16 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Mike Yeo
MELBOURNE, Australia — Japan has outlined its research and development road map for its homegrown, standoff hypersonic weapons, confirming that it is seeking an incremental growth in capability and providing more details about the kinds of threats it is targeting with this new class of weapon.
In a Japanese-language document published on the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency website, the government said two classes of standoff hypersonic systems will be deployed — the Hypersonic Cruise Missile (HCM) and the Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile (HVGP).
The former will be powered by a scramjet engine and appears similar to a typical missile, albeit one that cruises at a much higher speed while capable of traveling at long ranges.
The HVGP, on the other hand, will feature a solid-fuel rocket engine that will boost its warhead payload to a high altitude before separation, where it will then glide to its target using its altitude to maintain high velocity until impact.
The agency also provided more details regarding warhead payloads, with different warheads planned for both seaborne and land targets. The former will be an armor-piercing warhead designed specifically for penetrating “the deck of the [aircraft] carrier,” while a land-attack version will utilize a high-density, explosively formed projectile, or EFP, for area suppression.
Area suppression effects for the latter will be achieved via the use of multiple EFPs, which are more commonly known as a shaped charge. An EFP is made up of a concave metal hemispherical or cone-shaped liner backed by a high explosive, all in a steel or aluminum casing. When the high explosive is detonated, the metal liner is compressed and squeezed forward, forming a jet whose tip may travel as fast as 6 miles per second.
Japan's road map also revealed the country is taking an incremental approach with regard to designing the shapes of warheads and developing solid-fuel engine technology, with plans to field early versions of both in the 2024 to 2028 time frame. They are expected to enter service in the early 2030s.
The agency expects both systems to navigate via satellite navigation with an inertial navigation system as backup. Japan is seeking to establish a network of seven satellites to enable continuous positioning for its self-defense forces, which will enable it to provide continuous navigation data without relying on foreign satellites.
Warhead guidance is achieved via either radio-frequency imaging converted from doppler shift data — which the government agency said will be able to identify stealthy naval targets in all weather conditions — or an infrared seeker capable to discriminating specific targets.
Japan has been conducting R&D into various areas related to hypersonic weapons for a number of years, although most of it was to benefit other fields like satellite navigation and solid-fuel rockets.
More work remains, however, in areas like hypersonic guidance systems, warhead and missile-body thermal shielding, and hypersonic propulsion systems in order for Japan to be able to field a viable standoff hypersonic weapons capability.
5 novembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Airbus and France's Dassault Aviation are still ironing out details of the work sharing agreement they reached last spring for the trinational Future Combat Air System program, according to Airbus Defense and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn.
17 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Michael Bruno As public companies reported their latest quarterly results amid the recent financial carnage in the aerospace and defense sector, it was hard to find genuine optimism. With COVID-19 gutting the commercial aerospace manufacturing sector and maintenance, repair and overhaul segment, and expectations hardening around flat or worse defense spending, most corporate managers provided slimmed-down outlooks for the foreseeable future. But one segment stood out for its near-universal positivity: space. It may have almost taken an implosion of the airliner business and historic federal deficit spending against a pandemic to get there, but suddenly outer space looks like the best place to be in business. “Space continues to be an opportunity for companies to drive growth in a flat-to-down environment,” Jefferies analysts wrote in an Aug. 10 report. As the recent earnings season showed, numerous companies are being lifted by space business. “The primes are having such strong growth there,” Credit Suisse analyst Rob Spingarn noted in a July 31 teleconference. For instance, L3Harris Technologies sees space—both space-based and ground support—as its fastest-growing opportunity, with a combined $10 billion pipeline of long-term opportunities and several bid proposals awaiting responses that total around $1 billion in the near term. “We feel very encouraged by the space business as a whole,” said L3Harris Chairman and CEO Bill Brown. Several others below the marquee prime government contractor level are also benefiting, according to Jefferies analysts Sheila Kahyaoglu and Greg Konrad. “Kratos Defense and Security is benefiting from the need for low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites in real-time data processing, and Mercury Systems is getting pulled in, given an increased need for data processing power at the edge.” What is more, both Booz Allen Hamilton and Parsons indicate that space is even a target area for mergers and acquisitions. President Donald Trump's administration's spending and focus on space, from the new U.S. Space Force to a NASA mission to return Americans to the Moon in the coming years, certainly helps set the tone. Significantly, there is a commercial sector race to establish LEO-based communication and Earth observation services—albeit one driven by billionaires and their personal passions for a space legacy. A more subtle shift, though no less significant, is occurring down the value chain, where there is an emerging middle market for space services. Companies such as Parsons, Virgin Galactic and KBR have reengineered their companies and are making money by providing support services for the space effort—in ways that are not as sexy as SpaceX's NASA crew transport mission but just as real when it comes to making a profit. “We had nice year-on-year growth in the space business, just under double-digit growth there,” KBR CEO and President Stuart Bradie said Aug. 6. The former Halliburton business, once publicly associated with military logistics support during the George W. Bush administration, now is the world's only government-licensed provider training astronauts for commercial space missions. “Investors often overlook that KBR has transformed its portfolio since 2015 and still perceive the firm as an engineering and construction play, given its heritage as a unit of Halliburton,” Cowen analyst Gautum Khanna noted in June. But acquisitions of Wyle Labs, Honeywell Technology Solutions and Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies in 2016-18 “put KBR on the map as a noteworthy government services competitor.” Government services, especially space, now are responsible for 70% of the company's annual revenue. Interestingly, the space market is expanding so fast that KBR itself may have competition for astronaut training. In June, NASA signed a Space Act Agreement with Virgin Galactic to develop a private orbital astronaut readiness program for space tourists. “As part of this, we will offer our existing space training infrastructure at Spaceport America and customized future Astronaut Readiness Program . . . allowing these private astronauts to become familiar with the environment in and en route to space such as G forces and zero G,” Virgin Chief Space Officer George Whitesides said Aug. 3. “This initiative has been largely driven by the considerable demand among our existing customer base to participate in orbital space flights.” There have also been plenty of space company setbacks in recent months, with OneWeb's bankruptcy heading the list. But it should come as no surprise that business success in space is hard. Maybe what is surprising is that space is already proving lucrative for public investors, and the market looks set to grow. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/space/amid-financial-wreckage-ad-space-rises-above
17 novembre 2024 | International, Aérospatial
The program comes amid growing concern from Pentagon and other government leaders about GPS vulnerability.