23 juin 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Armaments on the LCH include Mistral air-to-air missiles, up to four FZ231 2.75-inch (70mm) rocket pods and a nose-mounted M621 20mm cannon.
29 septembre 2024 | International, Terrestre
US sanctions crypto exchanges, charges Russian nationals in cybercrime crackdown. $7.8M seized. Rewards offered for suspects' information.
26 octobre 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Jessie Bur The Pentagon and General Services Administration released a request for information Oct. 25 for a new unified collaborative cloud solution that will unite the entire defense apparatus under one enterprise contract. The Defense Enterprise Office Solution is the first capability set of three that the Department of Defense plans to use to capture its enterprise collaboration and productivity needs. The DEOS capability set needs include a productivity suite, messaging capabilities, content management systems and collaboration tools. “We operate pretty much in a disparate environment right now, and predominantly on-[premises] for these capabilities. So DEOS will give us an opportunity to tear down some of those barriers, posture us for increased interoperability while taking advantage of what the commercial community has to offer,” said Essye Miller, principal deputy to the DoD chief information officer, at a press roundtable. “From a benefit perspective, for us: real-time upgrades, real-time refresh, real-time access to innovation as our industry partners make them available to us.” The contract will be offered through GSA's IT Schedule 70, which Miller said has matured to the level that was needed to support Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router, Secret Internet Protocol Router and tactical environment needs. “In fact, IT Schedule 70 is the vehicle GSA itself used to procure its own cloud-based email, collaboration and productivity solution,” said GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, adding that GSA is committed to working with vendors who would want to propose through the expedited Schedule 70 FASt Lane program. “Using IT Schedule 70 to help DoD procure an enterprisewide solution for email, productivity and collaboration tools could establish a baseline for GSA to scale up this type of solution across the federal government in the future.” In fact, according to Federal CIO Suzette Kent, the DoD solution moves the federal government forward on initiatives to use and procure scalable cloud solutions across agencies. “When we look at where we were with the report to the president across the federal government, and the intent to leverage as many common solutions for purposes of interoperability, cybersecurity ... and the overall efficiency of how we go after those solutions and the ability to keep those current, this is a really positive collaboration, and something that we're incredibly supportive of,” said Kent. Industry has just over two weeks to respond to the RFI, which closes Nov. 9, and the subsequent request for quotes will likely be released in early 2019, according to officials. The DoD and General Services Administration also plan to hold industry days in early December 2018 to facilitate communication between government and industry on the best way to approach the contract. The award for the eventual contract is planned for sometime in the third quarter of 2019, and would likely be set for approximately 10 years and $8 billion, according to Murphy, though that number could change depending on industry input. The appropriate solution would likely have to be certified at FedRAMP Moderate, said Miller. According to Murphy, GSA and DoD have yet to determine whether a single-award or multi-award contract will best suit the DoD's needs — a debate that proved highly contentious for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract that opened for proposals July 26 — and the RFI asks respondents to provide pros and cons for each option. But DoD CIO Dana Deasy said that the DEOS program is part of a Pentagon initiative to bring defense operations into a multi-cloud and multi-vendor environment. “Our intentions are to have a cloud that can serve general purpose computing needs, as well as what I have coined a term as ‘fit-for-purpose' clouds, which could consist of internal clouds or commercial clouds that have a unique fit for purpose,” said Deasy, adding that DEOS would be one such cloud. Because DEOS is one of three collaboration capability sets the agency is looking to fulfill, DoD could end up offering a total of three contracts in that space, according to Miller. https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2018/10/25/dod-seeks-industry-input-on-multibillion-dollar-cloud-collaboration-solution
19 juillet 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By COLIN CLARK WASHINGTON: Presumptive Defense Secretary Mark Esper says flatly the F-35 “is not expected” to meet the 80 percent readiness goal set for it this year because of problems with a cockpit part that improves stealth performance. “Transparency (canopy) supply shortages continue to be the main obstacle to achieving this. We are seeking additional sources to fix unserviceable canopies,” Esper said in response to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committe (SASC). The Government Accountability Office (GAO) mentioned the canopy issue in a recent report, calling it a “special coating on the F-35 canopy that enables the aircraft to maintain its stealth.” That, the congressional watchdog said. “failed more frequently than expected” so F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin went looking for more manufactures to produce enough canopies to meet demands. GAO also said the F-35 program was considering a new design. This is all apiece with the general problem the F-35 program has had with obtaining new and spare parts. “A key contributor to spare parts shortages is the F-35 program's limited capacity to repair broken parts,” the GAO says in its April report. “The average time to repair an F-35 part was more than 6 months, or about 188 days for repairs completed between September and November 2018—more than twice that of the program's objective of 60-90 days.” Lockheed late last night sent comments on the transparency and its general efforts to improve F-35 readiness. UPDATE BEGINS “We are working closely with our F-35 transparency provider to build production and repair capacity and we are standing up a second source of supply. As these actions deliver results, we expect to improve supply availability and overall fleet readiness,” F-35 program spokesman Mike Friedman said, “We continue to see improvements in F-35 readiness rates and are receiving positive feedback from our customers, most recently from the Air Force who have several squadrons simultaneously deployed in the Middle East and across Europe for joint exercises and operations,” Friedman added. “Newer F-35 aircraft are averaging greater than 60 percent mission capable rates, with some operational squadrons consistently at or above 70 percent. We're taking aggressive action across the full F-35 enterprise to achieve the 80 percent mission capable rate target as soon as possible.”UPDATE ENDS As the SASC noted, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered the Air Force and Navy to increase mission capable rates for the F-35, F-22, F-16, and F-18 inventories to above 80 percent by the end of September 2019. “What progress,” the committee asked in the written questions, “has the Department made in increasing mission capable rates and decreasing costs for all four platforms?” The good news for the Air Force is that F-16 rates are better because the service has been able to increase parts supplies and add maintenance shifts. The F-16 fleet is expected to meet the 80 percent goal this year, Esper wrote. Not so, the F-22. It too faces stealth maintenance issue, made worse, Esper noted, “by the extreme damage at Tyndall Air Force Base from the effects of Hurricane Michael.” The F-22 fleet rates are improving but it probably won't make 80 percent this year. Oh, and Congress: “Improving mission capable rates for both fleets required additional funding investment for this fiscal year.” The Navy's fleet of F-18 is on track to meet the goal by September 2019. The Navy created a Maintenance Operations Center (MOC) to coordinate maintenance activities and optimize resources and reformed its depot and front-line maintenance process, thus improving regular inspections. Among a host of other changes, the Navy implemented supply chain reform that made it easier to track data across multiple sources. In the meantime, to address the gap in part repair capabilities at the military depots, the prime contractor Boeing has begun incentivizing manufacturers to increase their capacity to repair spare parts by establishing performance-based repair agreements. As of October 2018, according to program documentation, Boeing had established seven such agreements, with six more planned by May 2019. I contacted Lockheed and the F-35 Joint Program Office for comment and will add it when it arrives. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/07/esper-f-35-wont-hit-80-readiness-cites-stealth-parts/