GPS III satellites are nearly ready to launch, but what’s being done on terra firma to support them?

Sur le même sujet

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  29 août 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

  U.S. Agencies Warn of Iranian Hacking Group's Ongoing Ransomware Attacks

  U.S. agencies warn of Iranian hackers targeting key sectors with ransomware, exploiting security flaws to breach networks.

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  21 juillet 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Startups Need Free Data To Work With Army: Venture Capitalists

  Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided each service makes an open-source library available. By KELSEY ATHERTONon July 20, 2020 at 7:01 AM ALBUQUERQUE: Venture capitalists want the Pentagon to be a good market. But for an industry that makes many unsuccessful bets in the promise that just a few pan out spectacularly, marketing software exclusively to the Pentagon poses an almost unacceptable risk. To ease startups into contracting, investors suggest the Army should provide unclassified, open-source data as the Air Force already does. Near the top of his investors' wishlist, says Stu Solomon, CTO of intelligence provider Recorded Future, is removing “a lot of the friction necessary to get innovation into the government without having to be directly aligned or affiliated with the big solution integrators.” Hitching new technology to a company already firmly ingrained in the Pentagon's ecosystem is a popular way to shepherd new software through the acquisitions process. It is also partly explains how, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in military contracts going to Silicon Valley companies, tech adoption seems as slow from the Valley as elsewhere. Solomon's remarks came during a panel at AFCEA's 2020 AFCEA Army Signal conference. Recorded Future was founded in 2008, received early funding from IN-Q-TEL, received a contract from DIU in 2017, and a contract from Cyber Command in 2020. Much of Recorded Future's product is built on ingesting open-source information and offering analysis. As a feature, that meant the company could sustain itself in the commercial market, selling enterprise software, while still planning long-term to contract with the military, DHS, and intelligence services. “If you think this is eventually going to be a market that matters to you, you're not going to be able to wait four years for the procurement process to mature as your product matures,” said Elizabeth Lawler, founder of Founder of AppLand. If a startup's focus is solely on processing classified data, the capital investors need to be aligned directly with that goal to fund it since getting certified to handle classified material is one of the major sources of cost and friction. “My current startup, focused on providing real-time up-to-date software images, works on things that are less sensitive as a starting point,” said Lawler, “for example, some of the code bases in the Air Force's open source code repository.” Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided the service makes an open-source library available. “When it comes to this Valley of Death, I really view what we do when we start companies as an awful lot like a really difficult special forces mission,” said Andy Palmer, co-founder and CEO of data management company Tamr. “When you go in, you drop onto the ground to start a company, with a small team of people, and limited resources, and what oftentimes feels like an unreasonable objective. It's hand to hand combat for much of it, it's not pretty. The goal is survival.” So, if the Army wants to bring new data tools to the battlefields of the future, it could start by creating open-source environments that allow companies to solve problems, at a smaller scale and without the hurdles of classification, suggested several panelists https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/startups-need-free-data-to-work-with-army-venture-capitalists

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  24 septembre 2020 | International, Terrestre

  French forces to get new batch of Jaguar, Griffon armored vehicles

  Christina Mackenzie PARIS – The French Ministry of the Armed Forces has announced a firm order for a second tranche of the Jaguar and Griffon armored vehicles that lie at the core of its ambitious Scorpion program to reconfigure how its army wages war. This second tranche is for 42 Jaguar combat and reconnaissance armored vehicles and 271 Griffon multirole armored vehicles. The first tranche, ordered in 2017, was for 319 Griffons and 20 Jaguars. So far the Army has received 105 Griffons and earlier this month took two of them to Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. Forces there are testing them in hot, desert conditions before the first vehicles are deployed to Mali next year in support of France's Barkhane anti-terrorist operation. The first four Jaguars are scheduled for delivery to the army before the end of this year. The Griffon and Jaguar are both manufactured by a conglomerate of three major French defense industries: Nexter, Arquus and Thales. The latest delivery of 13 Griffons was to the 21st Marine Infantry Regiment which received them in July. The regiment's Scorpion officer, described in an army video only as “Major Laurent” in keeping with French security protocol for lower-ranking officers, praised the vehicle for its speed, precise firing system and armor. “So far, we have trained 16 pilots and eight instructors. They will then be responsible within the Regiment for training our pilots and our gunners,” the officer said. Other regiments that have already received the Griffon are the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment, the 13th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins and the 1st Infantry Regiment. Sign up for our Early Bird Brief Get the defense industry's most comprehensive news and information straight to your inbox Subscribe According to Col. Tugdual Barbarin, commander of the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment (RPIMA), his formation will not be equipped with the Griffon as planned but, instead, will be getting the Serval, the third of the new vehicles being developed in the Scorpion program. This decision, he said, was made by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Thierry Burkhard earlier this month. France's 2019-2025 military program law has imposed an acceleration in deliveries of the Scorpion vehicles, establishing that 50 percent of the 1,872 Griffons and 300 Jaguars which the Ministry of the Armed Forces expects to order in total must be delivered by 2025. That means the army will have 936 Griffons and 150 Jaguars by the end of 2024. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/09/23/french-forces-to-get-new-batch-of-jaguar-griffon-armored-vehicles/