Harden the cybersecurity of US nuclear complex now

Sur le même sujet

• 

  30 novembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Squad X Improves Situational Awareness, Coordination for Dismounted Units

  The first test of DARPA's Squad X Experimentation program successfully demonstrated the ability to extend and enhance the situational awareness of small, dismounted units. In a weeklong test series at Twentynine Palms, California, U.S. Marine squads improved their ability to synchronize maneuvers, employing autonomous air and ground vehicles to detect threats from multiple domains – physical, electromagnetic, and cyber – providing critical intelligence as the squad moved through scenarios. Squad X provides Army and Marine dismounted units with autonomous systems equipped with off-the-shelf technologies and novel sensing tools developed via DARPA's Squad X Core Technologies program. The technologies aim to increase squads' situational awareness and lethality, allowing enemy engagement with greater tempo and from longer ranges. The Squad X program manager in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, Lt. Col. Phil Root (U.S. Army), said Experiment 1 demonstrated the ability for the squad to communicate and collaborate, even while “dancing on the edge of connectivity.” The squad members involved in the test runs praised the streamlined tools, which allowed them to take advantage of capabilities that previously had been too heavy or cumbersome for individual Soldiers and Marines to use in demanding field conditions. “Each run, they learned a bit more on the systems and how they could support the operation,” said Root, who is also program manager for Squad X Core Technologies. “By the end, they were using the unmanned ground and aerial systems to maximize the squad's combat power and allow a squad to complete a mission that normally would take a platoon to execute.” Two performers, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control and CACI's BIT Systems, each are working on different approaches to provide unique capabilities to enhance ground infantries. Manned-unmanned teaming is critical to both companies' solutions. Marines testing Lockheed Martin's Augmented Spectral Situational Awareness, and Unaided Localization for Transformative Squads (ASSAULTS) system used autonomous robots with sensor systems to detect enemy locations, allowing the Marines to engage and target the enemy with a precision 40mm grenade before the enemy could detect their movement. Small units using CACI's BITS Electronic Attack Module (BEAM) were able to detect, locate, and attack specific threats in the radio frequency and cyber domains. Experiment 2 is currently targeted for early 2019. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-11-30a

• 

  31 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre

  Russia says its new weapon is 27 times faster than the speed of sound

  By: Vladimir Isachenkov, The Associated Press MOSCOW — Russia's new strategic weapon has rendered any missile defenses useless at a small fraction of their cost, officials said Thursday. The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle flies 27 times faster than the speed of sound, making it impossible to intercept, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told Russian state television. The new weapon “essentially makes missile defenses useless,” he said. Borisov spoke a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw what he described as the conclusive successful test of the Avangard and hailed it as a reliable guarantee of Russia's security for decades to come. In Wednesday's test, the weapon was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains. The Kremlin said it successfully hit a practice target on the Kura shooting range on Kamchatka, 3,700 miles away. The Defense Ministry released footage from the test launch, in which a ballistic missile could be seen blasting from a silo in a cloud of smoke, but it hasn't released any images of the vehicle itself. Putin said the Avangard will enter service with the Russian Strategic Missile Forces next year. The test comes amid bitter tensions in Russia-U.S. relations, which have been strained over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Sergei Ivanov, a former Russian defense minister, said in televised comments that the Avangard constantly changes its course and altitude as it flies through the atmosphere. He emphasized that unlike previous nuclear warheads fitted to intercontinental ballistic missiles that follow a predictable trajectory allowing it to calculate the spot where they can be intercepted, the Avangard chaotically zigzags on its path to its target, making it impossible to predict the weapon's location. A smiling Ivanov likened the weapon's flight through the atmosphere to a pebble skipping off the surface of water. Ivanov, who now serves as Putin's adviser, said the Avangard could be fitted to the Soviet-made UR-100UTTKh intercontinental ballistic missile, which is code-named SS-19 Stiletto by NATO. He noted that Russia has a stockpile of several dozen such missiles, which are in a factory-mint condition and not filled with fuel, allowing them to serve for a long time to come. Ivanov added that they could be put in existing silos, sharply reducing the costs of Avangard's deployment. "The Avangard has cost hundreds of times less than what the U.S. has spent on its missile defense," Ivanov said. He noted that Russia began to develop the Avangard after the U.S. started to develop defenses against ballistic missiles. Moscow feared that the U.S. missile shield could erode its nuclear deterrent, and Putin announced in 2004 that Russia was working on a new hypersonic weapon. Ivanov recalled that when Russian officials warned their U.S. counterparts about the new weapon program at the time, American officials were openly skeptical about Russia's ability to carry out its plan. “We aren't involved in saber-rattling, we simply ensured our security for decades to come,” he said. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/27/russia-says-its-new-weapon-is-27-times-faster-than-the-speed-of-sound

• 

  4 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  BAE Systems to Deliver Autonomy Capabilities for Army’s Future Vertical Lift Initiative

  BAE Systems announced today it has been awarded multiple contracts from the U.S. Army to develop key technologies for the Advanced Teaming Demonstration Program (A-Team). BAE Systems was the only company awarded contracts for three of the program's four focus areas, designed to advance manned and unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capabilities that are expected to be critical components in the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. In order to combat the increasingly complex, contested, and communication-denied battlespace presented by near-peer adversaries, the U.S. Army developed the A-Team program to create an automated system to offload the cognitive burden of pilots while enabling them to command swarms of unmanned aircraft. BAE Systems was selected to deliver a highly automated system to provide situational awareness, information processing, resource management, and decision making that is beyond human capabilities. These advantages become exceedingly important as the Army moves toward mission teams of unmanned aircraft that will be controlled by pilots in real time. The contracts total $9 million and include awards for the Human Machine Interface, Platform Resource Capability Management, and Situational Awareness Management elements of the program. To deliver the critical autonomy technology, BAE Systems' FAST Labs research and development team and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Systems business area will leverage their decades of work pioneering autonomy technologies. The program will leverage the Future Open Rotorcraft Cockpit Environment Lab to conduct simulation tests and demonstrations with products from different contractors in consideration of transition to the FVL program. Work for the program takes place at the company's facilities in Burlington, Massachusetts and San Diego, California. https://www.defenseworld.net/news/28242#.X6L0RWhKiUk