US needs North Star vision to stay ahead of China in space: report

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  12 août 2019 | International, Terrestre

  Texas university to build $130M complex to test Army’s combat tech

  By: Kelsey Reichmann WASHINGTON — A Texas university will be home to a $130 million combat development complex used by Army Futures Command. Texas A&M University System's RELLIS campus in Bryan will be the new home to accelerator space, laboratories and offices for the four-star command. The announcement was made in a news release Thursday after the board of regents authorized the contract. The building will cost Texas A&M System $50 million, according to the release. It will also invest $30 million in infrastructure improvements for the new facility. The remaining $50 million was appropriated by the Texas legislature and will go toward an outdoor testing area at RELLIS. The complex will include a kilometer-long tunnel that will make Texas A&M Engineering “the hypersonics research capital of the country,” said M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering. The campus held a robotic combat vehicle prototyping competition in May involving six industry teams with a total of eight vehicles. The event came in anticipation of Army whitepapers and request for prototype proposals for ground vehicle robots. Gen. John “Mike” Murray, the head of Army Futures Command, said in the release that the command would develop, test and evaluate technology from industry and universities around the country at the facility. “We are humbled and grateful to the people of Texas, Texas elected leaders, and the Texas A&M University System for the opportunity to further develop our strategic partnership through the establishment of the combat development complex on the RELLIS Campus,” he said. “This effort will certainly prove vital as we work together to discover, develop, and test ideas and concepts that will help our Soldiers, and our future Soldiers, to protect America's tomorrows — beginning today.” https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2019/08/09/texas-university-to-build-130m-complex-to-test-armys-combat-tech/

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  5 avril 2018 | International, Naval

  Netherlands ‘very welcome’ to join European sub program — with a caveat

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The Netherlands would be welcome to join a German-Norwegian submarine acquisition program, even as the door is closing for final design work on the boats, the Norwegian defense ministry said. The statement comes as German defense industry officials have talked for weeks about what they believe is an impending move to reshuffle big-ticket shipbuilding programs by way of a new naval cooperation umbrella with the Dutch. In that telling, The Hague would join the purchase of 212CD-class submarines, built by Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems' undersea division, and gain a say in the fate of Germany's Mehrzweck-Kampfschiff 180 frigate program, from which the surface division of TKMS was excluded last month. While Berlin and The Hague have officially kept mum about details, several German industry officials and analysts surveyed for this article believe the prospect of a Dutch move is keeping the MKS-180 program's fate unpredictable. When asked about the Netherlands' interest in the German combat ship effort, Dutch defense ministry spokesman Peter Valstar only wrote in an email to Defense News that senior acquisition officials from both countries had met recently to discuss “various topics like possible cooperations on all kinds of defense projects.” As for submarines, “We're currently in the B-phase (research) of our so-called ‘Defence Material Process,‘” Valstar wrote. “The ‘need' (A-phase) of a submarine purchase is clear. The C-phase (further research) and D-phase (product and supplier) are still to come.” Norway has always considered the door open for additional submarine buyers since Oslo teamed with Berlin last year. The joint acquisition would see Norway buy four boats and Germany two. Buying and maintaining identical submarines would keep cost down for both countries, the argument goes. “Norway and Germany would like to see additional partners joining the cooperation, and it would be very welcome if the Netherlands should decide to join,” Norwegian defense ministry spokeswoman Ann Kristin Salbuvik wrote in an email to Defense News. “We are working together towards several potential nations, and we have a good dialogue with potential partners,” Salbuvik added when asked if the Dutch had formally expressed an interest. But the door is closing for would-be partners to have a say in the boats' configurations. “The design of the German-Norwegian submarines will soon be frozen in order for the supplier, TKMS, to be able to provide a binding offer in July 2018,” the spokeswoman wrote. “After this point in time, design changes will be costly, and will also have a negative impact on time and delivery schedules for the German-Norwegian submarine building program,” she added. “If additional partners join the cooperation, it will be beneficial for them to strive for as identical a design as possible.” It is unclear how far discussions for a Dutch-German naval armaments pact have bubbled up toward the defense ministries' leaders. But the issue is “very much a topic of conversation in political Berlin,” one source noted. If given the chance to tweak the MKS-180 configuration, the Dutch would push for a smaller ship design than is currently envisioned, one industry source predicted. With Damen Shipyards, the Dutch already have local industry in the running for the program, teaming with Germany's Blohm &Voss, which is now part of the German Lürssen group. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/04/04/netherlands-very-welcome-to-join-european-sub-program-with-a-caveat/

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  31 décembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Air Force begins to roll out special cyber defense teams

  By: Mark Pomerleau The Air Force is beginning to build specialized cyber teams across the service whose primary mission is to defend local installations and critical mission tasks from cyberattacks. These teams will ensure that a particular wing or smaller organization can complete their mission from a cyber perspective, Maj. Gen. Robert Skinner, commander of 24th Air Force/Air Forces Cyber, told Fifth Domain in a November interview. For example, Skinner said if a wing has an F-16 unit that's responsible for offensive counter air or defensive counter air support, mission defense teams will understand those weapon system and everything that goes into making those air sorties successful as a way to defend that mission from a cyber standpoint. As an example, an eight-man team at the 2nd Weather Group within the 557th Weather Wing monitors the network and recently discovered several “bogus” account requests. The commander, Col. Patrick Williams, said the team was able to figure out that many of the requests were either bots or foreign requests that “had no business being on that network.” By working with the Network Operations and Security Center to eliminate that activity, the number of requests dropped by 80 percent, a huge win, Williams said. He added this was done with just a nascent mission defense team given that the teams are just being filled out across the major commands now. Skinner said each major command is at a different point in activating the teams. In addition, Air Force leaders said the service hopes to achieve efficiencies within its entire IT and cyber defense enterprise. The officials pointed to the Air Force's “enterprise IT as a service” pilot, which examines what efficiencies can be gained by having commercial companies conduct the IT services as opposed to having airmen maintain the IT infrastructure. One benefit of such a move could be that it frees up personnel to spend more time on cyber defense. “Our core strategic theme is moving from IT focused delivery into mission defense teams,” Bill Marion, deputy CIO of the Air Force, said during a keynote presentation in early December. Skinner said the service will likely be able to “re-mission” workers from their IT positions and assign them to these more active defensive roles such as mission defense teams. These mission defense teams are different from cyber protection teams that the Air Force, and other services, provide to U.S. Cyber Command. “In my eyes the [mission defense team] is a [cyber protection team] lite,” Skinner said. "We're very proud of our cyber protection team training and I think that the more of that I can get with our mission defense teams, the more successful they'll be and then our cyber protection teams can be really focused on the high end, the big threats that we'll run into in a peer competition and peer adversaries.” https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/air-force/2018/12/27/air-force-begins-to-roll-out-special-cyber-defense-teams