Lockheed Martin to Acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.4 Billion

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  21 septembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Contracts for September 20, 2021

  Today

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  10 janvier 2019 | International, Terrestre

  The US Army’s three focus areas to avoid protracted combat

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Army's Multi-Domain Operations concept continues to evolve and be tested, the service is finding three key areas to focus on ahead of any major conflict. Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley, the head of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, told reporters Dec. 9 that as his office continues to experiment with the MDO concept and war game it out, a focus on the “competition space” — the time before a conflict breaks out between two sides — will put the Army in a strong position to dictate the flow of how a conflict will play out. “Leveraging the competition space, we found, is the most important aspect of getting the conflict portion right. That's something that we have to expand our capabilities in, and we're not completely postured to do right now,” Wesley said. The first focus area is on countering information warfare and unconventional warfare, Wesley said, in what will not come as a surprise to those who have paid attention to what Russia has done in recent years. The second area of focus Wesley calls “conducting the intelligence preparation of the battlefield.” At its core, this involves studying the enemy order of battle and understanding how a conflict may flow. And if that seems like a classic tenet of combat to you, Wesley wouldn't disagree. “That's something we used to do all the time in western Europe in the 1980s, and since we've withdrawn from the continent, we don't do that to the degree we used to,” he said. “Plus, there are aspects to doing that, which are virtual, that we didn't do in the ‘80s that we have to do now.” The third aspect is about posturing your forces to be agile enough to quickly enter a conflict if needed. Doing so, Wesley believes, “precludes protracted conflict. If you can transition rapidly and force your opponent to recalculate, that can preclude the need for protracted conflict.” Wesley's team has had a busy year, developing and testing their ideas while publishing MDO 1.5 and switching from being under Training and Doctrine Command to the Army's new Futures Command. Despite that move on the organizational chart, ARCIC has stayed at Fort Eustis, Virginia, and remains geolocated with TRADOC, which has helped mitigate unnecessary duplication of overhead. By having TRADOC continue to manage basic administrative issues such as personnel, travel and orders assistance, ARCIC is able to focus on using its limited staffing where it's most needed. As part of the move to Futures Command, ARCIC is in the process of standing up three new groups: an internal Red Team, an Operational Environment section, and a 3/5/7 office modeled on the service's operations and planning general staff position. “We're not just moving deck chairs,” Wesley said. “Instead, we're also having to evolve our culture and change our organization so that its sufficiently nested” within Futures Command. Asked if he was worried about people in ARCIC having too many bosses, Wesley waved those concerns away as unrealistic. Sometimes “having one boss is a luxury that is impractical. And particularly when you're talking about [the need to] modernize across the entire enterprise — not just material modernization but doctrine, organization, training, leader development, policy, facilities, personnel,” he said. “So those dotted lines are healthy because they force integration, which is indispensable to do this concept.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/01/09/the-armys-three-focus-areas-to-avoid-protracted-combat/

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  12 février 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Space Software Startup To Pursue SDA Contracts

  NewSpace Networks will bid against Lockheed Martin for bankrupt Vector Launch's GalacticSky software-defined satellite assets, says co-founder Shaun Coleman. By THERESA HITCHENS WASHINGTON: Three of the founders of bankrupt Vector Launch have created a new startup, NewSpace Networks, to develop space software products for applications such as data analysis, cybersecurity, and the Internet of Things (IoT). As one of their first forays into the market, the company intends to respond to the Space Development Agency's January call for “leap-ahead technologies” for its evolving DoD space architecture. The new San Jose-based company is eyeing SDA's top two priorities: the so-called ‘transport layer' for Internet and communications connectivity and the ‘tracking layer' that will also cover hypersonic missiles. NewSpace Networks leadership believe they could provide capabilities to the ‘battle management layer,' and the ‘support layer' to enable ground and launch segments to support a responsive space architecture. “We could occupy several of those layers,” Robert Cleave, formerly Vector's chief revenue office, told me in a phone conversation today, which included NewSpace Network co-founders Shaun Coleman and John Metzger. Coleman was the first investor in Vector Launch; Metzger was vice president of software engineering. As we reported, the SDA's Jan. 21 Broad Area Announcement gives interested vendors one year to pitch their ideas. Coleman said that NewSpace Networks is the only company focused on creating a software-based infrastructure in space. Rather than building satellites, Cleave explained, “we see ourselves as a provider of software that makes the satellite smarter.” The idea is to move the aerospace industry from its current hardware focus to a focus on software, as has happened at big tech firms across Silicon Valley and is recognized by many of the Air Force's leadership. NewSpace Networks intends to target military and defense-related customers, along with commercial firms and civilian government agencies. This includes pitching to be a part of DoD's efforts to develop and use 5G high-speed communications capabilities and to provide connectivity to Army vehicles. But it also is looking at potential sales outside of the traditional aerospace community, such as vendors of autonomous vehicles, city governments interested in infrastructure monitoring, and even direct consumer sales of healthcare devices and entertainment services. The wide variety of potential customers is based on the fact that NewSpace Networks' planned products are focused on computing, data storage and processing capabilities at the edge, ones that have a wide variety of potential uses. According to today's announcement, NewSpace Networks's initial products will focus on “the unique challenges of edge computing via space connectivity.” But the company's tech also could be used with aircraft, drones or aerostats serving as the connectivity node, the co-founders explained. The company also intends to work on: Data analytics and analysis; Cloud integration; Network optimization; Virtualization & Hyperconvergence (the latter is industry jargon for combining computing, storage and networking in a single system); Space and air integration; Security and encryption; Application lifecycle management; and IoT enablement. Tuscon-based Vector was one of three commercial space firms chosen in April by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for its DARPA Launch Challenge, a $12 million competition to rapidly launch small satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), until its surprise withdrawal in September due to financial difficulties. The other two companies were Virgin Orbit, which withdrew in October to concentrate on more lucrative customers, and the secretive California-based startup Astra, that first went public in early February via a website. According to a Feb. 3 profile in Bloomberg Businessweek, the firm intends its first launch on Feb. 21. Vector declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, and as colleague Jeff Foust reported on Jan. 24 announced it would auction off its assets. Vector already has a $4.5 million bid from Lockheed Martin for its GalacticSky software-defined satellite technology — essentially a computer on orbit that can be configured for various satellite missions that will be accepted if no other firms issues a bid by Feb. 21. If others throw their hats in the ring, there will be an auction for GalacticSky on Feb. 25. And guess what? NewSpace Networks intends to do just that. “We will be bidding for GalacticSky as well,” Coleman said, noting that I was the first reporter they have told. The founders believe that GalacticSky's technology, that allows a satellite to act more like a cloud node than a mainframe computer, would be complementary to their own developments. Even if they don't win the auction, they hope to work with whoever wins. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/space-software-startup-to-pursue-sda-contracts