30 septembre 2024 | International, Terrestre
31 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre
Russia says its new weapon is 27 times faster than the speed of sound
By: Vladimir Isachenkov, The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Russia's new strategic weapon has rendered any missile defenses useless at a small fraction of their cost, officials said Thursday.
The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle flies 27 times faster than the speed of sound, making it impossible to intercept, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told Russian state television.
The new weapon “essentially makes missile defenses useless,” he said.
Borisov spoke a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw what he described as the conclusive successful test of the Avangard and hailed it as a reliable guarantee of Russia's security for decades to come.
In Wednesday's test, the weapon was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains. The Kremlin said it successfully hit a practice target on the Kura shooting range on Kamchatka, 3,700 miles away.
The Defense Ministry released footage from the test launch, in which a ballistic missile could be seen blasting from a silo in a cloud of smoke, but it hasn't released any images of the vehicle itself.
Putin said the Avangard will enter service with the Russian Strategic Missile Forces next year.
The test comes amid bitter tensions in Russia-U.S. relations, which have been strained over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Sergei Ivanov, a former Russian defense minister, said in televised comments that the Avangard constantly changes its course and altitude as it flies through the atmosphere.
He emphasized that unlike previous nuclear warheads fitted to intercontinental ballistic missiles that follow a predictable trajectory allowing it to calculate the spot where they can be intercepted, the Avangard chaotically zigzags on its path to its target, making it impossible to predict the weapon's location.
A smiling Ivanov likened the weapon's flight through the atmosphere to a pebble skipping off the surface of water.
Ivanov, who now serves as Putin's adviser, said the Avangard could be fitted to the Soviet-made UR-100UTTKh intercontinental ballistic missile, which is code-named SS-19 Stiletto by NATO.
He noted that Russia has a stockpile of several dozen such missiles, which are in a factory-mint condition and not filled with fuel, allowing them to serve for a long time to come. Ivanov added that they could be put in existing silos, sharply reducing the costs of Avangard's deployment.
"The Avangard has cost hundreds of times less than what the U.S. has spent on its missile defense," Ivanov said.
He noted that Russia began to develop the Avangard after the U.S. started to develop defenses against ballistic missiles.
Moscow feared that the U.S. missile shield could erode its nuclear deterrent, and Putin announced in 2004 that Russia was working on a new hypersonic weapon.
Ivanov recalled that when Russian officials warned their U.S. counterparts about the new weapon program at the time, American officials were openly skeptical about Russia's ability to carry out its plan.
“We aren't involved in saber-rattling, we simply ensured our security for decades to come,” he said.
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12 août 2019 | International, C4ISR
Extending Field of View in Advanced Imaging Systems
New program focuses on developing curved infrared focal plane arrays to improve optical performance and widen field of view while reducing system size of military imagers The military relies on advanced imaging systems for a number of critical capabilities and applications – from Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and situational awareness to weapon sights. These powerful systems enable defense users to capture and analyze visual data, providing key insights both on and off the battlefield. Today, nearly all imaging systems rely on detector arrays fabricated using planar processes developed for electronic integrated circuits on flat silicon. While significant progress has been made in advancing these technologies for narrow field of view (FOV) systems, optical aberrations can limit the performance at the periphery in wide FOV systems that then require large, costly, and complex optics to correct. The trade-off for correcting optical aberrations by using large, heavy lenses is a reduction in optical signal and a large size penalty, which limits their use for new and emerging capabilities. “Tremendous progress has been made over the past 20 years towards making multi-megapixel infrared (IR) focal plane arrays (FPA) for imaging systems cost effective and available to the Department of Defense,” said Dr. Whitney Mason, a program manager in DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO). “However, limitations to the technology's performance and size remain. Current advances on the commercial side have shown the viability of small area, curved FPAs (CFPAs) for visible cameras. While these technologies have shown modest benefits, more must be done to achieve the performance and size requirements needed for imaging systems used in emerging defense applications.” DARPA developed the FOcal arrays for Curved Infrared Imagers (FOCII) program to expand upon the current commercial trend for visible sensor arrays by extending the capability to both large and medium format midwave (MWIR) and/or longwave (LWIR) infrared detectors. The program seeks to develop and demonstrate technologies for curving existing state-of-the-art large format, high performance IR FPAs to a small radius of curvature (ROC) to maximize performance, as well as curve smaller format FPAs to an extreme ROC to enable the smallest form factors possible while maintaining exquisite performance. FOCII will address this challenge through two approaches to fabricating a curved FPA. The first involves curving existing state-of-the-art FPAs, while keeping the underlying design intact. The focus of the research will be on achieving significant performance improvements over existing, flat FPAs, with a target radius of curvature of 70mm. The fundamental challenge researchers will work to address within this approach is to mitigate the mechanical strain created by curving the FPGA, particularly in silicon, which is very brittle. The second approach will focus on achieving an extreme ROC of 12.5 mm to enable a transformative reduction in the size and weight compared to current imagers. Unlike the first approach, researchers will explore possible modifications to the underlying design, including physical modifications to the silicon that could relieve or eliminate stress on the material and allow for creating the desired curvature in a smaller sized FPA. This approach will also require new methods to counter the effects of any modifications during image reconstruction in the underlying read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) algorithm. The FOCII program is hosting a proposers' day on August 13, 2019 at the Executive Conference Center, 4075 Wilson Blvd., Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia, 22203 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EDT. The purpose of this meeting is to provide information on the FOCII program, promote additional discussion on this topic, address questions from potential proposers, and provide an opportunity for potential proposers to share their capabilities and ideas for teaming arrangements. The Special Notice for can be found here, https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=4c8a360d1f5be2e1b7e784f86b7d42fb&tab=core&_cview=0 Full details are available in the FOCII Broad Agency Announcement on FBO.gov: https://go.usa.gov/xV3EH. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-08-09
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20 juin 2024 | International, Sécurité
Researchers Uncover UEFI Vulnerability Affecting Multiple Intel CPUs
Discover the critical UEFI firmware flaw affecting Intel processors. Learn how to secure your devices against potential cyber threats.