The Netherlands orders 12 Airbus H225M helicopters

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  27 octobre 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Space situational awareness company to be bought for $700 million

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — Ansys, an engineering simulation company, plans to purchase a Pennsylvania-based satellite tracking and modeling firm for $700 million, according to an Oct. 26 announcement. Ansys is preparing to acquire Analytical Graphics Inc., which performs software development for simulation, modeling, testing and analysis tools for a number a uses, though perhaps the 30-year-old company is most well known for modeling and tracking satellites on orbit to provide key data on orbital mechanics that helps operators avoid collisions and safely operate their equipment. That level of space situational awareness is likely to become even more valuable for satellite operators as space becomes more crowded. Experts predict as many as 10,000 new satellites to be launched over the next five years, driven by the proliferated constellations being developed by private businesses and the U.S. Defense Department. At the beginning of 2020, there were about 2,000 active satellites on orbit. Recent near misses have further highlighted concerns over space debris. In January, two defunct satellites nearly collided in low Earth orbit. While there wasn't much concern about damage to the two satellites, which had long ceased operations, a collision between the two would have sent debris scattering throughout space, posing a hazard to active satellites. The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee — a group of space agencies from around the world — say such incidents are likely to occur every five to nine years. But as space becomes more crowded, experts worry the likelihood of a collision will increase. Ansys plans to add AGI's space situational awareness tools to its simulation portfolio, allowing customers to simulate their entire mission — from the chip level all the way to a satellite's orbital mechanics and connection to ground stations. “Ansys' acquisition of AGI will help drive our strategy of making simulation pervasive from the smallest component now through a customer's entire mission,” Ansys President and CEO Ajei Gopal said in a statement. “It will also expand the use of simulation in the key aerospace sector, where the stakes can be at their highest levels. We are excited to welcome the expert AGI team — and to expand the reach of their world-class technology to industries outside of aerospace, including for autonomy and 5G applications.” AGI was already an Ansys partner, but the latter hopes the acquisition will drive new aerospace and defense customers to its mission-based simulation services. “In the three decades since our founding, we have continuously invested in our technology to create and advance digital mission engineering,” AGI co-founder and CEO Paul Graziani said in a statement. “We are thrilled to become part of Ansys so we can dramatically extend the reach of our world-class products and help more customers accomplish their critical missions.” The acquisition is expected to close before the end of 2020, with Ansys paying 67 percent of the $700 million price tag in cash and issuing stock for the remaining amount. https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2020/10/26/space-situational-awareness-company-to-be-bought-for-700-million/

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  23 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Rafale coming in! How Rafale fighter jets fare against the Chinese PLAAF fighters?

  Updated: Jul 22, 2020 8:43 AM The PAF had acquired the F-16 Fighting Falcons a couple of years before. This time around, with the induction of the Rafale, does the IAF need more than a catchy tag line to keep the PLAAF at bay? By Wing Commander Amit Ranjan Giri “The balance rests on us”–this was the catchphrase of the IAF when the first MiG 29 thundered down and took to the skies in Pune, in the mid-eighties, heralding the parity in new generation fighter jets between the PAF and IAF. The PAF had acquired the F-16 Fighting Falcons a couple of years before. This time around, with the induction of the Rafale, does the IAF need more than a catchy tag line to keep the PLAAF at bay? As Group Captain Harkirat and his boys land the latest fighting machines at Ambala, five in all, two twins seaters (RB series) and three single-seaters (BS series), they propel the IAF to another level of air fighting capability, one which would enhance itself with the acquisition of all 36 Rafales and associated weaponry in the near future. An interesting trivia about IAF fighters is that, Russian fighters generally come in huge crates and are assembled in India whereas most ‘western' fighters are flown in, from the OEM country. This, by no means, indicates that the incoming Rafales would be able to take on the enemy immediately, it would take the IAF a little time before these jets are operationalised with a plethora of weaponry, the earlier the better. How does the Rafale fare against the Chinese fighters? The Rafales' main contender in the PLAAF would be the Chengdu J-20 and if produced and operationalised the Shenyang J-31, both are highly rated by the Chinese media and pitched as fifth-generation stealth fighters against the Rafales' 4.5 generation lineage. That having been said, the Chinese fighters' capabilities are only on paper, much of them are yet to be demonstrated or proven. True, the Rafale lacks stealth but is built around the low RCS philosophy whereas, though the J-20 proclaims itself as a proponent of stealth the ‘canards' in front and additional external hardpoints for extra fuel tanks would shatter much of its claims in this department. Just to clear the air around stealth – absolute all aspect stealth is a myth, at least as of now. Aeroplanes claiming stealth are actually low observables depending on their aspect – the way they look to the enemy sensors- never invisible from all direction. The IAF has been known to pick up Chinese J-20s on their Su 30 radars earlier. Engine, weapons and avionics: who gets the better score? With limited internal capacity of weapons and no ‘supercruise' capability as yet, the Chinese contenders do have a lot to live up to. The Rafale, in this aspect, delivers what it promises – low RCS, excellent weapon carriage capability – albeit external and supercruise – the ability to go supersonic without afterburners. When it comes to avionics, all three aircraft would pitch ‘neck to neck'. All boast of one of the most advanced radars – the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) and all three have equivalent avionics suites onboard. However, it is yet to be seen if the Chinese have been able to integrate these technologies to match, compute and present the desired data – a capability which leapfrogs an aircraft to the next level. The Rafale's SPECTRA defensive aids system is a classic example of this – processing and amalgamating information from various sensors to safeguard the aircraft. The SCALP and Meteor are some of the goodies in the Rafale package for the IAF. Whilst the former is a ground attack precision weapon, the latter, is one of the best BeyondVisualRange (BVR) air to air missiles available at present. The J-20 in comparison carries the PL series of missiles with the PL 15 matching up with the Meteor in terms of range. As per the last reports, the PL 21 with enhanced range was yet to be operationalised. Pedigree versus Pariah, who wins? The Rafale comes from an ancestry of well-known fighters which Dassault has produced and earned their place in the annals of history. If western intelligence reports are to be believed the Chinese fighters have been an attempted copy of the F 22 Raptor and the F 35 Lightning, curtsy hackers who had managed to steal substantial amount of data from the US servers. Apart from the privileged pedigree the Rafale is also combat-proven – Libya, Iraq and Syria were all contemporary conflicts wherein the French fighter has been able to earn a name for itself. The Chinese fighters, in contrast, are yet to be proven in battle, as far as the J-31 goes there are doubts if the machine has gone beyond the prototype stage as yet. The J-20, on the other hand, does enjoy an edge over its single-engined cousin, it has entered the production stage and rumours of about one squadron of this type with PLAAF has surfaced in the intelligence circle. All the above being said it needs to be appreciated that no comparison of fighting machines can be justified with data on paper – a lot goes in exploiting platforms during the war and a major portion of the winning effort comes from other non-tangible factors – the side which exploits the entire spectrum generally lands up on the victorious side. https://www.financialexpress.com/defence/rafale-coming-in-how-does-rafale-fighter-jets-fare-against-the-chinese-plaaf-fighters/2031381/

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  16 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Economics Of Rocket Reuse Still Up In The Air

  Irene Klotz The first Falcon 9 rocket to land successfully after dispatching a payload into orbit stands on permanent display outside SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, a testament to the perseverance of founder, CEO and chief engineer Elon Musk, who wants a fleet of fully reusable spaceships to reduce the cost of colonizing Mars. The vision is shared by fellow tech entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, whose Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin space company is developing a series of reusable vehicles, beginning with the New Shepard suborbital passenger transport system. The New Shepard made 12 uncrewed flight tests over the last five years, with more to come before commercial flights begin. Bezos also has pumped $2.5 billion into developing the New Glenn, a reusable system powered by seven BE-4 methane-fueled engines designed to carry nearly 50 tons to low Earth orbit. “That is the smallest orbital vehicle we are planning to build and launch,” says Clay Mowry, Blue Origin vice president of sales, marketing and customer experience. But the first BE-4s to power a rocket to orbit may not be aboard the New Glenn. United Launch Alliance (ULA) is buying the engines to power the first stage of its Vulcan rocket, an expendable booster—at least for now—which, like the New Glenn, is slated to debut next year. At some point, ULA may decide to recover and reuse just the BE-4 engines, a pair of which will fly on each Vulcan. The idea is for the engine compartment to disengage after launch and fall back through the atmosphere protected by an inflatable hypersonic shield. A helicopter would be positioned to snag the engine section midair as it makes a parachute descent. ULA calls the approach its Sensible Modular Autonomous Return Technology, or SMART. “It does not impact, in any significant way, the overall performance of the launch vehicle because you don't have to save fuel to fly home with,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno tells Aviation Week. “You still get to burn up all your fuel, separate your engine, which is the most expensive piece, and recover it.” “We have not really changed our assessment over the last couple of years because we have yet to see the other forms of reusability—flyback or propulsive return to Earth—demonstrate economic sustainability on a recurring basis,” Bruno says. “It's pretty darn hard to make that actually save money. . . . We've seen nothing yet that changes our analysis on that.” SpaceX currently is the only launch company reflying orbital rockets. SpaceX launched its final version of the workhorse Falcon 9 booster, called the Block 5, in May 2018. Within two months, the company was flying Block 5s exclusively. The upgrade includes higher-thrust Merlin engines, stronger landing legs and dozens of upgrades to streamline recovery and reuse. Block 5s were designed to fly 10 times with minimal maintenance between flights, and up to 100 times with refurbishment. SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell says the company no longer expects to need to fly a Falcon 9 more than 10 times. “We don't have to ramp up our production, at least for boost phases, like we thought we were going to,” Shotwell said on March 10 at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington. “From a reliability perspective, we want to know the limits of Falcon 9, so we'll push them, but . . . some government customers want new vehicles—I think over time, they will come to flight-proven vehicles as well,” she added. “But if I have to build a couple of new ones every year, or 10 new ones a year, that adds to the fleet, and I don't know that I'll have to push a rocket more than 10 [flights.]” With regard to how much the company has been able to cut costs by reflying rockets, Shotwell would only say, “We save a lot of money.” As a privately held company, those operating expenses are not publicly available, but the Block 5 flight record is. So far, SpaceX has flown 14 Block 5 core boosters over 31 missions, including two Falcon Heavy flights, which use three cores apiece. Of those 14 boosters with flight history, five remain part of the operational fleet. The rest were expended—several after multiple missions—due to payload performance requirements or unsuccessful landings. One booster was intentionally destroyed as part of a Crew Dragon capsule launch abort flight test. SpaceX's fleet leader flew five times before failing to land on a drone ship stationed off the Florida coast on March 18. SpaceX has not said if the botched landing was related to a premature engine shutdown during the final phases of ascent. The rocket's remaining eight Merlin engines compensated for the shutdown, and the payload—a batch of 60 SpaceX Starlink broadband satellites—reached its intended orbit. While it continues to fly the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy for NASA, national security and commercial missions, SpaceX is developing a fully reusable, human-class deep-space transportation system called Starship at its own expense. Another company testing the waters of reusability is Rocket Lab, which builds and flies the Electron small-satellite launcher. “For a long time, I said we weren't going to do reusability,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in August 2019, when he announced the new initiative. “This is one of those occasions where I have to eat my hat.” Electrons do not have the performance for a propulsive return like SpaceX's Falcons do, so Rocket Lab is pursuing a midair, helicopter recovery system to snare the booster's first stage. The intent is not to reduce costs per se but to increase flight rates without having to boost production. The company currently is producing one Electron rocket about every 30 days. “We need to get that down to one a week,” Beck says. “We view [rocket reuse] as sort of a journey,” ULA's Bruno adds. “We're going to start with the engines because we're pretty sure we can save money with that and pass those savings on right away. As we learn more by doing, we'll continue to assess other valuable parts of the rocket, and we may discover that we can do that there as well.” “There is one funny thing about reusability,” he adds. “As you make your rocket less expensive, and you make parts of your rocket less expensive, it's harder to close a business case on reuse because the thing you're recovering isn't as valuable. There's a balance there.” https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/space-symposium/economics-rocket-reuse-still-air