13 février 2020 | International, C4ISR
By: Nathan Strout
The Space Force awarded Northrop Grumman a $253.6 million contract to develop a payload that would provide a higher level of protection to war fighters relying on satellite communications on the battlefield.
The contract is for the Protected Tactical SATCOM payload, the service announced Feb. 12.
Protected Tactical SATCOM (PTS) is the Space Force's planned next generation anti-jamming satellite system, which will provide tactical communications for war fighters all over the world — including the polar regions — using the Protected Tactical Waveform. As PTS is developed, the Space Force plans to begin offering Protected Tactical Waveform communications over the Wideband Global SATCOM system and later commercial satellites systems.
The Space Force said in a statement it will award up to four payload development contracts. According to the FY 2021 Space Force budget request, the service is employing a spiral development strategy that will incrementally deploy prototypes progressively demonstrating new anti-jamming technologies. The payloads will be designed to potentially be hosted on other satellites as a cost saving measure.
The contract was awarded through the Space Enterprise Consortium.
“We are excited to partner with Northrop Grumman to enable the rapid development of a protected communications prototype payload,” said Col. Dennis O. Bythewood, program executive officer for the Space and Missile Systems Center's Development Corps. “The technology maturation and prototyping effort conducted under the SpEC (Space Enterprise Consortium) Other Transaction Agreement will allow SMC to harness the innovation of partnerships between traditional defense and non-traditional/small business contractors with a projected on-orbit capability three years earlier than a traditional acquisition.”
24 octobre 2024 | International, Terrestre
This partnership focuses on the joint development of the Omega360 radar program, which will serve as the central sensor for Qatar’s national anti-drone system.
8 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., with the support of SRC Inc., successfully integrated and flew the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Agile Condor Pod on an MQ-9 Remotely Piloted Aircraft at GA-ASI's Flight Test and Training Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota The Agile Condor Pod provides on-board high-speed computer processing coupled with machine learning algorithms to detect, correlate, identify, and track targets of interest. With this capability, the MQ-9 is able to identify objects autonomously utilizing its on-board Electro-optical/Infrared (EO/IR) sensor and GA-ASI's Lynx Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Defense contractor SRC, Inc. developed the Agile Condor system for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), delivering the first pod in 2016. It's not clear whether the Air Force conducted any flight testing of the system on other platforms before hiring General Atomics to integrate it onto the Reaper in 2019. The service had previously said that it expected to take the initial pod aloft in some fashion before the end of 2016. High-powered computing at the edge enables autonomous target detection, identification and nomination at extended ranges and on-board processing reduces communication bandwidth requirements to share target information with other platforms. This is an important step towards greater automation, autonomous target detection, and rapid decision-making. GA-ASI will continue to work with AFRL to refine the capability and foster its transition to operational constructs that will improve warfighters' ability to operate in contested or denied environments. “Sensors have rapidly increased in fidelity, and are now able to collect vast quantities of data, which must be analyzed promptly to provide mission critical information,” an SRC white paper on Agile Condor from 2018 explains. “Stored data [physically on a drone] ... creates an unacceptable latency between data collection and analysis, as operators must wait for the RPA [remotely piloted aircraft] to return to base to review time sensitive data.” “In-mission data transfers, by contrast, can provide data more quickly, but this method requires more power and available bandwidth to send data,” the white paper continues. “Bandwidth limits result in slower downloads of large data files, a clogged communications link and increased latency that could allow potential changes in intel between data collection and analysis. The quantities of data being collected are also so vast, that analysts are unable to fully review the data received to ensure actionable information is obtained.” This is all particularly true for drones equipped with wide-area persistent surveillance systems, such as the Air Force's Gorgon Stare system, which you can read about in more detail here, that grab immense amounts of imagery that can be overwhelming for sensor operators and intelligence analysts to scour through. Agile Condor is designed to parse through the sensor data a drone collects first, spotting and classifying objects of interest and then highlighting them for operators back at a control center or personnel receiving information at other remote locations for further analysis. Agile Condor would simply discard “empty” imagery and other data that shows nothing it deems useful, not even bothering to forward that on. “This selective ‘detect and notify' process frees up bandwidth and increases transfer speeds, while reducing latency between data collection and analysis,” SRC's 2018 white paper says. “Real time pre-processing of data with the Agile Condor system also ensures that all data collected is reviewed quickly, increasing the speed and effectiveness with which operators are notified of actionable information.” At least at present, the general idea is still to have a human operator in the ‘kill chain' making decisions about how to act on such information, including whether or not to initiate a lethal strike. The Air Force has been emphatic about ensuring that there will be an actual person in the loop at all times, no matter how autonomous a drone or other unmanned vehicle may be in the future. An Air Force Research Laboratory briefing slide showing a concept of operations for how a drone might use Agile Condor to sense and avoid threats autonomously Still, developments such as Agile Condor will significantly reduce the amount of necessary human interaction in various parts of the targeting process, as well as general intelligence collection and initial analysis, and potentially much more, as time goes on. It could also fuse various forms of sensor data and other available intelligence together to specifically weight possible areas of interest over others and prioritize certain targets. The Air Force has also said that this system could use these capabilities to enable drones to navigate and detect and avoid potential threats automatically, including at times when its links to a control center or the GPS satellite navigation system are disrupted or blocked entirely. Sources: Press Release; The Drive https://www.uasvision.com/2020/09/07/ga-asi-demonstrates-ai-driven-targeting-computer-with-afrls-agile-condor-pod/
1 février 2021 | International, Aérospatial
By: Christina Mackenzie PARIS – The French Air and Space Force will be getting 12 new Rafales to replace those being removed from its inventory to sell to Greece, Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Friday. The announcement comes a few weeks later than originally planned. Florence Parly had told the National Assembly's Defense Commission last fall that the order would be placed with Dassault Aviation, the Rafale's manufacturer, before the end of 2020. But that was on the provision that the $3 billion contract with Greece for 18 Rafales had been signed by then. That Greek contract was signed four days ago so Parly took the opportunity of a visit to Dassault Aviation's flight controls factory in Argonay, in the French Alps on Jan. 29 to announce the new order. Eric Trappier, Dassault's CEO, had earlier underlined the fact that “Dassault is the only aircraft manufacturer in the world to design and produce its own flight controls.” Contracts to Dassault Aviation, Safran (the engine manufacturer) and Thales (the electronics) will be sent out by the DGA procurement agency in the next few days. While no price tag was given during Parly's announcement, Trappier has previously said one fully equipped fighter costs around 100 million euros, or $121 million, which would put the total package at just under $1.5 billion. Parly said the 12 new aircraft would be built to the latest F3R standard. She added, “We sold 18 Rafales to Greece so it is indeed 18 Rafales that Dassault will have to produce.” Speaking at the factory, the defense minister said one Rafale would come off the production line per month, “which represents 7,000 jobs, jobs within Dassault of course, but also within the 500 or so small and medium enterprises that work with you.” She added that in the current economic context “this is good and reassuring news”. The French Air and Space Force will have its 12 new aircraft by the end of 2025. Together with the 28 Rafales that Dassault is to deliver between 2022 and 2024, this will bring the total to 129, as projected in the 2019-2025 military program law. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/01/29/france-begins-backfilling-its-rafale-fleet-after-selling-some-to-greece