11 janvier 2024 | International, Naval
Leonardo DRS Awarded Contracts Valued at Over $3 Billion for U.S. Navy’s Columbia-Class Submarine Program
This contract solidifies DRS’s position through shipset 12 for the Columbia-class program.
7 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
The Pentagon will solicit its first mesh network in space May 1
Nathan Strout and Valerie Insinna
The Space Development Agency plans to award contracts for a mesh network in space this August, with the expectation that an initial batch of 20 satellites will be placed on orbit during summer 2022. The agency expects to release a request for proposals for the contracts May 1.
The announcement came during an industry day the agency hosted over the phone April 2. The industry day was originally slated to take place during the 36th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs April 2, however, after that event was cancelled due to the circumstances with COVID-19 the agency opted to hold a virtual industry day instead. According to SDA Director Derek Tournear, 580 people called in for the event.
That first batch will include 20 satellites and will comprise what Pentagon leaders are calling Tranche 0 of the SDA's Transport Layer, a mesh network of satellites operating primarily in low earth orbit and will be able to connect space-based sensors to the war fighter.
According to Tournear, the agency has six goals for its Trache 0 Transport Layer:
- Demonstrate low latency data transport to the war fighter over the optical crosslink mesh network.
- Demonstrate the ability to deliver data from a space sensor to the war fighter via the Transport Layer.
- Demonstrate a limited battle management C2 functionality.
- Transfer Integrated Broadcast System data across the mesh network to the war fighter
- Store, relay and transmit Link-16 data over the network in near real time.
- Operate a timing signature independent of GPS references to the US Naval Observatory.
Following Tranche 0, the SDA plans to continuously upgrade and add to its on orbit constellation in two year cycles, with Tranche 1 coming online in FY2024, Tranche 2 supplementing the system in FY2026. The SDA will procure two types of satellites for Tranche 0, with one main difference being that one set of satellites will have enough optical intersatellite links to communicate with other satellites operating in LEO and satellites in medium earth orbit or geosynchronous orbit, while the other will only have enough to communicate with other satellites in LEO.
The agency is tasked with building the National Defense Space Architecture, which will be made up of hundreds of satellites operating in low earth orbit providing a multitude of missions, from tracking hypersonic weapons to providing alternative position, navigation and timing data.
The Transport Layer will serve as the backbone of the NDSA, connecting the various satellites to each other and to the war fighter. And according to Tournear, the Transport Layer will provide the key space network component to the Department of Defense's Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
“The transport layer, which is what the draft RFP and the industry day was talking about today, is going to be the unifying effort across the department. That is going to be what we use for low latency (communications) to be able to pull these networks together, and that, in essence, is going to be the main unifying truss for the JADC2 and that effort moving forward. That is going to be the space network that is utilized for that,” explained Tournear.
The agency released the draft RFP March 26. The SDA is soliciting feedback on the draft RFP for Tranche 0 through April 17 and plans to release the full RFP May 1. Contracts will be awarded in August, Tournear said, though the agency wants to see the proposals before deciding how many companies it will award contracts to.
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23 février 2023 | International, Aérospatial
GE 'well aligned' with Boeing and Airbus production schedules, says CEO
General Electric is "well aligned" with production schedules for both Boeing and Airbus this year, Chief Executive Larry Culp said on Thursday.
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25 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
US Army awards air-launched effects contracts for future helicopters
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has awarded 10 contracts worth a total of $29.75 million to companies to provide mature technologies in the realm of air-launched effects, or ALE, for future vertical lift aircraft that are expected to come online around 2030, service aviation officials have told Defense News. Raytheon, Alliant Techsystems Operations of Northridge, California, and Area-I of Marietta, Georgia, were awarded contracts to develop air vehicles. L3 Technologies, Rockwell Collins and Aurora Flight Services Corporation were awarded contracts to provide mission systems. And Raytheon, Leonardo Electronics US Inc., Technology Service Corporation of Huntsville, Alabama, and Alliant Techsystems Operations LLC of Northridge, California, received contracts to provide ALE payloads. Through ALE, the Army hopes to provide current and future vertical lift fleets with “the eyes and ears” to penetrate enemy territory while manned aircraft are able to maintain standoff out of range of enemy attack, Brig. Gen. Wally Rugen, who is in charge of the Army's FVL modernization efforts, said in an exclusive interview with Defense News. “To do that, that has a whole host of capabilities embedded in it, and I would say it's not just the eyes and ears, but it's also, what we are finding, is the mouth, so our ability to communicate by bringing mesh network capabilities, by bringing an ability to hear in the electronic spectrum, and, again, the ability to collect in that spectrum so we can find, fix and finish on pacing threats,” he added. The Army plans to take these already technically mature capabilities through additional technology maturation, Col. Scott Anderson, the unmanned aircraft systems project manager for the Army's Program Executive Office for Aviation, said in the same interview. “We're looking for high technology readiness levels, so best of breed,” he said, “that we can buy and then we don't have to develop, spend a lot of developmental dollars getting ready to get out the door in a prototype.” The air vehicle, payloads and missions systems will all fit into a government-owned architecture by fiscal 2024. The service will first look at each major component of ALE individually, rather than as a whole system, to assess readiness, Anderson said. That will run through most of 2021. Then in 2022, the Army will take those capabilities and bring them together into a full system prototype working with Georgia Tech, which is helping the service write the underpinnings of the reference architecture, he added. In the final phase, the Army will integrate the system onto a platform, first targeting the Gray Eagle and AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. Ultimately the ALE capabilities to come out of the effort will be targeted for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) ecosystem, Anderson said. The Army is planning to field both FARA and a Future Long-Range Attack Aircraft (FLRAA) in the early 2030s. “We want to mature the [ALE] ecosystem and then have it ready to hand off to FARA in full bloom,” Rugen added. The Army has been looking at ALE since roughly late 2017, Rugen said, and has been working to refine the associated capabilities development documents for several years. Army Futures Command Commander Gen. Mike Murray signed an abbreviated capabilities development document in May. The service has been pleased with what it has seen so far in live prototype experimentation and physics-based modeling within the science and technology community and is prepared to move quickly on the effort, Rugen said. The Army selected Area-I's ALTIUS, the Air-Launched, Tube-Integrated Unmanned System, to launch from a rotary-wing test aircraft — a UH-60 Black Hawk — and was able to demonstrate the concept from a high altitude in August 2018. Then the service demonstrated the concept again during a ground robotic breach exercise at Yakima Air Base in Washington state in 2019 as well as a launch from a Black Hawk flying at a lower altitude — roughly 100 feet or less. In March, at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, the Army demonstrated multiple ALEs launched from a Black Hawk at very low altitudes to “maintain masking,” Rugen said. “We got our mesh network extended out to about 60 kilometers, so we were pretty happy with, again, the requirements pace and the experimentation pace with that.” The program will evolve beyond 2024 as the capability will align more closely with fitting into future formations. The Army could award future contracts to integrate the capability or could establish follow-on Other Transaction Authority contracts — which is the type of contract mechanism used for the 10 awardees that allows the Army to move faster to rapidly prototype. “We have the contractual mechanisms” to be “flexible and responsive,” which is key in a program like ALE, Joe Giunta, executive director of Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, said. Instead of looking for a vendor that could deliver every aspect of a system, “we can harvest from across multiple different vendors, who bring, if you will, the best characteristics,” Patrick Mason, the deputy PEO for Army Aviation, added. “Then as they merge into our government reference architecture and our open system approach, we are then able to bring those together to create a much more capable product,” he said, that “fits into the longer term on how we can modify that as technology comes along and we can ramp on increases in technologies as we get out into the '23, '24 time frame and then further into the future as we look out to FY30 and the fielding of FARA, FLRAA and the full establishment of the FVL ecosystem.” The Army released a notice to industry Aug. 12 looking for input on technology that could further advance the capability of ALE against sophisticated adversaries with plans to host an industry day in September. While the service will prototype mature technologies in the near term, Mason said, “when you look at the '25 and '26 time frame, there will be better technologies that are developed around the payload side of the house, advancements in air vehicles or advancements in the missions systems.” The RFI is “looking at the next increment that is out there as we move from now in 2020 to what we would have as a residual capability in '24 to what we could move to in 2030,” Mason said. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/08/24/army-awards-air-launched-effects-contracts-for-future-helicopters/