Poland to launch military satellites in 2025, deputy defence minister says

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  2 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Military Moves Forward with Plan to Make Air Force One Supersonic

  By Oriana Pawlyk The U.S. Air Force has taken initial steps to begin prototyping a supersonic aircraft that could someday carry the president around the world in half the time. Last month, the service's Presidential and Executive Airlift Directorate awarded a $1 million small business innovation research (SBIR) phase II contract to Exosonic, a start-up aerospace company, to begin the design and development of a low-boom executive airlift concept. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/09/01/military-moves-forward-plan-make-air-force-one-supersonic.html

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  10 août 2020 | International, Naval

  PBO to examine $60 billion price tag of new warships and compare to other less expensive foreign programs

  David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, Postmedia News (dpugliese@ottawacitizen.com) Published: Aug 07 at 6:31 p.m. Updated: a day ago The $60 billion price tag of Canada's proposed new fleet of warships will come under the scrutiny of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who will also examine other less costly similar projects underway in other countries. The House of Commons government operations committee requested that Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux examine the cost of the Canadian Surface Combatant project and take a look at the cost of two other types of warships: the FREMM and the Type 31. PBO spokeswoman Sloane Mask said the analysis would be presented to the committee by Oct. 22. “The analytical work is currently underway,” she added. Last year the Liberal government signed an initial deal that is expected to lead to the eventual construction of 15 warships in the largest single government purchase in Canadian history. Lockheed Martin offered Canada the Type 26 warship designed by BAE in the United Kingdom. Irving is the prime contractor and the vessels will be built at its east coast shipyard. Construction of the first ship isn't expected to begin until the early 2020s. But the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program has already faced rising costs. In 2008, the then-Conservative government estimated the project would cost roughly $26 billion. But in 2015, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, then commander of the navy, voiced concern that taxpayers may not have been given all the information about the program, publicly predicting the cost for the warships alone would approach $30 billion. The overall project is currently estimated to cost around $60 billion. “Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving) Halifax yard and materials,” according to federal government documents obtained by this newspaper through the Access to Information law. But some members of parliament and industry representatives have privately questioned whether the CSC cost is too high. There have been suggestions that Canada could dump the Type 26 design and go for a cheaper alternative since the CSC project is still in early stages and costs to withdraw could be covered by savings from a less expensive ship. Canada had already been pitched on alternatives. In December 2017, the French and Italian governments proposed a plan in which Canada could build the FREMM frigate at Irving. Those governments offered to guarantee the cost of the 15 ships at a fixed $30 billion, but that was rejected by the Canadian government. Earlier this year, the U.S. Navy selected the FREMM design for its newest fleet of warships. The estimated cost is around $1.3 billion per ship. The other type of warship the PBO will look at is the Type 31, which is to be built for the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Those ships are to cost less than $500 million each. In 2017, then Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette estimated the CSC program would cost $61.82 billion. The entry of the BAE Type 26 warship in the Canadian competition was controversial from the start and sparked complaints that the procurement process was skewed to favour that vessel. Previously the Liberal government had said only mature existing designs or designs of ships already in service with other navies would be accepted on the grounds they could be built faster and would be less risky. Unproven designs can face challenges if problems are found once the vessel is in the water and operating. But the criteria was changed and the government and Irving accepted the BAE design, though at the time it existed only on the drawing board. Construction began on the first Type 26 frigate in the summer of 2017 for Britain's Royal Navy. Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020 https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/canada/pbo-to-examine-60-billion-price-tag-of-new-warships-and-compare-to-other-less-expensive-foreign-programs-482874/

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  31 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Spanish defense contractors are itching to get a piece of FCAS

  By: Sebastian Sprenger MADRID — Spanish defense companies are chomping at the bit to get into the business of building Europe's next-generation combat aircraft, just as the government is about to formally enter the Franco-German project. While the extent of the Spanish industry participation in the Future Combat Air System program is still an open question, some of the companies at the inaugural FEINDEF defense expo in Madrid, Spain, are beginning to jockey for position. Brig Gen. Juan Pablo Sanchez de Lara, chief of the Spanish Air Force's plans division, told reporters at the expo that industrial cooperation is “essential for us.” “We are not new in the business,” he said. “Of course Spanish companies are very keen to participate.” Airbus, for example, which is already a prime contractor besides Dassault from France, is looking to bring into play its local work with the Spanish Air Force for the cockpit design of the future fighter aircraft. The Spanish air service presented an Airbus-made cockpit prototype — part futuristic lab, part test bed for additional design work — at its booth, pitching it as a contender for the FCAS program. The setup features a large, panoramic screen similar to that in the F-35, sprinkling in some traditional controls beside the pilot. Officials said the cockpit is the result of previous concept work, concluding that fusing information and commanding nearby drones, for example, are key requirements. Tests are ongoing based on operational vignettes crafted by the Air Force to see how pilots handle workload, stress and the torrent of information thrown at them during flight. When the first FCAS aircraft takes to the skies around 2040, “the scenarios will be more complex,” Ignacio de Castro Vidal, Airbus Defence and Space future capabilities program manager at the defense giant's Madrid location, predicted in an interview with Defense News. That is a reference to the expectation that warfare itself will be more complicated, but it's also an acknowledgment that the program is designed with so much networked technology that the task of flying the aircraft must be kept manageable. To increase the ease of use for pilots, the company plans to lean heavily on voice commands to operate the aircraft's systems, de Castro Vidal said. Spanish electronics specialist Indra is also eyeing work on elements of the next-gen fighter aircraft. “Indra is the second provider of avionic systems for the Eurofighter,” Pedro Barco, the company's director of platforms, wrote in a statement to Defense News. “The experience gained in this project allows us to play a key role as integrator of the system of systems for the FCAS. “In particular, we have a strong experience in electronic warfare systems, voice and data communications, and radar detection and identification systems.” Eurofighter Typhoon-maker Airbus has pitched upgraded versions of that jet as a gap filler until the new aircraft is developed and built, saying that the planned upgrades would serve as something of a sandbox to try new air warfare concepts. Spain and Germany fly that aircraft, while France has the Rafale. As for engines, ITP Aero, based north of Madrid, hopes to share development work with France's Safran and Germany's MTU. “ITP is looking forward to the next step of the program, and we want to be a part of it from the beginning,” Marta Gimeno Garcia-Andrade, director of the company's defense business unit, told Defense News. She said a key area of expertise for ITP Aero lies in low-pressure turbines and movable, “thrust-vectoring” nozzles. Several Spanish defense executives at the FEINDEF expo said expect Spain's formal integration into FCAS to take place at the Paris Air Show in mid-June. Officials in Germany, however, said earlier this week the exact sequence of extending the program's framework agreement to include Madrid was still in flux. That is because the German parliament has yet to greenlight funding for an ongoing study contract and because legal issues with the agreement text may not be fully sorted out in time. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/05/30/spanish-defense-contractors-are-itching-to-get-a-piece-of-fcas/