How Iranian tech empowers Houthi drone, missile attacks in the Red Sea

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  18 septembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  New deal moves Britain’s Protector drone closer to civilian airspace approval

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — General Atomics has nabbed a $125 million contract from the United Kingdom to make that country's Protector military strike drone certifiable to fly alongside civilian traffic, pushing the company's agenda to be first in Europe with such a system. The money will help “complete” test and evaluation activities needed to demonstrate all safety features leading up to an eventual certification of the aircraft by British authorities, the company said in a statement. Pairing drones with civil aviation in the same, unrestricted airspace involves a complex field of still-evolving regulations. In short, unmanned planes must be equipped with sensors and controls — collectively known under the name “detect-and-avoid” — to be able to avert midair collisions just a like a human pilot would. “This completes another important milestone as we work towards the delivery of Protector to the Royal Air Force (RAF),” General Atomics CEO Linden Blue is quoted as saying in a company statement. “We have completed more than 100 qualification test flights using our two company-owned SkyGuardian.” The British Royal Air Force is slated to receive the first Protector drones in 2024, according to a service statement released during the DSEI defense exhibit in London last week. Installing a detect-and-avoid package on the aircraft became an explicit objective of the program early this year. General Atomics officials said they are working toward a so-called military-type certification by the British authorities in the summer of 2023. According to General Atomics, the company's detect-and-avoid system consists of a “due-regard” air-to-air radar and processor, which is integrated with a “Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS II),” and an “Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B).” The Protector also will feature all-weather performance with lightning protection, damage tolerance and a de-icing system, the statement reads. The company hopes the sale of certification-ready drones to the U.K., plus a similar deal with Belgium, will jump-start sales on the continent just as unmanned aviation reaches further into military and everyday life. While General Atomics believes its previous work with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration will translate into a tangible advantage, European manufacturers are busy readying their own drones for the challenge. One industry insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there is a trans-Atlantic rift emerging when it comes to the regulatory framework for integrating large military drones into routine air traffic. On one side, companies like General Atomics are pushing toward a unified approach on both sides of the Atlantic, while manufacturers in Europe are circling the wagons to push a uniquely European path that could make it difficult for the Americans to gain a foothold. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2019/09/17/new-deal-puts-britains-protector-drone-closer-to-civilian-airspace-approval/

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  8 janvier 2020 | International, Naval

  Ace Electronics nabs $64.4M for Tomahawk control system upgrades

  By Christen McCurdy Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Ace Electronics received a five-year, $64.4 million contract for an upgrade of the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System for the Navy, the Pentagon has announced. The deal, announced Monday by the Department of Defense, funds production and delivery of manufacturing kits, spare parts and testing for the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System, or TTWCS, for the Maritime Strike Tomahawk. The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile is a subsonic cruise missile. The TTWCS allows commanders to redirect the missile to an alternative target if required, and to send data about its status back to the commander. According to the Pentagon's announcement, this upgrade will offer new offensive capabilities to upgraded ships in support of the Maritime Strike Tomahawk, which allows the Tomahawk to engage a moving target at sea and upgrades the system hardware. Work on the contract will be performed at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., with the ordering period ending in January 2025. Navy funds in the amount of $259,118 were obligated at the time of the award. Ace Electronics Defense Systems specializes in electronic manufacturing and engineering support services for military branches throughout the world, according to its website. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2020/01/07/Ace-Electronics-nabs-644M-for-Tomahawk-control-system-upgrades/2311578432639

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  3 août 2020 | International, Terrestre

  After COVID delay, high-stakes test of Army’s critical battle command system underway

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — A high-stakes test of the U.S. Army's battle command system expected to control air and missile defense shooters and sensors is underway following a delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kenn Todorov, Northrop Grumman's vice president for missile defense solutions, told Defense News in a recent interview. Northrop Grumman is the developer of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, or IBCS. The system's development and its fielding is the Army's top air and missile defense modernization priority. IBCS has had a long and marred history due to struggles in previous tests as well as increasing requirements causing a plethora of challenging software changes. But recent successful tests over the past several years have resulted in a deeper confidence of the system, and the Army has been racing to move through a limited-user test, or LUT, at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, to reach a production decision. The test will decide the fate of the program. The program was supposed to reach initial operational capability last year, but those plans slipped in 2017 by four years following software problems in the system's first LUT in 2016. IBCS was originally meant to serve as the command-and-control system for the Army's future Integrated Air and Missile Defense system against regional ballistic missile threats, but now the service sees a much more expansive future for the technology, with plans to tie it to sensors and shooters capable of defeating complex threats like unmanned aircraft. According to Todorov, the Army and Northrop had to take a “COVID pause” to ensure the safety of all of the participants of the LUT before proceeding. Originally, the IBCS test was scheduled for earlier in the spring as COVID-19 was spreading quickly across the United States. Precautions are taken to ensure participants stay healthy, Todorov said, but he doesn't believe those measures will sacrifice any of the rigor within the test. The LUT will have a broader range of threats to counter than the original, from ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and air-breathing threats, and this test will include the integration of some joint air assets, Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, the head of the Army's missile defense modernization effort, told Defense News last year. Northrop took the extra time from the pause caused by the pandemic to improve the system's readiness and develop policies and procedures to ensure employees take precautions to avoid the spread of the virus during the LUT. The test is expected to go through the month of August and include endurance runs as well as two major flight tests. In Northrop's second-quarter fiscal 2020 earnings call on July 30, CEO Kathy Warden said that “successful completion of this [engineering and manufacturing development] milestone will support IBCS production, deployment and fielding to execute the Army's [IAMD] modernization strategy,” adding that the program is on track to reach a production decision later this year. Warden also noted that success with the IBCS program and the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System puts the company on a path to contribute heavily to an anticipated “next-generation” program called Joint All-Domain Command and Control. JADC2 is expected to provide an information architecture across all service and domains of warfare. Northrop's IBCS development efforts are seen as a springboard into work it could do to develop JADC2, Todorov said. He added that the IBCS system in particular has gone through “tremendous advances,” as it has adapted to maturing and changing threats. One of the reasons the system has been able to quickly evolve is due to its designation by Congress — among just a few Defense Department programs — to adopt an agile software-development process that allows the system to be frequently updated with software upgrades or patches, as opposed to big software drops that potentially happen only once a year. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/07/31/after-covid-delay-high-stakes-test-of-armys-critical-battle-command-system-underway/