25 février 2019 | International, Aérospatial

Lockheed unveils new F-21 fighter jet configured for India

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin offered India on Wednesday a new combat jet to be made locally, the F-21, in an attempt to win a large military order worth more than $15 billion.

The U.S. defense firm had previously offered its F-16 fighter used by countries around the world for the Indian air force's ongoing competition for 114 planes to be made in India.

But Lockheed, unveiling the plan at an air show in the southern city of Bengaluru, said it was offering India a new plane configured for its needs.

It would carry technologies from its fifth generation planes, the F-22 and the F-35, the firm said.

“The F-21 is different, inside and out,” Vivek Lall, vice president of Strategy and Business Development for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, said in a statement.

The company will build the plane in collaboration with India's Tata Advanced Systems, the firm said.

Lockheed is competing with Boeing's F/A-18, Saab's Gripen, Dassault Aviation's Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon and a Russian aircraft for the air force order.

The deal to replace the Indian Air Force's ageing fleet of Soviet-era fighter jets is one of the biggest contracts for such planes in play.

India has a lengthy procurement process, and no decision is expected until well after a national election due by May.

Lockheed has offered to move its F-16 production plant at Fort Worth, Texas, to India, if it wins the order in a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make-in-India plan to build a domestic military industrial base and create jobs.

It said it expected to export planes from the proposed plant in India on top of the Indian requirements for an overseas market that it estimated at $20 billion.

But the Indian military has had concerns over the F-16 as an old plane and in an earlier competition it lost out to the eventual winner, the Rafale built by Dassault.

But Lockheed said the F-21 could be India's pathway to the stealth F-35 fighter, which has entered U.S. service in one of the world's most expensive defense programs.

“The F-21 has common components and learning from Lockheed Martin's 5th Generation F-22 and F-35 and will share a common supply chain on a variety of components,” the company said.

It said production in India would create thousands of jobs for Indian industry as well as support hundreds of U.S.-based Lockheed Martin engineering, program management and customer support positions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airshow-india-lockheed/lockheed-unveils-new-f-21-fighter-jet-configured-for-india-idUSKCN1Q90ED

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12 août 2020 | International, Naval

US Navy commissions another Littoral Combat Ship amid renewed push to fix the program
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy Saturday commissioned its latest littoral combat ship amid a top-level push to fix the ship's nagging reliability issues and forge a path to make the small surface combatants useful in the years ahead. The monohull Freedom-variant LCS St. Louis was commissioned at a private event in its namesake city, the 22nd LCS and 10th Freedom variant to join the fleet. There will be 35 LCS in the fleet once all are commissioned. Change is in the wind for LCS once again, which has already seen several shakeups to its system. A high-level effort is underway to address problems with its complicated drive train built for high speeds that have limited the ships availability for tasking as well as to finally field its long-delayed mission packages. Mission packages will make the ships either a surface warfare hull, a mine hunter or an antisubmarine ship. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told Defense News in a July 16 interview that he was preparing to increase LCS deployments by two-and-a-half times over the next two years to finally shake out how to best employ the ships, as well as develop a plan to finally field the mine and ASW mission modules. “There are things in the near term that I have to deliver, that I'm putting heat on now, and one of them is LCS,” Gilday said. “One part is sustainability and reliability. We know enough about that platform and the problems that we have that plague us with regard to reliability and sustainability, and I need them resolved. “That requires a campaign plan to get after it and have it reviewed by me frequently enough so that I can be sighted on it. Those platforms have been around since 2008 — we need to get on with it. Experts who spoke to Defense News in July said the Navy would most likely need to accept less capability than they had planned for the ships to have if the service is to get the most out of the ships. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/08/10/us-navy-commissions-another-littoral-combat-ship-amid-renewed-push-to-fix-the-program/
15 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial

Italy's Leonardo to offer 6.3% stake in US subsidiary in share sale | Reuters
Italy's state-controlled defence and aerospace group Leonardo on Wednesday said it would sell a 6.3% minority stake in its U.S. subsidiary Leonardo DRS on the market.
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

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Lockheed unveils new F-21 fighter jet configured for India

Sur le même sujet

Italy's Leonardo to offer 6.3% stake in US subsidiary in share sale | Reuters Italy's state-controlled defence and aerospace group Leonardo on Wednesday said it would sell a 6.3% minority stake in its U.S. subsidiary Leonardo DRS on the market.

Italy's Leonardo to offer 6.3% stake in US subsidiary in share sale | Reuters
Italy's state-controlled defence and aerospace group Leonardo on Wednesday said it would sell a 6.3% minority stake in its U.S. subsidiary Leonardo DRS on the market.