Pacific exercises help to shape US Army’s watercraft strategy

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  9 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Royal Air Force Typhoon jets to receive key sensor upgrade

  By: Andrew Chuter WARTON — With a complex weapons integration program squared away, giving Royal Air Force Typhoon jets more punch, key sensors on the jet could see an upgrade. The RAF's test and evaluation squadron is already test flying the Litening 5 targeting pod in order to optimize its operation by Typhoon pilots. Work is also underway to update and improve the reliability of the jets Pirate passive infrared airborne track equipment, said Andy Flynn, BAE System's Typhoon capability director. Known as Project Centurion, the British late last year completed integration of MBDA's Meteor, Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles on Typhoon in 47 months. At a cost of around £425 million, or $515.83 million, the program allowed the RAF to stand down the entire fleet of Tornado jets that had provided the primary strike capability. Flynn told reporters during a briefing at the company's Warton combat air site in northwest England Aug. 7 that the sensor work was “the next iteration of Centurion.” “Agile spiral development and keeping the aircraft relevant is the phase we are in. We have done the big leap and it's now about keeping it relevant,” he said. The Tornado was a two-seat aircraft, whereas the Typhoon is single seat. Flynn said the work on the Litening 5 was about easing pilot workload. “What we are doing now is getting the feedback from customer and operations teams on how to make that tasking simpler and really increase the cycle time on ops. We've already got Litening 5 pods up in the air as an iteration and we are seeking feedback from 41 Squadron [the test and evaluation squadron], ” he said. The plan is to get the enhanced capability “out to the front line by the end of next year,” said Flynn. Development phase work is also underway on a new iteration of Pirate as well improving the reliability and robustness of the sensor. “That work is in the development phase and we are doing that over the Autumn period. What we are doing on Typhoon overall is really enhancing the sensors capability as well making the workload easier for the pilot,” said Flynn. The sensor changes are a small part of a wider capability update on the Typhoon to keep aircraft relevant until they go out of service, currently set for 2040. On the horizon for the RAF is a new e-scan radar, known as Radar 2, which is being developed for the British by Leonardo; the new BAE Striker II helmet; and networked enabled weapons. But, Eurofighter, the Airbus, BAE, and Leonardo industrial partnership responsible for the development and production of the Typhoon, is also conducting a review of future potential updates to the fighter. Eurofighter announced at the Paris Air Show in June a deal valued at 53.7 million euros with the NATO Eurofighter & Tornado Management Agency, or NETMA, to undertake a long-term evolution review of the fighter and the EJ200 engine over the next 19 months. NETMA represents the British, German, Italian and Spanish governments. Flynn said there were more than 50 separate candidate technologies being considered by the evolution review. Some of those potential upgrades could also find themselves cross decking to the Tempest sixth-generation fighter now being proposed by the British. Clive Marrison, the industrial requirements director for Team Tempest, the industrial/government partnership leading the next-generation fighter work , said both jets could benefit from close development ties. “Typhoon could benefit from some of the technologies that Tempest is looking at and by the same token Tempest could benefit from some of the technologies that Typhoon is investing in,” said Marrison. For example: Some of the cockpit and helmet work BAE is doing might allow industry to offer some of those technologies back into Typhoon, said Marrison. While the BAE executives were looking into the future for British combat air capabilities, the Typhoon approaches a landmark of sorts to be celebrated. Sixteen years after taking delivery of its first Typhoon, the RAF is preparing to receive the final aircraft ordered for its fleet in the next few weeks, said Flynn. The final aircraft in a British order for 160 Typhoons made its test flight recently and is due to be handed over to the RAF in the coming weeks. Completion of the order leaves 24 aircraft destined for Qatar on the order book for BAE, although it is also building parts of the Typhoons sold to Kuwait by Eurofighter partner Leonardo. Three equipment sets have so far been completed at BAE's Samlesbury plant near Warton, destined for the Leonardo assembly site in Italy. Flynn said the Qatar build program was just getting underway. The 24 aircraft order will see deliveries start in 2022 with completion set for 2024. https://www.c4isrnet.com/global/europe/2019/08/08/royal-air-force-typhoon-jets-to-receive-key-sensor-upgrade/

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  29 avril 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  De nouvelles règles éthiques pour encadrer les armes autonomes

  Le Comité d'éthique du ministère des Armées, présidé par le conseiller d'État Bernard Pêcheur et composé de dix-huit membres civils ou militaires, dont l'ancien chef d'état-major, le général Henri Bentégeat, a rendu son avis sur les armes autonomes. Le comité préconise le renoncement aux SALA (système d'armes létales autonome), qui « rompraient la chaîne de commandement » ; « iraient à l'encontre du principe constitutionnel de nécessaire libre disposition de la force armée » ; « n'apporteraient aucune assurance quant au respect des principes du droit international humanitaire » et « seraient contraire à l'éthique militaire ». « Dans un horizon assez proche, nous pensons que des systèmes autonomes seront mis en œuvre par des États ou tenteront de l'être par des groupes terroristes », prévient toutefois Bernard Pêcheur. « Le refus des SALA ne doit pas concerner les « systèmes d'armes létaux intégrant de l'autonomie » (SALIA) », recommande donc le comité. À la différence des SALA, les SALIA autorisent une reprise du contrôle humain en ultime recours, même si la machine, « dans un espace-temps limité et sous conditions », acquiert une « autonomie décisionnelle, dans certaines fonctions critiques, telles que l'identification, la classification, l'interception, l'engagement ». Le comité détaille les conditions garantissant leur bon emploi : « responsabilité du commandement », « analyse des risques », « conformité » au droit, « entraînement » des militaires, « qualification des matériels ». Il recommande aussi de poursuivre la recherche sur l'intelligence artificielle ou sur les SALA pour « connaître la menace » et « être en mesure de la neutraliser ».

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  12 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre

  Here’s how the US Army’s missiles and space program office is being reorganized

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is reorganizing its Program Executive Office Missiles and Space to focus on the integrated fires mission, the office's chief said. “This is the construct that we need to have within the PEO to be agile, to be flexible, and not just meet those requirements that we see today, but to be able to bend as needed for those requirements that are coming tomorrow,” Maj. Gen. Robert Rasch said Aug. 8 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. The PEO is moving from having eight program managers to five that all fall under an integrated fires-focused portfolio. The five different program offices will be Fires Radars and Sensors, Integrated Fires Mission Command, Air-and-Missile Defense Fires, Operational and Strategic Fires, and Aviation and Ground Fires. Additionally, the PEO will have an Integrated Fires Rapid Capabilities program office. The projects under Fires Radars and Sensors will be the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense System, Sentinel, AN/TPQ-50, AN/TPQ53, AN/TPQ-36, AN/TPQ-37, the Range Radar Replacement Program, and the Army Long-Range Persistent Surveillance — deployed in several global locations to defend against aircraft, cruise missiles and drones. The Integrated Fires Mission Command portfolio will include the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, the Integrated Collaborative Environment, the Integrated Fire Control Network, and the Joint Tactical Ground Station, to name a few. The Air and Missile Defense Fires areas of responsibility will be the Indirect Fires Protection Capability Increment 2, Stinger missile, Avenger system, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile, Expanded Mission Area Missile, Interim Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense system, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile, PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement missile, Patriot launcher and C-RAM Intercept Land-based Phalanx Weapon System. The Precision Strike Missile, the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Army Tactical Missile Systems, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, and the Multiple Launch Rocket System will fall under Operational and Strategic Fires. Javelin, Hellfire, Tube-launched Optically Tracked Wire-Guided missile, Improved Target Acquisition and the Lethal Miniature Aerial Munition will be a part of Aviation and Ground Fires. Under the Integrated Fires and Rapid Capabilities portfolio will be Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, and the Mobile Low, Slow Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Integrated Defense Systems. All of the products living under the PEO Missiles and Space umbrella will remain, it's just a matter of shifting them around, Rasch said, and that's the easy part. “What we have lacked in the past is really a systems-of-systems look at the requirements as they come into our PEO,” Rasch said, and the new organization will “make sure that we really understand how we need to implement these from a materiel perspective.” Rasch noted that going forward a lot of focus will be on the sensors portfolio to figure out “how we can truly make best use of the various sensors we have on the battlespace to provide better situational awareness that enables everything, that truly enables the concept or integrated fires that is needed to support multidomain operations.” The newly organized PEO will reach a full-operational capability by the first quarter of fiscal 2021, Rasch said. “You ask: ‘Why so long?' ... We have a little bit of work to do before I can start turning over all the locks, so we are in deep mission analysis right now.” Moving products around to different portfolios is easy, but “when we start looking at funding lines, we start looking at leadership across the varied PM offices, you start looking at the functional support that exists within those,” Rasch said. “We are going to make sure we can, deliberately, over the next year and half.” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2019/08/08/heres-how-the-armys-missiles-and-space-program-office-is-being-reorganized/