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  18 juin 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Vietnam boosts defence cooperation with Canada, Australia

  NDO/VNA - Deputy Minister of National Defence Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh on June 16 engaged in two online talks with Jody Thomas, Deputy Minister of Canada's Department of National Defence, and Peter Tesch, Deputy Secretary for Strategic Policy & Intelligence at Australia's Department of Defence. Canadian and Australian ambassadors and military attaches to Vietnam also took part in the talks. During the talks, Vinh informed the Australian and Canadian officials on the COVID-19 situation in Vietnam, attributing the good outcomes in controlling the disease to concerted efforts of the entire political system, with the Vietnam People's Army serving as the core and vanguard force. Highlighting the importance of international collaboration in the fight against the pandemic, he thanked Australian and Canadian defence bodies' cooperation in sharing information on COVID-19 prevention, control, research and treatment. He hoped the joint work will last for long given the COVID-19 complexities. On the occasion, Vinh and his counterparts reviewed outcomes of Vietnam-Australia and Vietnam-Canada defence ties in the past time and sought agreement on future orientations with a stress on military medical coordination in disease prevention and control. All sides vowed that they will not allow the pandemic to hinder their thriving cooperation. The Vietnamese and Canadian officials expressed their delight at breakthroughs in the relations of the sides after their defence ministers exchanged visits, particularly in human resources training and UN peace keeping mission. The Canadian side said it plans to set up a military attaché office in Vietnam this year, and the two sides agreed to push for the establishment of a bilateral defence policy dialogue mechanism toward building a three-year cooperation scheme for the two defence ministries. Meanwhile, Vietnam and Australia took note of outstanding joint work, such as Australian military aircraft, for the second time, transporting personnel of Vietnam's level-2 field hospital to South Sudan for peacekeeping mission. The sides also began teaming up to organise activities in searching for Vietnamese soldiers going missing during wartime, shooting skills exchanges; and discussions on women, peace and security. Vinh stated Vietnam's Defence Ministry is committed to the effective implementation of defence cooperation with Australia and Canada based on signed documents and agreements for the benefit of the sides involved and of the region. The official also informed his counterparts on the schedule of activities during the year Vietnam serves as Chair of ASEAN 2020 and its tenure as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for 2020-2021. He highlighted Vietnam's determination in strengthening collaboration within the framework of the ASEAN Defence Minister's Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM Plus. He stressed Vietnam backs Canada's responsible participation in the region in line with ASEAN's consensus principle and praised Australia's success in hosting the first informal ASEAN – Australia defence ministers' meeting. https://en.nhandan.org.vn/politics/item/8778302-vietnam-boosts-defence-cooperation-with-canada-australia.html

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  19 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  Intelsat declares bankruptcy

  Nathan Strout and Valerie Insinna Satellite communications provider Intelsat declared bankruptcy May 13, although its subsidiary which provides services to the Department of Defense is not part of the Chapter 11 proceedings. CEO Stephen Spengler spun the action as a positive move, claiming it gave the company more financial flexibility for the Federal Communication Commission's clearing of C-Band spectrum to make way for 5G uses. Major satellite communications companies, including Intelsat, saw their stocks take a massive hit last fall when FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced plans for a public auctioning of C-Band spectrum, which C-Band holders like Intelsat had hoped to sell off directly. The company says it will need to spend more than $1 billion to meet the FCC's deadlines for clearing out C-Band spectrum, which it needs to do in order to be eligible for $4.87 billion in accelerated relocation payments. Wiping the company's significant legacy debt off the books will help it accomplish those actions, said Spengler. “We intend to move forward with the accelerated clearing of C-band spectrum in the United States and to achieve a comprehensive solution that would result in a stronger balance sheet,” said Spengler in a statement. “This will position us to invest and pursue our strategic growth objectives, build on our strengths, and serve the mission-critical needs of our customers with additional resources and wind in our sails.” Subject to court approval, the company said in a statement it had already secured $1 billion in new financing in debtor-in-position funds, giving it the liquidity to continue current operations and finance C-Band clearing costs spurred by the Federal Communications Commission. The company claims that day-to-day operations will not be impacted by the restructuring process—it will continue to launch new satellites and invest in its network with no changes planned. The Chapter 11 petitions for Intelsat and some of its subsidiaries were filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division. However, Intelsat General, which provides satellite communications to the U.S. military and allied military customers, is not part of the bankruptcy proceedings. “The immediate concern (for DoD) is continuity of operations and it sounds like that is not going to be a big issue,” said Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at CSIS. “The longer term concern for DoD is how does Intelsat eventually emerge from bankruptcy, and is there any kind of transfer in ownership or an increase in ownership stake that would be concerning from a national security perspective.” Specifically, investment from Chinese companies could raise alarms for the military and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. “I think that's something that DoD will be watching, that Treasury will be watching,” he said. “It will be a positive side from DoD's perspective if wherever the capital is coming from is from a U.S. source.” When asked about potential Chinese investment in a bankrupt Intelsat May 14, U.S. Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper acknowledged he had concerns. “It's a topic that's harder for me to talk about, but we are mindful of adversarial tactics in this period. Every crisis is an opportunity, and with companies coming under duress it is an opportunity for predatorial tactics targeting IP that countries would not have access to otherwise," he told reporters. Furthermore, Roper noted that the decision to financially support a company like Intelsat to prevent foreign investment requires a different calculus than a traditional stimulus. “The way to engage if we risk losing IP to a nation for whom it's not in our interest to have it, it's a very different strategy (than whether we) should engage to prop up a company through stimulus," he said. "When the former appears to happen, then we need to pivot into a different gear than we would be in the latter. We simply cannot do stimulus for every company that is in duress right now.” Intelsat isn't the only major satellite company to declare bankruptcy. OneWeb—who have been building a proliferated low earth orbit constellation to provide broadband—declared bankruptcy in March. DoD had been exploring utilizing OneWeb for communications in the Arctic among other things, and Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of Headquarters Space Force, noted earlier this week that the department's new Space Acquisition Council was looking into helping OneWeb and other financially vulnerable space companies impacted by COVID-19. Intelsat noted in a statement that several of its end markets had been impacted by COVID-19. Roper said he was concerned with how COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting space and aviation companies, which rely more heavily on commercial revenue than other parts of the defense industrial base. “That's why we've taken such aggressive means to accelerate contract awards," said Roper. “We're worried about space, as well, especially microelectronics. All of the Space Acquisition Council shares that concern. And as we see the Chapter 11s being filed—we're tracking them—but our concern as an acquisition enterprise has got to be industrial base health and not picking winners or losers with specific companies. It's ensuring that we are engaging to have a healthy industrial base on the other side." Roper added that he had approved the acceleration of a major satellite award that should be announced this week as part of the department's efforts to increase the flow of funding to defense companies during COVID-19. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/05/14/intelsat-declares-bankruptcy/

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  13 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR

  SpaceX could fill the US military’s Arctic communications gap by the end of this year

  Nathan Strout The U.S. Defense Department relies on a mixture of military and commercial satellites to connect its war fighters all over the world. And while users can complain that terminals are too bulky or that they should have the roaming capability exhibited in commercial cellphone technology, the system largely works. But that's not the case in the Arctic. “Very simple things become hard when you're in the Arctic, not the least of which is communication. When you are above about 65 degrees north, satellite communication starts to diminish, and above about 70 degrees north it becomes extremely limited except for some of our more exquisite capability — submarines, for example,” said U.S. Northern Command spokesman Maj. Mark Lazane. The U.S. Space Force's primary communications satellite system, Wideband Global SATCOM, is designed to provide connectivity between 70 degrees north and 65 degrees south — basically to the edge of the polar region. The Space Force also operates two Enhanced Polar System satellites — the Arctic complement to the Advanced Extremely High Frequency constellation. EPS satellites provide highly secure, anti-jamming signals, and like its counterpart, EPS is built for high-priority military communications, like that used with submarines. And while elsewhere in the world the military supplements its purpose-built systems with commercial communications satellites, that option is limited in the Arctic. After all, commercial satellites providing coverage of other areas aren't solely serving the military, and the services rely on commercial consumers to offset the costs of designing, building, launching and maintaining a satellite. But there's far less commercial demand for satellite communications in the Arctic than in more populated areas, and commercial satellite coverage reflects that. That leaves U.S. Northern Command with a significant gap in the connections available to its war fighters and platforms. “Connection capabilities [in the Arctic] are limited and lack resiliency. We're challenged in areas from basic point-to-point connections to communication with our distributed sensors,” Lazane said. “Having a reliable broadband communications capability for Arctic operations is the top unfunded priority of USNORTHCOM. With the increase of great power competition in the Arctic, there is a need for additional communications capability and capacity.” But the command thinks it's found a solution in the form of new, proliferated commercial constellations. Private companies OneWeb and SpaceX have launched hundreds of satellites into low-Earth orbit in an effort to provide competitive broadband to users all around the world. USNORTHCOM is asking Congress for $130 million to explore OneWeb's and SpaceX's capabilities in order to provide reliable and potentially cost-effective connectivity to Arctic platforms, installations and war fighters. “Leveraging emerging proliferated low-Earth orbit commercial SATCOM providers in the Arctic enables the United States (and our allies) the opportunity to scale communications capability and capacity quickly in a cost-effective manner,” Lazane said. “The unique capabilities provided by PLEO [proliferated low-Earth orbit] commercial SATCOM providers in the Arctic enables access to high-bandwidth, low-latency communications capability and capacity.” In a Feb.11 letter to Congress, USNORTHCOM Commander Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy said that funding for this effort was his No. 1 unfunded priority. If approved, the $130 million in funding will be used for polar communications experiments as well as the fielding of prototype terminals that can connect to commercial PLEO constellations. If those experiments prove successful, USNORTHCOM would need another $110 million in fiscal 2022 for full coverage. SpaceX has stated that its Starlink constellation will begin offering broadband services this year, and USNORTHCOM is hopeful that could enable early Arctic capability by the end of the year. https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/frozen-pathways/2020/05/11/spacex-could-fill-the-us-militarys-arctic-communications-gap-by-the-end-of-this-year/