US defense department awards AirMap USD3.3m to develop AirBoss platform

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  28 septembre 2018 | International, Naval

  LOCKHEED MARTIN AND FINCANTIERI MARINETTE MARINE AWARDED CONTRACT TO BUILD LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP 29

  Construction will begin in first half of 2019 WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2018 – The U.S. Navy awarded the Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM) team a fixed price incentive fee contract to build an additional Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). LCS 29 will be built in Marinette, Wisconsin, at FMM, the Midwest's only naval shipyard, and is the 15th Freedom-variant LCS ordered by the U.S. Navy to date. The team will leverage capital investment and improvement in the shipyard and efficiencies created with serial production to maintain high quality at an affordable cost. "We are excited to continue our partnership with the U.S. Navy and FMM to build and deliver increasingly capable ships to the fleet,” said Joe DePietro, vice president, Lockheed Martin Small Combatants and Ship Systems. "With the Freedom-variant in serial production, we continue to enhance efficiency, incorporate capability while maintaining ship and program affordability." Since the LCS program's inception, Freedom-variant LCS production has injected hundreds of millions of dollars into local economies throughout the Midwest. The program supports thousands of direct and indirect jobs throughout the United States, including more than 7,500 in Michigan and Wisconsin alone. The Lockheed Martin and FMM team is in full-rate production of the Freedom-variant, and has delivered seven ships to the U.S. Navy to date, including two this year – the future USS Sioux City and the future USS Wichita. There are seven ships in various stages of construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine. Lockheed Martin's Freedom-variant LCS is highly maneuverable, lethal and adaptable. Originally designed to support focused missions such as mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare, the team continues to evolve capabilities based on rigorous Navy operational testing; sailor feedback and multiple successful fleet deployments. The Freedom-variant LCS integrates new technology and capability to affordably support current and future mission capability from deep water to the littorals. For additional information, visit: www.lockheedmartin.com/lcs. About Lockheed Martin Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 100,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. This year the company received three Edison Awards for ground-breaking innovations in autonomy, satellite technology and directed energy. About Fincantieri Marinette Marine Fincantieri is the leading western shipbuilder with a rich history dating back more than 230 years, and a track record of building more than 7,000 ships. Fincantieri Marine Group is the American subsidiary of Fincantieri, and operates three Great Lakes Shipyards: Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, and Fincantieri ACE Marine. Fincantieri Marine Group's more than 2,100 steelworkers, craftsman, engineers and technicians in the United States specialize in the design, construction and maintenance of merchant ships and government vessels, including for the United States Navy and Coast Guard. About Gibbs & Cox Gibbs & Cox, the nation's leading independent maritime solutions firm specializing in naval architecture, marine engineering and design, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company, founded in 1929, has provided designs for nearly 80 percent of the current U.S. Navy surface combatant fleet; approaching 7,000 naval and commercial ships have been built to Gibbs & Cox designs. https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2018-09-27-Lockheed-Martin-and-Fincantieri-Marinette-Marine-Awarded-Contract-to-Build-LCS-29

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  22 avril 2020 | International, Naval, C4ISR

  For the Navy’s hospital ships, networking is yet another challenge

  Andrew Eversden When the Navy hospital ship Comfort deployed to Haiti in 2010 following devastating earthquakes, media organizations broadcasting in the area ate up so much satellite bandwidth that the ship had to revert to paper processes and adjust its satellite communications for some ship-to-shore messaging. While the outages weren't a widespread issue, said Sean Kelley, who served as the ship's top IT officer at the time, the problem highlighted a challenge these ships face: broadband. Now, the hospital ships Mercy and Comfort are deployed to Los Angeles and New York, respectively, and are in the national spotlight as symbols of the coronavirus pandemic relief effort. But security and IT experts say the ships' mission presents the Navy with distinct networking problems, from cybersecurity to network connection for patients. Onboard devices When disaster strikes, the Navy's hospital ships deploy in a matter of days, mobilizing with a crew of about 100-1,200 personnel. But the influx of staff also leads to an incursion of devices, all of which must be secure and require bandwidth. “You have a lot of different people going to a lot of different places that now have to be acclimated to this environment,” said Kelley, now executive vice president at Unissant, an IT and cybersecurity company. “So that's really one of the biggest challenges, is getting all those things turned on, all those things activated, making sure that they are all compliant with the latest patches and fixes, and making sure they're good.” This process can be a “nightmare,” said retired Rear Adm. Danelle Barrett, former deputy chief information officer of the Navy and cybersecurity division director. “The challenging part is always in the first couple days whenever this happens,” said Barrett, who oversaw communications and cyberspace for Operation Unified Response, the U.S. military's mission in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. “The team is coalescing about how they want to operate, and they're getting their feet wet, getting new accounts on networks ... [getting] their logins.” Cybersecurity aboard the ships is also complex. Both ships have 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, blood banks, labs, medical devices and a multitude of other “internet of things” devices connected to hospital beds. According to a 2018 survey by health care IoT security company Zingbox, each bed can have as many as 10-15 IoT devices. “They have to be cyber-ready, or the mission of the Mercy is considered [degraded],” said Dean Hullings, global defense solutions strategist at Forescout, which handles Comply to Connect — a Defense Department framework created to ensure the cybersecurity of new devices — for the USNS Mercy. Ensuring connectivity For the devices to function, they need connectivity. When the ships arrived in ports in late March, technology firm CenturyLink “donated” connectivity to the Mercy, while Verizon provided connectivity to the Comfort. Former and current Navy officials told C4ISRNET that adequate broadband is the most challenging IT consideration faced by these ships. “Obviously you're going to be transferring imagery of X-rays or things like that that are more dense and require a ... higher data rate, so that bandwidth in port is important,” Barrett said. And with the introduction of patients, bandwidth needs become more complex. “The greatest communications challenge we are going to face during this deployment is the increased need for patients to communicate off the ship during their stay,” Tom Van Leunen, a spokesman for Military Sealift Command, told C4ISRNET. “Our hospital ships are designed to support official communication for the ship's crew and embarked medical community to complete their job. Adding a capability for patients to reach loved ones increases the risk of saturating the bandwidth off the ship.” Aboard both ships, the Navy doubled the bandwidth, he said, adding that Navy personnel also set up separate networks for patients' communications. While this solves one networking problem, it can also create an increased cybersecurity risk. Securing the ships Cybersecurity on the hospital ships follows the same standard practices as the rest of the Navy fleet. Since those aboard are largely Navy medical staff and personnel, they know what activities are acceptable on the network, Barrett said. “You can't just go and plug anything into that network because of potential vulnerabilities that that system may bring that could affect not just the ship, but remember, the ship is then connected to the rest of the [Department of Defense Information Network],” Barrett said. “So risk by one is shared by all.” ForeScout's Hullings said a hospital environment “epitomizes” why the Comply to Connect program is necessary. The ship has desktops, servers, routers, printers and other networks equipment, as well as mobile devices, such as tablets, that health care providers use to track patient care. “The truly unique stuff is the mission systems of the hospital, like X-ray machines, MRI machines, the beds themselves in the post-operative recovery rooms, that are all sensors. And they are all passing data. They have to be protected,” Hullings said. A spokesperson for the Navy told C4ISRNET that the ships are prepared for the cybersecurity challenges associated with their missions, but declined to address what additional cybersecurity challenges are introduced with the addition of private citizens. “These ships have routinely deployed in humanitarian assistance missions such as Pacific Partnership (USNS Mercy) and Continuing Promise (USNS Comfort) that required them to operate in partner nation ports, with foreign national patients being brought to and from the ship,” said Cmdr. Dave Benham, a spokesman for the Navy's 10th Fleet. “In all operating locations, we take appropriate precautions to keep our networks secure, and we do not discuss specific measures in order to protect operational security.” Cybersecurity on the hospital ships follow the same protocols as any other Military Sealift Command ship, said Benham. “Protecting our networks is a continuous challenge, and the overarching concern is to ensure that the right information gets to the right place at the right time with the right level of protection,” he explained. Cybersecurity aboard the hospital ships follow similar efforts to those recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Wash your hands. “It's ‘wash your hands' with your computer, too,” Barrett said. “Do good hygiene with your computer.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2020/04/21/for-the-navys-hospital-ships-networking-is-yet-another-challenge/

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  6 septembre 2023 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR

  BEL and IAI sign MoU, to tap opportunities in Short Range Air Defence Systems’ domain

  The MoU aims at leveraging IAI and BEL’s capabilities, and is in sync with the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’ policies of the Government of India.