30 juin 2022 | International, Terrestre

General Dynamics unit wins contract to build new light tank for infantry

General Dynamics Land Systems beats out BAE Systems in a competition to build and field Mobile Protected Firepower systems for the Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/06/28/us-army-unveils-contract-to-build-new-light-tank-for-infantry-forces/

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  • Inside the intelligence community’s new plan for commercial imagery

    20 juillet 2020 | International, C4ISR

    Inside the intelligence community’s new plan for commercial imagery

    Nathan Strout Starting in 1961, the National Reconnaissance Office has been tasked with designing, building, launching and operating the United States' fleet of intelligence satellites. Over the years, that mission has evolved, bolting on new components and missions. Now in 2020, the NRO is looking to change once again, moving beyond the status quo by issuing a new set of contracts toward the end of this year that will reshape the intelligence community's relationship with commercial imagery. Peter Muend, the head of NRO's commercial imagery efforts, told C4ISRNET that the agency is “obviously very committed to utilizing commercial imagery to the maximum extent practical in support of defense, national security and all the other mission areas that we serve.” “I think the best philosophy that underpins that is one that says ‘We really are looking to buy everywhere we can and only build what we have to—what's really not available on the commercial market,‘” Muend said. An important condition to that approach is that the commercial imagery market actually have commercial support. In other words, Muend doesn't want any of these companies to exist solely to support government requirements. There should be a real commercial market for these capabilities, which will help drive down costs for the government. To understand the agency's approach to commercial imagery, it's best to go back to 2017, when the NRO took over the role of acquiring commercial satellite imagery on behalf of the intelligence community from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Under this new paradigm, NGA serves as the geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) functional manager, determining what imagery the intelligence community needs and writing those requirements, but it's up to NRO to determine how those requirements are filled. Then in 2018, another step occurred when the NGA's EnhancedView contract was transferred to NRO, which issued a follow-on contract to Maxar shortly thereafter. That single EnhancedView contract has been one of the primary source of commercial imagery for the intelligence community for years. The goal now is to start the move beyond EnhancedView. That process started in 2019, when the NRO issued a request for information (RFI) to see what types, quality and quantity of imagery industry could provide. For Muend, that RFI sent a message to industry: the intelligence community was looking to the commercial sector for imagery that went beyond the requirements, capacity and capability the government had sought in the past. That RFI initially led to a trio of study contracts for Maxar, BlackSky and Planet. “Really, the purpose of those study contracts was to serve a couple purposes, one being to take a look at their systems and really understand their performance from a modeling and simulation standpoint to really see what they can do and how they would measure up and meet our capability,” said Muend. “The other part was really to assess imagery, because of course a lot of the input we got back from the RFI emphasized the quality of the imagery and how much they could deliver. It's one thing to get an RFI response. It's another thing to actually formally assess and measure.” In the year since those first study contracts were issued, the agency has issued a handful of other study contracts, primarily to companies offering different phenomenologies than electro-optical imagery, including synthetic aperture radar and radio frequency sensing. Muend clarified that those study contracts were less focused on purchasing data from those phenomenologies and more focused on ensuring the agency's systems could interface with those phenomenologies. “We certainly see a very vibrant future ahead for those phenomenologies. We're excited for them to continue to mature and we're certainly looking forward to taking advantage of them in the future,” said Muend. “But again, the specific contracts we're moving forward with toward the end of the year are more focused on the electro-optical side.” Back on that electro-optical side of things, the study contracts have been mutually beneficial, said Muend. Not only has NRO learned what capabilities are available commercially and how they can be incorporated, the vendors have gotten a better understanding of what the agency is looking for. “And then on the imagery side, we've certainly learned a lot — certainly some of the differences between what the glossy advertising sheets say and then what's really available when looked at analytically in the way that we and the larger community do,” said Muend. When pressed on that point, Muend declined to characterize whether any company had failed to live up to or superseded its claims. All of those efforts are leading up to source selection and contract awards toward the end of the year. Muend noted that there were likely to be awards to multiple companies and those contracts will specifically pertain to electo-optical imagery. “One thing that we have seen out of our study contracts and our market research is that no single provider can currently meet what we're asking for out of our requirements. So it is going to be an aggregate of capability from multiple vendors, and in addition it's going to be something that they're going to have to grow into over time, that they expand their capabilities to meet our needs,” he explained. As a precursor to that decision, NRO issued an RFI in June to help the agency standardize end user license agreements for imagery. Those agreements govern how the agency is able to use and share the imagery it collects, explained Muend. As NRO prepares to begin purchasing imagery from multiple companies, it wants to make sure those agreements are clear, intuitive and broadly uniform. “We're very, very excited about the future, about establishing a new set of operational imagery contracts to not only take advantage of our current industry base, but the growing new entrants and new providers as well,” said Muend. “We're eager to get moving.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/2020/07/17/how-the-intelligence-community-is-approaching-commercial-imagery/

  • Tempest future fighter worth £25bn to UK economy

    19 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    Tempest future fighter worth £25bn to UK economy

    Harry Lye Analysis from PwC, commissioned by BAE Systems on behalf of Team Tempest, the partnership behind the Tempest future combat air system programme has said that the project to develop a future fighter will contribute at least £25bn to the UK's economy and support an average of 20,000 jobs a year between 2026 and 2050. Team Tempest is a partnership between BAE Systems, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce, MBDA and the Royal Air Force's (RAF) Rapid Capabilities Office, as well as a host of small-medium enterprises and academia. Preliminary findings from the PwC report due to published in full later this year said that the programme including ‘R&D spillover' would add £25.3bn to the UK economy for the first 30 years of the programme and ‘support an average of circa 20,000 jobs every year between 2026 and 2050'. The findings added that for every 100 people directly employed by Team Tempest, a further 270 would be employed across the UK. BAE Systems director combat air acquisition programme Michael Christie said: “Tempest is an exciting and ambitious multi-decade programme that will help to preserve our national security whilst at the same time driving significant economic benefits for the UK. “The initial analysis revealed today demonstrates that Tempest is critical to ensuring the UK can sustain its world-leading Combat Air Sector, preserving the sovereign capability that is essential to retaining military freedom of action for the UK.” rogramme is essential for national security and future prosperity The economic benefits of the programme come alongside the release of more technical details about the future fighter by Team Tempest, which the consortium said can “capture the equivalent of a ‘city's worth of data' in a second”. Tempest is expected to come into service in the mid-2030s and is set to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon within the RAF. The aircraft is set to form part of a broader combat air system that will likely include ‘wingman' uncrewed aerial systems (UAS). ADS chief executive Paul Everitt added: “The Tempest programme is essential for our national security and future prosperity. The high-value design and groundbreaking engineering skills required for success will create a new generation of talent to drive UK industry. “Defence programmes like Tempest offer an invaluable opportunity to secure a recovery from the current Covid-19 crisis. It will embed high-value design and manufacturing skills in the UK for decades to come, sustain thousands of high paying jobs and give apprentices the opportunity to build their career in an iconic programme with massive export potential.” Capture a city's worth of data in a second Team Tempest today also unveiled several insights into the programme including that Leonardo, the programme's electronics lead, was developing new radar systems capable of providing over 10,000 times more data than existing systems. Leonardo director of major air programmes Iain Bancroft said: “The collaborative relationship between Team Tempest and our network of academic and SME partners enables us to bring together the ‘best of the best' engineering talent from across the UK. Crucially, we are embracing new ways of working as an integrated team to dramatically improve efficiency and pace – sharing intelligence and refining our concepts digitally to deliver innovations that will shape the next generation combat air system. “Our new radar technology is a concrete example of the gains this approach has already brought, costing 25% less to develop while providing over 10,000 times more data than existing systems.” The ‘Multi-Function Radio Frequency System' is slated as being able to collect data ‘equivalent to the internet traffic of a large city such as Edinburgh' every second. The new sensor is described as providing a range of ‘abilities beyond traditional radar', with the company having already built complete sub-systems utilising the technology with a path set for airborne demonstrations in the ‘coming years'. On top of this, BAE Systems said it had begun flight-testing components for the aircraft's ‘wearable cockpit' technology. The system will see physical controls in the aircraft replaced with ‘Augmented and Virtual Reality displays projected directly inside the visor of a helmet' allowing them to be configured to meet different missions. A team from MBDA is also working on this technology to ensure the early introduction of weapons concepts. The MBDA team is also looking at how ‘weapons system information and operation' is optimised for pilots. BAE Systems is also exploring the development of a ‘virtual co-pilot' that can take on and automate some of the pilot's responsibilities. ‘Psycho-physiological' technology is also being trialled to measure a pilot's physical and cognitive processes. BAE Systems said this would help better understand ‘increasing exertion, stress, workload and fatigue'. BAE Systems test pilots are currently trialling these technologies on the Typhoon aircraft. Rolls-Royce is working on the programmes ‘advanced combustion system technology'. Team Tempest has said that the next-generation system will need to be ‘hotter than any previous platform' to increase the efficiency of Tempest's engines. The engine manufacturer has also been working on advanced composite materials and additive manufacturing techniques, to produce lighter weight, denser components able to withstand higher temperatures than current parts. https://www.airforce-technology.com/features/tempest-future-fighter-worth-25bn-to-uk-economy/

  • The case for LEO satellite connectivity in $50 billion EIS contract

    26 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial

    The case for LEO satellite connectivity in $50 billion EIS contract

    Opinion: The contracting vehicle is designed to enable federal agencies to procure mission-critical telecommunications, infrastructure and technology services.

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