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  18 janvier 2021 | International, Aérospatial

  L3Harris to build prototype satellite capable of tracking hypersonic weapons

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — The Missile Defense Agency awarded L3Harris Technologies a $121 million contract to build a prototype satellite capable of tracking hypersonic weapons, the agency announced Jan. 14. Under the contract, L3Harris is tasked with building an on-orbit prototype demonstration for the agency's Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, a proliferated constellation in low Earth orbit that is capable of detecting and tracking hypersonic weapons. The constellation is designed to fill the gap in the country's missile defense architecture created by hypersonic weapons, which are dimmer than traditional ballistic missiles, making them harder to see with the nation's infrared sensors based in geosynchronous orbit. In addition, they are able to maneuver around terrestrial sensors. With China and Russia developing these weapons, the Department of Defense is eager to develop a new constellation that can detect and track the threats anywhere in the world. And so is Congress — in December lawmakers set aside $130 million to fund the project. The HBTSS design solves the hypersonic weapon problem by placing the sensor much closer to the Earth's surface in the lower orbit, making it easier to see the threat. But because the sensors are closer to the Earth, they have a far more limited field of view than the sensors in geosynchronous orbit. In order to achieve global coverage, the Missile Defense Agency wants a proliferated constellation made up of dozens of satellites on orbit. L3Harris was one of four companies awarded $20 million contracts in 2019 to develop a prototype payload design and risk reduction demonstration for HBTSS, along with Northrop Grumman, Leidos and Raytheon Technologies. According to the initial contract announcements, work on those designs was due Oct. 31, 2020. With this most recent award, L3Harris has won the subsequent competition between the four companies to build the actual prototype. The company has also been selected to build satellites for the Space Development Agency that will track hypersonic threats and feed data to HBTSS. In October, L3Harris won a $193 million contract to build four of the agency's eight wide field of view (WFOV) satellites, with SpaceX building four more. According to Space Development Agency leaders, their satellites will work in conjunction with HBTSS satellites to track hypersonic threats. The WFOV satellites will provide initial detection and tracing of the weapons, passing custody from satellite to satellite as the threats traverse the globe. Then, the WFOV satellites will pass custody to the medium field of view HBTSS satellites, which can provide targeting solutions with their more accurate sensors. The WFOV satellites are scheduled for launch as early as September 2022. Work on the HBTSS prototype contract will be complete in July 2023. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/01/14/l3harris-to-build-prototype-satellite-capable-of-tracking-hypersonic-weapons/

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  3 janvier 2024 | International, Terrestre

  New radars and missile interceptors on schedule for Army air defense

  The combination allows full-range detection and better missile interception.

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  9 octobre 2018 | International, Terrestre

  Replacing the Bradley is the top priority for the Army’s next-gen combat vehicle modernization team

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The modernization team tasked with advancing the Army's next-generation combat vehicles is focused, as its top priority, on replacing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle with an Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, according to the team's leader, Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman. The OMFV is meant to “provide options to commanders in combat, so it's a decision to, manned or unmanned, gain contact with the enemy, and that can be visual or through firepower, and it actually provides options to commanders so that they can use the best way to accomplish their mission,” Coffman said in an interview with Defense News shortly before the Association of the United States Army's annual meeting. The Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team — established as part of the Army's new Futures Command — tackles the service's second highest priority out of six major lines of effort that are intended to fully modernize the force by 2028. The CFT has had many conversations with industry to determine what's possible. The team has laid out what it thinks will be the requirements for the vehicle, Coffman said, including aspects like an optionally manned capability, loading it on a C-17 aircraft, protection elements and lethality. Even though the Army plans to rapidly prototype and procure the OMFV, Coffman said the team will continue to roll new technologies in through constant experimentation, in parallel with OMFV procurement, so that the first OMFV that comes out and gets fielded is constantly improved. The Army will roll those improvements into manufacturing “so that we can always maintain the current technology on these vehicles,” he said. The Army is requesting that designs have lots of room for upgrades and to add in new technology. "We know technology will continue to move at the pace it is today or faster, and it is going to allow us to have enough physical space and computing power as well as propulsion power that, if we want to add things to these vehicles, we have the ability to build them [to be] the best they can be,” Coffman said. Jumping right in, the service plans to release a request for proposals, not just a draft, by the end of the year, Coffman said. It is anticipated that the proposals will be due in May next year, and then the Army will downselect to two competitors who will build 14 prototypes in an engineering and manufacturing development phase in the first quarter of fiscal 2020, according to industry sources. Coffman said he hoped to cast a wide net with industry, including looking to partners around the world for solutions. “We want them to bring us their best, and we will evaluate and downselect to some number and do a procurement contract at the end of the final evaluation,” he said. To accommodate for the OMFV effort and the other lines of development within the CFT's portfolio, the Army has downgraded its prototype activity within the Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center. A year ago, the Army had kicked off a major prototyping effort to develop what the service was calling its NGCV by awarding an industry team a contract to build two demonstrators by fiscal year 2022. The Army awarded a seven-year, $700 million contract to a team consisting of SAIC — the team lead — as well as Lockheed Martin, Moog Inc., GS Engineering Inc., Hodges Transportation Inc. and Roush Industries. Jim Scanlon, senior vice president and general manager of SAIC's Defense Systems Group, told Defense News in a recent interview that while the initial plan was to build prototypes, the strategy has evolved. Now, the team is working on sub-system experimentation for TARDEC using Bradley assets, to test capabilities such as mobility systems and manned-unmanned teaming. SAIC, according to Scanlon, sees the Mobile Protected Firepower solution it is hoping to prototype for the Army as possessing technological capabilities that will serve as “hooks” — or a pathway — to fulfilling OMFV requirements. Other companies are likely to emerge with offerings for OMFV, including General Dynamics Land Systems, AM General and BAE Systems. BAE Systems brought its CV90 fighting vehicle, developed for the Swedish army, to AUSA. The Netherlands, Finland and Denmark are also customers of the vehicle. According to BAE, it brought the CV90 to the show as a starting point to discuss possible options for the NGCV program. Raytheon and Rheinmetall announced at the AUSA conference Oct. 8 that they are partnering to provide Rheinmetall's Lynx combat vehicle as its submission to the impending OMFV competition. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/08/replacing-the-bradley-is-the-top-priority-for-the-armys-next-gen-combat-vehicle-modernization-team