15 juillet 2019 | International, Naval
GROTON, Conn. (July 11, 2019) - The U.S. Navy today awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a $174 million contract for nuclear-submarine work. Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).
Under the terms of the contract, Electric Boat will provide design agent, planning yard, and engineering services, as well as technical support for active nuclear submarines and submersible systems. The contract could be worth more than $1 billion over five years if all options are exercised and funded.
Seventy percent of the work will be performed at Groton; 13 percent at Kings Bay, Ga.; 10 percent at Bangor, Wash.; 3 percent at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and 2 percent at Newport and Quonset Point, R.I. Work performed under this contract is expected to be completed by September 2023.
General Dynamics Electric Boat has established standards of excellence in the design, construction and lifecycle support of U.S. Navy submarines. In its position as an industry leader, Electric Boat remains committed to applying its technical and business expertise to effectively manage the challenges of nuclear-submarine production. The company's three primary locations are in Groton and New London, Conn.; and Quonset Point, R.I. Its current workforce is approximately 17,000 employees.
More information about Electric Boat is available at www.gdeb.com.
For more information about General Dynamics, please visit www.generaldynamics.com.
http://www.gdeb.com/news/news_archives/2019archives.html#07-11-19
27 décembre 2023 | International, Terrestre
Worth around €328 million, the contract encompasses the delivery of four systems as well as training, spare parts and other services
17 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By SAMANTHA MASUNAGA A decade after the U.S. Air Force commissioned the next generation of GPS satellites, the first of these spacecraft is finally set to launch into orbit later this year. As with other national security missions, a roughly 200-foot-tall rocket will blast the massive satellite to space, fulfilling a contract worth more than $80 million. But as nations develop technology to disable or shoot down satellites — as China did to one of its own satellites with a ground-based ballistic missile in 2007 — the U.S. military has started to look at options for rapidly and cheaply launching smaller crafts into space. An experimental program spearheaded by a Pentagon research agency could eventually be part of that solution. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, along with aerospace giant Boeing Co., is developing a reusable spaceplane expected to launch small satellites 10 times in 10 days. The vehicle's first test flight is set for 2021, which hints at the Defense Department's growing interest in reusable rocket technology, particularly its potential to drive down launch costs and speed up turnaround time. In recent weeks, the spaceplane's rocket engine, known as the AR-22, completed 10 test fires in 240 hours without need for refurbishments or major repairs, said Jeff Haynes, program manager at Aerojet Rocketdyne. The test firing took place at NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi from June 26 to July 6. The engine test is “really good progress,” said Claire Leon, director of Loyola Marymount University's graduate program in systems engineering and former director of the launch enterprise directorate at the U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center. “SpaceX has had its success,” she said. “I think this engine test also demonstrates that other companies are doing the technology development and having success that will enable reusability.” The title of first reusable system belongs to NASA's Space Shuttle, though more recently, several commercial space firms, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Stratolaunch and British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, have developed systems that would reuse aircraft to launch satellites from the belly of a plane. https://www.stripes.com/news/the-military-is-building-a-space-plane-now-it-looks-to-have-an-engine-up-to-the-task-1.538009
21 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has kicked off a competition for one of its most highly anticipated tech programs, a drone known as Skyborg that will use artificial intelligence to make decisions in battle. The service released a solicitation May 15 for Skyborg prototypes, which will merge autonomous, low-cost aircraft with a suite of artificial intelligence capabilities. The Air Force envisions Skyborg as a family of drones — each designed for a specific mission or set of missions — with modular hardware and software payloads and a common AI backbone, which will allow software to be rapidly updated across the fleet. The Air Force intends to give multiple companies $400 million to develop different versions of the Skyborg system, although it reserves the right to award just one or no contracts. Proposals are due June 15, with awards projected around July 8, according to the solicitation. Once under contract, companies will “conduct research to develop, demonstrate, integrate and transition air vehicle, payload and autonomy technologies and systems that will provide affordable, revolutionary capabilities to the warfighter through the Skyborg program,” the Air Force said. The service previously intended to use experimentation and prototyping to have Skyborg operational by 2023. Skyborg will be what the service calls an attritable system, meaning that aircraft loss is expected and can be tolerated even though the system is not considered expendable and can be reused. Aircraft should “generate massed combat power with minimal logistical footprints,” with cost per unit and the price of operating and maintaining the air vehicles a “small fraction” for that of the Air Force's existing fighter inventory, according to the solicitation. Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper has compared Skyborg to R2-D2, the Star Wars droid that feeds Luke Skywalker helpful information while piloting an X-Wing. Skyborg would build up efficacy on its own via artificial intelligence by working with manned pilots, who would issue commands to the drone and provide feedback on the data presented by it. Last year, Roper told Defense News that the service was exploring the possibility of teaming Skyborg both with the Lockheed Martin F-35 and the Boeing F-15EX aircraft. The ability to team manned fighter jets with smart, autonomous drones could “open up the door for an entirely different way to do aerial combat,” he said in May 2019. “We can take risk with some systems to keep others safer,” he said at the time. “We can separate the sensor and the shooter. Right now they're collocated on a single platform with a person in it. In the future, we can separate them out, put sensors ahead of shooters, put our manned systems behind the unmanned.” Numerous aircraft companies are expected to bid on the Skyborg solicitation. Kratos Defense and Security Solutions is already working with the Air Force on its XQ-58A Valkyrie drone, which logged its fourth successful flight test in January as part of the Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology program. Earlier this month, Boeing rolled out its own loyal wingman drone, the Airpower Teaming System. The Royal Australian Air Force has committed to buy three of those systems for experimentation under its Loyal Wingman Advanced Development Program. General Atomics and Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works each plan to offer their own aircraft proposals, according to Air Force Magazine. In fiscal 2021, the Air Force intends to spend $157.6 million across its three “vanguard programs,” which includes the Skyborg effort. The service also included an additional $25 million for Skyborg on its unfunded priorities list, which would allow it to begin integrating UAVs with artificial intelligence software. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/05/20/more-than-one-company-could-get-cash-to-build-the-air-forces-ai-equipped-skyborg-drone