Minister Blair meets with the Republic of Korea’s Minister of National Defense, Kim Yong-Hyun

Sur le même sujet

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  8 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  MQ-NEXT: US Air Force Considers Reaper Replacement

  The General Atomics-built MQ-9 Reaper — a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle with millions of hours of operation under its belt — has had a ubiquitous presence over battlefields in the Middle East. But with the Pentagon preparing for future fights in contested, non-permissive environments against peer adversaries, the service is beginning its search for the aircraft's replacement. The Reaper — which is larger and carries more payload than its predecessor the MQ-1 Predator — provides the military with a “hunter-killer” capability by executing both strike and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection functions. But officials say it is time for a new platform that can take on those same missions and more. The service signaled its intent in President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2021 budget request by zeroing out its proposed buys of MQ-9s as it pursues a follow-on aircraft, though legislators may push back on the move. “We made the pivot to divest MQ-9s to pivot into high-end warfighting,” said Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, during a press briefing in July. The service is now pursuing a replacement system dubbed the MQ-Next. The move to acquire a new platform — the second such effort for the Air Force following a canceled program known as MQ-X in 2012 — comes as the Pentagon shifts to great power competition with advanced adversaries Russia and China, as outlined in the 2018 National Defense Strategy. In June, the Air Force released a request for information to industry seeking input about a new medium-altitude drone, with particular focus on innovative development and business practices, and digital engineering initiatives. Responses were due in late July and a number of major defense companies responded. Affordability and versatility will be key as the Air Force looks for the Reaper's replacement, Roper noted. “We're going to have to explore more than just the MQ-9 mission or else we're not going to be able to create enough of an asset within the Air Force budget itself to afford to pursue the program,” he said. “If all we do is replace the MQ-9 mission, we really generated a bill for the Air Force.” The Department of the Air Force has a number of expensive programs on its shopping list as it pursues an ambitious modernization strategy that includes fifth-generation fighters, a new nuclear-capable stealth bomber and ground-based strategic deterrent, space systems superiority and joint all-domain command and control. If the new drone is “another mouth to feed and it's not helping us with high-end warfighting, then it's not likely to be first in the queue,” he said. Using a baseball analogy, Roper said he wants to see the replacement platform be a true utility player. He envisions a future where the aircraft could go from collecting ISR data to being weaponized to conduct air-to-air operations. “Can I have a drone that I can put forward in a high-end fight that can provide a picket line that makes it difficult for enemy fighters to push through?” he asked. “Can I pull that drone back to the rear and have it protect high-value assets, aircraft and even bases?” Because the Air Force is looking for a UAS that can perform a variety of missions, it may need to pursue more than one aircraft, Roper said. “I'm open to families of systems,” he said. The service wants industry to think outside-of-the box about how the Air Force can conduct high-end warfighting against a peer adversary. Increased automation is one solution, which will also help with affordability, Roper noted. “It takes a ton of people to operate even one MQ-9,” he said. “That's not a knock against the platform — it was designed at a different point in technology. And now many of the things we have people do, we can automate.” The service intends to have airmen in the loop for critical decisions — especially lethal ones — and will not delegate that to machines, he said. But it wants to simplify how users interact with the next-generation drone. “We have to automate as much as possible if we're going to keep the platform affordable,” he said. Technology such as artificial intelligence can assist with automation and reduce operating costs, he added. “We can really drop the cost per hour of ISR ... if algorithms are doing most of the triaging of the raw video and only sending back to remote operators objects that are of interest,” Roper said during a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event. Additionally, in regions such as Central Command and Africa Command there is a possibility that the service could reduce the number of airmen that have to operate the MQ-Next platform if AI and new commercial technology is adopted. Meanwhile, survivability and expendability will be important considerations for the program. “I imagine being in industry shoes. I would either try to have something that is so cheap that I can proliferate it broadly — and that comes with a logistics challenge for us — or something that is reasonably defendable enough so that if I'm an adversary, I have to truly commit capital assets to take it out,” he said. Moving to an architecture that supports expendable aircraft will not be easy, he noted. “We have been able amazingly to build airplanes that we expect to return every single time they take off,” he said. “You can imagine designing things that may not return is a complete culture shift for us and for industry.” Based on informal engagements he has had with companies, Roper said he expected to see a great deal of creativity in industry responses to the RFI. The service is aiming for initial delivery beginning in 2030, and initial operational capability by 2031, according to the RFI. “In a digitally engineered future, 10 years is an eternity. I would hope we could spiral multiple times within that 10 years,” Roper said. If “we can't get it done by 2030 then something is wrong with our system. Ten years should never be the time you take for development except for extremely exceptional things.” General Atomics is responding to the RFI and plans to leverage its experience with the MQ-9 as it pursues the effort, according to a company spokesperson. “The technology advancements we propose will leverage open architecture, artificial intelligence, autonomy, modularity and interoperability to maximize both system effectiveness and service investments,” the spokesperson said. “We believe our technology advancements offer lower lifecycle cost and provide warfighters with enhanced unmanned capabilities that enable commonality and joint interoperability on the battlefield.” The company is embracing the possibility of a family of systems for the program, the spokesperson noted. It is planning to leverage more automation in future platforms and is already integrating such technology on the MQ-9. “This includes automatic take-off, landing and remote taxi, and a portable aircraft control system for aircraft launch and recovery that eliminates the need for forward-deployed launch/recovery crews,” they said. “We also developed a single-seat ground control station and have a multi-mission control capability that lets a single pilot control up to six MQ-9s.” If the Air Force were to use all of these automation tools on the Reaper, the spokesperson projected that it could reduce the service's manpower bill by 50 percent and free up 1,500 aircrew billets “that could be applied towards expanded MQ-9 mission capability, reallocated to other priority personnel requirements, or eliminated to realize multi-billion dollar savings over the remainder of the MQ-9 service life.” Analysts say the likely competitors to incumbent General Atomics include Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. In a statement, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the company intended to respond to the RFI and would leverage work done by its advanced development program division, Skunk Works, which has expertise in developing unmanned platforms. Boeing and Northrop Grumman said they plan to pursue the program but declined to provide specific details on their RFI submissions. MQ-Next will be an important program for General Atomics because the MQ-9 is its bread and butter, said Phil Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at the Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia-based aerospace and defense market analysis firm. “They're going to fight hard to try to build a replacement,” he said. The company would be in a difficult position if it lost the competition because it brings in a lot of revenue from the Reaper. However, Larry Dickerson, a senior defense analyst at Forecast International, a Newtown, Connecticut-based marketing consulting firm, noted that it wouldn't be all doom and gloom for General Atomics if it loses the MQ-Next competition. “The Reaper systems are going to be in [service] for a long time, which means there's going to be a lot of long-term support and maintenance contracts that are going to be coming towards them,” he said. Meanwhile, while the Air Force is gung-ho about pursuing a replacement for the MQ-9, some in Congress appear to be less so. In the House fiscal year 2021 defense appropriations bill — which was passed by the chamber in late July — lawmakers included funding for 16 MQ-9s at a cost of $344 million that would keep its production line going, according to a summary of the legislation. As of press time, a final appropriations bill had yet to be passed. “The Air Force's fiscal year 2021 budget request proposes to terminate production of MQ-9 aircraft, citing an excess of aircraft compared to projected operational requirements,” said the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in its version of the spending bill. “The committee does not accept this proposal and recommends additional funding for 16 MQ-9 aircraft.” Lawmakers said they were concerned that the Air Force reached its decision without adequate planning for a follow-on system. The committee directed the service to submit a report about an MQ-9 follow-on program to congressional defense committees before the fiscal year 2022 budget request. “The report shall detail the desired features of such a system, the cost and timeline required to achieve development and fielding, proposed measures to ensure full and open competition, and an explanation of how such a system would fulfill the goals of the National Defense Strategy,” the bill said. Roper noted that the Air Force will need to convince the Hill about the usefulness of a new platform. “Building a utility player that can meet multiple mission demands is not something that our acquisition system has historically been good at,” he said. “We've got to get good quickly to convince Congress that this is a good pivot, and I look forward to having those discussions.” Finnegan noted that lawmakers' reluctance to shut down the MQ-9 production line could be a hurdle for the MQ-Next program. “If there's one thing Congress doesn't like, it's shutting down production lines. And trying to kill a program is extremely difficult,” he said. “We're already seeing that.” Meanwhile, in July the Trump administration announced that it was loosening some UAS export rules associated with the Missile Technology Control Regime, which could have impacts on both the Reaper and the MQ-Next programs. The adjustment would affect “Category 1” systems that have a maximum airspeed of less than 800 kilometers per hour. The new policy is expected to increase trade opportunities for U.S. companies, according to analysts. For General Atomics, the loosening of rules could drum up new business abroad for the MQ-9 but there are still some hurdles, Dickerson said. How the MTCR changes will affect sales of a future MQ-Next platform is still up in the air, he noted. “It depends on the type of system they select,” he said. “The U.S. will not want to sell this system to everyone.” https://www.uasvision.com/2020/09/08/mq-next-us-air-force-considers-reaper-replacement/

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  29 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

  How coronavirus is permanently changing the defense industry's culture

  POLITICO spoke with managers at eight defense companies of varying sizes to see how their response to the pandemic has changed seven months in. JACQUELINE FELDSCHER From Zoom meetings to mental health check-ins during the work day to reconfiguring office spaces, most defense CEOs say the changes forced by the coronavirus will be permanent even after this crisis is over. The pandemic upended the industry in March, sending most employees who could telework home and requiring additional safety precautions for those who still had to go to the office. Companies quickly adopted best practices, such as frequent hand-washing, deep cleaning, distance between employees and eventually wearing masks. But over the past seven months, many companies have gone beyond these initial steps to protect the health of their employees and changed how they operate in other areas of their business. That includes adding benefits for the workforce, increasing the use of virtual communications and protecting supply chains. “We need to first calm down any sense of a focus on getting back to normal,” said Karl Hutter, the CEO of Click Bond, a supplier to defense companies. “There's not going to be a going back to normal.” A top challenge CEOs cited is trying to maintain a company's culture and community when at least some of the workforce is working from home full-time and it's still unsafe to gather for morale-building events such as anniversary celebrations or holiday parties. Industry leaders are also rethinking what their companies will look like in the future, including how many employees will continue to work from home full-time and how offices will be laid out. POLITICO spoke with managers at eight defense companies of varying sizes to see how their response to the pandemic has changed seven months in. Caring for the workforce The coronavirus pandemic has heaped stress on employees, many of whom are trying to juggle a full-time job with full-time child care amid a crisis that can make it anxiety-inducing to step outside. As a result, industry leaders almost unanimously said they have prioritized caring for employees' mental health in a new way to try to both give workers coping mechanisms and ease whatever stress they can. Click Bond, for example, has launched a pilot program in which about two dozen staff meet weekly for a 12-week program on wellness, including a focus on mindful movement and meditations. Hutter said he hopes the pilot, which is being used by many different demographics from younger workers to “hard-boiled tool makers,” will become a broader, long-term initiative. To help working parents, SAIC has given employees access to online tutoring help for their children to help ease the burden of working full-time while also helping children navigate the virtual classroom, said Amy Benson, SAIC's vice president of government affairs. United Launch Alliance and SAIC both established “leave banks,” which allow employees who won't use all of their vacation to donate that time off to colleagues who may need it. ULA CEO Tory Bruno said this will become a permanent benefit at his company once the pandemic is over. “It forces you to take on things like this, then you learn about them,” he said. “None of these benefits I just described will stop.” Companies have contracted with services to provide employees 24/7 virtual access to medical professionals for some health concerns. Managers are also making sure employees have access to health care. Huntington Ingalls Industries, for example, gave new hires health insurance immediately instead of making them wait 90 days, said Bill Ermatinger, the chief human resources officer at the shipbuilding company. Some companies are also regularly testing employees for Covid-19, both to keep facilities running by quickly diagnosing and quarantining any sick people and to ease the minds of those who report to work. “Employees have been very very grateful we're doing it,” said Mark Aslett, the CEO of Mercury Systems. “It's the only way to deal with employees at scale and get results back quickly enough to manage business continuity.” One of the top challenges for CEOs is making up for lost in-person interactions at company-wide events. Bruno has also gotten creative to try to replicate some of the morale boosting and team building that would come from a BBQ at a space launch, for example, by paying for employees to pick up meals from local small businesses. Hutter also stressed the importance of maintaining the culture of Click Bond, and is planning a “drive in theater event” for the company's annual holiday party as a way to safely gather and raise employees' spirits. Embracing virtual tools The inability to safely fly to visit vendors has forced businesses to get comfortable doing more virtually, which industry leaders say they will continue doing because it's more efficient. Anne Shybunko-Moore, the owner of GSE Dynamics, said her team can now check on the status of parts and address technical issues virtually. “I can see that impacting the way I do business going forward,” she said. “Vendor visits and building relationships are still critical in our supply chain, but maybe it's not necessary to fly to California. ... I could meet with eight vendors a day if I had to, virtually, all over the nation.” Some companies also had to overcome security concerns to use video meeting tools such as Zoom. United Launch Alliance did not allow employees to turn video on for virtual meetings before the pandemic out of a concern that something in the background, such as a model or a drawing of a rocket, would be either classified or controlled by international export laws. But after months of no in-person meetings, Bruno said he's instead issued workers rules for what can appear alongside them on camera. This is another practice that will continue after the pandemic is over, he said. “I started to worry about new employees never seeing their coworkers and feeling disconnected ... so we're enabling video everything and giving guidelines asking them to be careful about what's behind them,” he said. Planning for future business Heather Bulk, the CEO of Special Aerospace Services, said she is already knocking down walls at her company's Colorado headquarters to reconfigure the office to accommodate many who say they will feel safer coming back to work in a personal office with a door that closes. She also acknowledged she will need to update the break room, but is not yet sure what a space that is both communal and safe looks like now. “I like the idea that you can have 75 people in one room and they can all share a coffee pot and chat, but I don't foresee this pivoting back to the way it was in 2018 and 2019 for a while,” she said. “By making these changes and making them quickly, I'm able to move forward so in January of 2021, all these office changes should be up to date.” Bulk also said she is taking steps to bring more capabilities in-house, a trend she expects to see across the industry as CEOs work to mitigate disruptions at small businesses that produce critical parts. Many CEOs said they intend to keep some of the enhanced cleaning and distancing policies in place post-pandemic because they will keep the workforce healthy from diseases such as colds and the flu as well. As to what the future of telework looks like once it's safe to return to the office, CEOs are split over how much of their workforce is likely to remain at home. But most agree a hybrid model with some people in the office and some working from home at least part-time is likely to become the new normal. “Productivity has been good. It's been great in fact,” Bruno said. “If you're working a five-day work week, why can't one or two days be at home teleworking where you're not interrupted by a bunch of meetings?” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/28/coronavirus-changed-defense-industry-culture-433447

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  25 juin 2019 | International, Naval

  Navy Refining How Data Analytics Could Predict Ship Maintenance Needs

  By: Ben Werner WASHINGTON, D.C. – Extending the lifespans of existing ships using data-driven maintenance efforts is the best strategy for achieving a 355- ship navy, said the Naval Sea Systems Command chief engineer. The key to maintaining ships and enabling the Navy to extend their lifespans is data analytics, Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, the chief engineer and deputy commander of ship design, integration and naval engineering at NAVSEA, said Thursday at the American Society of Naval Engineers' annual Technology, Systems & Ship symposium. “I have ships with a number of sensors on them, measuring things like reduction gears, showering components, turbines, generators, water jets, air conditioning plants, high packs, a number of components, and we're actually pulling data off those ships, in data acquisition systems,” Selby said. At the Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia Division, Selby's team is analyzing data gleaned from smaller ship component operations to determine how often such components need servicing, oil changes, filter changes, other maintenance actions and replacement. The process is called condition-based maintenance plus (CBM+), and Selby wants CBM to drive improvements in maintaining ships. “That's one of the things we're doing to get after utilizing the technology we have today to operate the ships we have today more efficiently and more effectively,” Selby said. The Navy has dabbled with CBM for years. A 2008 Department of Defense Conditions Based Maintenance Plus guidebook mentions NAVSEA efforts. However, two years ago at the ASNE TSS symposium, NAVSEA Commander Vice Adm. Tom Moore told USNI News that the Navy's use of CBM had perhaps gone too far and was disrupting the shipyards' ability to plan for large maintenance jobs properly. During previous attempts at incorporating CBM, there was a thought that, if major efforts like refurbishing tanks were only done when needed, rather than on a predetermined timetable, the Navy could avoid spending time and money on work ahead of need. However, that also meant that shipyards wouldn't have a clear work package before a ship showed up at the pier, adding uncertainty and, ultimately, more time and cost into the maintenance availability. This time around, Selby sees condition-based maintenance as a way to address smaller maintenance items in such a way that data analysis points a ship crew to components that are experiencing minor performance issues or otherwise showing signs they are about to fail before the failure actually occurs. This summer, a pilot program using enterprise remote monitoring will occur on an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, he said. Data collected will be sent for analysis, and operators will learn how to use the data to understand how their systems are performing and if maintenance or repairs are needed. Selby wants to have a system of apps the Navy can use to collect data from ship components, analyze the data, share it with operators and schedule work. He wants to hold a competition for app developers to create apps the Navy will test for use in the fleet. Describing his vision, Selby said, “the systems that will be monitoring, say the turbine; it will tell the operators when a work procedure has to be performed and it will also then tap into the work package side of the house and generate a work package that gets sent to the ship, to the work center, to do the work. And if there's a part involved, it will be able to pull a part from the supply system.” Testing is occurring now, but Selby concedes there are some obstacles the Navy has to overcome before large-scale deployment. The Navy is struggling with how to transmit data securely, something Selby discussed during an earlier session at the symposium. The data also has to be secured. “The performance of any given asset is something we want to hold close. So I think what you have to do is you have to architect this from kind of the get-go with that kind of security mindset in mind,” Selby said. “You can harvest that data and you could potentially discover vulnerabilities, so you have to protect that. That's part of my project: as I do this, we're bringing that security aspect into the program.” Extending the lifespan of the Navy's current fleet is essential if the Navy is going to grow to 355-ships, Moore said during his keynote address after Selby spoke Thursday. The Navy, military planners at the Pentagon, the White House and lawmakers are all anxious to reach 355 ships as soon as possible because Moore said current forces are stretched too thin. “We in the Navy, we don't have enough forces to go everywhere we need to go, and we have a pretty fragile mix of ships, so that when we miss an availability coming out on time, or we don't build something to the schedule they're supposed to build to, there are real-world consequences to that,” Moore said. The true determining factor of whether a ship's lifespan can be extended, Moore said, is the platform's flexibility. The Arleigh Burke-class is the Navy's workhorse today because, during the past 30 years, the Navy has successfully updated its operating systems. Moving forward, Moore said extending the life of the ships in this class means back-fitting many of the older Flight I and Flight II with a scaled-back version of the AN/SPY-6(V) Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) to keep these ships relevant to current and future mission needs. “If you're willing to do the maintenance on the ships, from a hull and mechanical perspective, you absolutely can keep them longer,” Moore said. “The issue is really not can you keep them 50 years; the issue is can they maintain combat relevance. If they can maintain combat relevance, we know we can keep them longer.” https://news.usni.org/2019/06/24/navy-refining-how-data-analytics-could-predict-ship-maintenance-needs