroom, followed by five or six months working for the Army's AI Task Force. After that, the officers are sent back the force, bringing with them their AI experience. Additionally, Murray is in the early stages of standing up what he described as a “software factory” to try and identify individual service members who have some computer skills, pull them out of their normal rotations and give them training on “basic coding skills” before sending them back to the force. “We're going to need a lot of these types of people. This is just [the] beginning, to seed the Army with the types of talent we're going to need in the future if we're going to take advantage of data, if we're going to take advantage of artificial intelligence in the future,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/05/28/how-army-futures-command-plans-to-grow-ai-skills-in-the-service/