20 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Mike Yeo
MELBOURNE, Australia — The U.S. Department of Defense has announced a contract award for 34 Insitu ScanEagle drones under the Foreign Military Sales program to partners in the Asia-Pacific region.
Under the $47.9 million contract, announced May 31, the UAVs are for the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Respectively, they will take delivery of twelve, eight, eight and six ScanEagles. The manufacturer is a Boeing subsidiary.
The announcement marks the first time that military equipment will be transferred to Vietnam following the end of a U.S. arms embargo imposed since the communist takeover there in 1975. It was fully lifted in 2016.
The order also provides for spare payloads, spare and repair parts, support equipment, tools, training, technical services, and field service representatives. Work is expected to be completed in 2022.
Defense News understands from multiple sources that the UAVs will be provided to these countries by the U.S. government, although there are conflicting reports on whether these will falls under the purview of the DoD's capacity-building program or the maritime security initiative announced in 2015.
One of the key advantages of the ScanEagle is its ability to be launched by a pneumatic catapult unit and recovered by Insitu's Skyhook system, which means it can be operated from any patch of open space or from aboard a ship, negating the need for a runway.
Sensor payloads available for the UAV include electro-optic, infrared and high-resolution video cameras that enable the operator to track stationary and moving targets. The UAVs will assist the recipient countries in improving maritime domain awareness over their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones.
The contract announcement came on the same day that the DoD released its latest Indo-Pacific Strategy Report. The document lists as key priorities, among other things, building partner capacity and enhancing maritime domain awareness for third party partners in the region, as well as strengthening interoperability that includes increased information sharing between the U.S. and other like-minded countries in the region.
All the recipient nations in this contract have interests in the South China Sea, with Indonesia being the only country among this group of four that does not claim ownership of any of the islands, features and rocks in the disputed Spratly or Paracel groups.
11 septembre 2024 | International, Aérospatial
Under the contract, Leidos Australia will provide support to the Joint Air Battle Management System enterprise in the domains of cybersecurity, modelling and simulation, and validation.
30 septembre 2019 | International, Naval, Terrestre
ByTauren Dyson Sept. 26 (UPI) -- BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services has received a new contract for services on the nuclear weapon systems aboard U.S. and British submarines. The $50.3 million contract, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday, covers services on Trident II D5 strategic weapon system programs, submarine guided-missile attack weapons systems, nuclear weapon surety and future concepts for both nations. In early-September, the Navy launched four unarmed test Trident II missiles off the coast of Southern California as part of a Commander Evaluation Test to gauge performance expectation of the Trident II strategic weapon system. The Trident II D5 strategic weapon system is equipped aboard Ohio-class submarines and carries up to 24 missiles. The Polaris Sales Agreement requires the system to be aboard the Vanguard-class submarines used by the U.K. Navy, as well. The Trident missiles have a range of 4,000 nautical miles capable of carrying multiple W76-Mk4/Mk4A or W88-Mk5 reentry bodies. They were initially planned to be phased out of use by 2024 but the system went through a life-extending program to keep them operational through the 2040s. Work under the new contract is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2020. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/09/26/BAE-awarded-503M-for-nuclear-missile-work-for-US-Britain
11 février 2022 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR, Sécurité
Reports indicate artificial intelligence played a key role in the Israel conflict with Hamas in Gaza in May 2021, and artificial intelligence is increasingly being incorporated into systems developed by Israeli defense companies, such as rifles, bombs and other systems.