Nouvelles

By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — Japan is facing what appears to be an increasingly difficult choice, between a desire to keep its domestic defense industry in business, and getting more value for its defense spending while introducing much-needed capabilities by buying foreign off-the-shelf systems. This conundrum comes as the U.S. ally continues to warily eye nearby China's military buildup and North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. Japan's defense industry came to being soon after the end of World War II, as it attempted to rebuild its shattered economy. According to Corey Wallace, a postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate School of East Asia Studies at Germany's Freie Universität Berlin, Japan adopted what was known as kokusanka — a conscious and systematic attempt to domesticate technologies that Japan would need for an autonomous defense-industrial base. Through licensing agreements and other methods of technology transfer and acquisition, the Japanese government in the post-war period identified the most important platforms it thought it needed and tried to domesticate them. Today, Japan's local industry produces all of the country's warships and submarines, albeit fitted with important systems like the Aegis combat system, radars and missiles from the United States as well as most of its land warfare systems. Despite these capabilities, there are a number of hurdles for Japan's defense-industrial base. Chief among these is the relatively small, domestic market that drives up unit prices as well as Japan's own set of unique requirements that sometimes create a bespoke product difficult to market overseas. The small, domestic market has also meant there is little competition. And when the price of a product is determined by what Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun calls the “cost calculation method,” in which a contractor's profit is added to the prime cost that also includes that of materials and labor, it can lead to “an open invitation for soaring costs as contractors have few incentives for suppressing the prime cost.” An example of this is the C-2 airlifter. Since 2016, Japan has ordered a total of seven C-2 aircraft out of an eventual requirement of 40. This slow production rate means the C-2 costs about $201 million per aircraft, according to the latest budget request from Japan's Defense Ministry, which has asked to procure two aircraft in the next fiscal year. This, coupled with the need to focus on the expensive missile defense systems against the North Korean ballistic missile threat, has put Japan's defense budget under strain, to the point that earlier this year Japan's Finance Ministry reportedly took the unorthodox step of urging its defense counterpart to consider the option of acquiring a cheaper airlifter instead of the C-2. Given recent developments in the geopolitical and domestic industrial sphere, Japan has turned to what Wallace calls “selectivity and concentration” — the country accepts that its defense-industrial base cannot achieve absolute autonomy, particularly in areas like fighter jets and ballistic missile defense, where international cooperation is necessary in the development process. Foreign partnerships Cooperation with a foreign partner appears to be the way Japan is proceeding with two key aerospace programs: the development of a new air-to-air missile and its next fighter jet. Japan is developing the Joint New Air-to-Air Missile, which will marry the active electronically scanned array radar seeker of Japan's AAM-4B air-to-air missile with the European MBDA Meteor ramjet-powered beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. The missile is intended for use by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, but the program appears to be on a long timeline. Reports indicate no technical work has been done, and the first prototypes are planned to be ready for test shots after April 2022, with a decision following on whether to go ahead with the program. With regard to its next-generation fighter jets, following a request for information from several overseas manufacturers earlier this year, Japan is reportedly studying the feasibility of a joint development program. Local media has tracked the story, although official information is scant pending the release of Japan's five-year midterm defense plan later this year. It's widely expected Japan will link up with a foreign partner for the development, however some are holding out hope for a wholly domestic fighter program despite the risks and higher costs involved. Japan has not locally built fighters since Mitsubishi F-2s rolled off the line in 2011. However, Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer who is now a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo, says Japan should consider spending more on defense, telling Defense News earlier this year that figure should be about $5 billion to $7 billion more per year for the next five years. As the world's third-largest economy, he said, “Japan has all the money it needs to properly fund defense. And the amounts required are about the same as the waste and/or fraud in a couple of public works projects, but it chooses not to do so.” Japan's latest defense budget request for the next fiscal year is for $48 billion, which is a 2.1 percent increase from the previous year's allocated budget and represents a new record-high defense budget for the country. The amount is roughly 1 percent of its gross domestic product, which, although not official policy, has essentially become a ceiling for its defense budget. Notably, Japan is carrying out final assembly on most of its 42 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, which will eventually replace the upgraded F-4EJ Kai Phantom II aircraft currently in service. The government reportedly wants to buy more F-35s, with some suggesting it's looking at the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35B to equip the flight decks of its helicopter destroyers of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Export challenges Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has ended its ban on defense exports, which his government sees as a way to boost Japan's economy. Japanese defense companies have and continue to pursue several international acquisition programs ranging from Australia's requirement for submarines to France and Germany's requirement for new maritime patrol aircraft. However, these export opportunities have presented their own set of challenges, not least the fact that Japanese companies lack the savvy of their more-experienced competitors at the higher end of the global arms market, and that they're being priced out by cheaper alternatives at the lower end. And despite their undoubted quality, Japanese offerings are sometimes hindered in the export market by the domestic market's bespoke requirements. In the case of the C-2, there were no requirements for the aircraft to conduct operations on short or poorly prepared airstrips, and this is likely to hurt its prospects in New Zealand, which is seeking airlifters for both strategic and tactical airlift missions. In this case, the ability to operate from poorly prepared runways is important given the Royal New Zealand Air Force conducts regular operations to South Pacific islands, particularly on humanitarian assistance and disaster response missions in the aftermath of natural disasters. Newsham noted that despite the recent loosening of restrictions, there has not been significant effort by Japanese companies to dive into the international defense market, as most major Japanese companies don't consider the defense business to be profitable. Other sources in Japan who are familiar with the industry have corroborated that view in speaking to Defense News. And Newsham adds that despite being the administration that pushed for the loosening of defense export restrictions, the Abe government has not proactively supported Japanese defense companies seeking to do business overseas. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/11/26/japan-at-a-crossroads-whats-keeping-its-defense-industry-from-growing

Nicolas Berrod Jambe bionique, casque de réalité virtuelle... Le premier salon de l'innovation de la Défense ouvre, ce samedi, au public. Pour avoir une idée de ce à quoi va ressembler le soldat du futur, il faut se rendre à... la Cité de la Mode et du Design ! C'est ici, dans l'Est parisien, que se tient le premier Salon de l'Innovation de la Défense, qui ouvre ses portes au public samedi. Dans les allées, on croise des militaires, industriels, scientifiques, venus présenter leurs propres projets -160 sont exposés. Le robot greffeur de peau permet, par exemple, de soigner un soldat brûlé, à proximité du champ de bataille, sans attendre trop longtemps. Le principe est simple : un bras robotisé prélève à un endroit sain un échantillon de peau, qui, une fois mélangé avec une encre spéciale, via une imprimante 3D, est greffé sur la partie blessée du corps. « On peut le faire en une seule fois et l'opération ne dure pas plus de quelques heures », assure Amélie Thépot, la présidente de la start-up LabSkin Creations, qui à conçu le projet avec les Hospices de Lyon. Une jambe bionique Pour les militaires plus gravement blessés, la société Proteor a imaginé une jambe bionique nouvelle génération, constituée d'un ensemble genou-cheville-pied contrôlé par un microprocesseur. Abel Aber, 32 ans et militaire de formation, a perdu sa jambe gauche dans un accident à l''ge de 17 ans. Depuis, ce grand gaillard utilise plusieurs prothèses dont celle-ci qui lui « apporte un nouveau confort de marche, même si ça reste évidemment contraignant ». L'outil, développé avec le soutien de la Direction générale de l'armement (DGA) et disponible d'ici 2021, a ses limites : impossible pour le moment de monter un escalier, par exemple. « Et pour faire du sport, on a besoin de prothèses plus spécifiques », glisse cet amateur de boxe thaï. Un casque de réalité virtuelle Autre innovation qui attire l'attention : la cape d'invisibilité, dite Caméléon. Imaginé pour camoufler un véhicule terrestre, ce système optique fonctionne gr'ce à une caméra haute définition qui capte l'environnement, et le reproduit ensuite sur la surface du blindé. « Les soldats peuvent facilement changer de treillis mais on ne peut pas repeindre un véhicule selon l'endroit où il se trouve », justifie Sébastien Fagour, ingénieur chez Nexter Systems. Article complet: http://www.leparisien.fr/high-tech/comment-l-armee-se-prepare-aux-batailles-du-futur-23-11-2018-7951917.php

By: Burak Ege Bekdil ANKARA, Turkey — Two Turkish companies have consecutively reported significant progress toward building indigenous engines that would power locally made drones and armored vehicles. State-controlled company Tusas Engine Industries, or TEI, announced the completion of a program for the design, development and production of an indigenous engine that will power the Anka, a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone developed by TEI's sister company, Turkish Aerospace Industries, or TAI. TEI said it successfully integrated the PD170 engine to the Anka drone. The Anka, with the PD170, will go through flight tests later this year. TEI officials said the company already signed a serial production contract with TAI. The next step will be to win certification for the engine. TEI's general manager, Mahmut Akşit, said the PD170 program aims to end Turkey's dependency on foreign engine suppliers. “A further aspect of the program will be exporting the PD170 to foreign countries,” Akşit said. In 2012, TEI signed a contract with Turkey's procurement authority, then Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (now Presidency of Defense Industries), for the development of the PD170. TEI has a partnership agreement with U.S.-based General Electric. Turkish procurement authorities recently announced the selection of GE for the supply of engines to power the initial batch of the TF-X, Turkey's indigenous fighter jet in the making. The twin-engine TF-X will be powered by either the F110-GE-129 or the F110-GE-132 engine. Turkish officials say the GE engine would be a stopgap solution until “we have built our indigenous engine for the TF-X.” Under the deal, the first prototype of the TF-X and an unknown number of initial batches would be powered by an F110 engine. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2018/11/27/progress-on-drone-vehicle-engines-signals-turkeys-independence-from-foreign-suppliers

By: The Association Press NEW YORK — United Technologies is breaking itself into three independent companies now that it has sealed its $23 billion acquisition of aviation electronics maker Rockwell Collins. The company's announcement Monday was the latest by a sprawling industrial conglomerate deciding it will be more efficient and focused as smaller, separate entities. "Our decision to separate United Technologies is a pivotal moment in our history and will best position each independent company to drive sustained growth, lead its industry in innovation and customer focus, and maximize value creation," said United Technologies CEO Gregory Hayes. The three companies will be United Technologies, which will house its aerospace and defense industry supplier businesses; Otis, the maker of elevators, escalators and moving walkways; and the Carrier air conditioning and building systems business. The separation is expected to be completed in 2020, United Technologies said. On Friday, United Technologies said it received final regulatory approval for its deal for Rockwell Collins, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based maker of flight deck avionics, cabin electronics and cabin interiors. The newly minted combined aerospace business would have had sales of about $39 billion last year, United Technologies said. Hayes will stay on as CEO of the aerospace business. The company did not name leaders for the separated Otis and Carrier businesses. Founded in 1934, United Technologies is based in Farmington, Connecticut, and currently employs about 205,000 people. It did not say if any jobs would be lost in the breakup. The company got embroiled in politics in 2016 when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized plans to close a Carrier plant in Indianapolis and shift production to Mexico. Weeks after Trump won the election, Carrier announced an agreement brokered by the president-elect to spare about 800 jobs in Indianapolis, where the company has pledged to keep nearly 1,100 jobs. That's down from the approximately 1,600 factory, office and engineering jobs at the facility. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/11/27/united-technologies-is-breaking-into-3-independent-companies

Nikkei staff writers TOKYO -- Japan is preparing to order another 100 F-35 stealth fighter jets from the U.S. to replace some of its aging F-15s, according to sources. The plan can be considered a response to China's military buildup, as well as a nod to U.S. President Donald Trump's call for Tokyo to buy more American defense equipment. Japan already intended to procure 42 of the new fighters. A single F-35 costs more than 10 billion yen ($88.1 million), meaning the additional order would exceed 1 trillion yen. Japan's government plans to approve the purchase when it adopts new National Defense Program Guidelines at a cabinet meeting in mid-December. It will also include the F-35 order in its medium-term defense program, which covers fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2023. The government wants to obtain 42 F-35s as successors to its F-4s by fiscal 2024. The 42 fighters Japan originally planned to buy are all F-35As, a conventional takeoff and landing variant. The additional 100 planes would include both the F-35A and F-35B, which is capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings. At present, Japan deploys about 200 F-15s, roughly half of which cannot be upgraded. The Defense Ministry wants to replace the planes that cannot be upgraded with the 100 F-35s, while enhancing and retaining the remaining F-15s. To accommodate the F-35Bs, the government intends to revamp the Maritime Self-Defense Force's JS Izumo helicopter carrier to host the fighters. Japan's neighbors are busy introducing their own advanced military aircraft. China deployed its homegrown J-20 stealth fighter in February, and by 2030 some experts expect the country to build a fleet of more than 250 fifth-generation jets -- as the latest generation of fighters like the F-35 is known. Russia, too, is expected to introduce its fifth-generation Sukhoi Su-57 in 2019, at the earliest. To keep up, Tokyo believes it is imperative to significantly increase its procurement of the most sophisticated stealth jets. At the same time, Trump has repeatedly urged Japan to purchase more American hardware and reduce the trade imbalance between the countries. Buying more of the high-priced fighters is a quick way to do that. In September, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Trump, "Introducing high-performance equipment, including American [materiel], is important for our country to strengthen its defense capabilities." https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/Japan-to-order-100-more-F-35-fighters-from-US

By Levon Sevunts, Radio Canada International As the federal government embarks on a much delayed and criticized quest to find a replacement for its ageing fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighter jets, Norway's saga with the acquisition of F-35 stealth fighters offers Canada a valuable lesson. The search for a replacement for CF-18 got a new urgency Tuesday after a blistering report by Canada's auditor general, who lambasted the Liberal government's handling of the file that could have serious implications for Ottawa's ability to fulfill its NATO and NORAD obligations. Just like Ottawa, Oslo was one of the first NATO countries to show interest in the new stealth multirole fighters developed by U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin. In June 2009, the Norwegian Parliament decided that the F-35A Lightning II would replace its current fleet of F-16 fighter jets. Unlike Ottawa, despite strong internal opposition, Oslo saw things through. By 2025, Norway hopes to have a fleet of 52 F-35s.​ No-show at Trident Juncture demonstration Norwegian authorities were hoping to showcase their newest and most expensive defence acquisition in the country's history at a massive display of NATO's military might during the official launch of Trident Juncture 2018 exercise on Oct. 30. But much to the chagrin of dozens of journalists, NATO officials and dignitaries that had assembled on the shores of the Trondheim Fjord in central Norway to watch the display of land, sea and air power, the Norwegian F-35s never showed up. Lt.-Col. Stale Nymoen, commander of the 332 Squadron of the Royal Norwegian Air Force and one of the first Norwegian pilots to learn to fly the F-35s, said strong crosswinds at the Ørland Air Base forced officials to cancel the planned overflight. The cancellation of the overflight on an otherwise perfect autumn day had nothing to do with the jet's capabilities, Nymoen said. “Seen from my perspective, it's one of the best fighter aircraft out there,” Nymoen told a roomful of journalists during a briefing at the Ørland Air Base in central Norway earlier this month. But it has taken even experienced pilots like him years to learn to fly the new fighter jets and, just as importantly, unlearn old habits, Nymoen said. Learning to crawl before walking Norway received its first four F-35s in January of 2017. But all of them were stationed at the Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, Arizona, where Norwegian, U.S. and Italian pilots trained on the new aircraft. It wasn't until November of 2017 that the stealth fighter jets actually arrived for service in Norway, at the Ørland Air Base, which is going through a massive infrastructure upgrade to house the new planes. Operating and flying them in Norway with its harsh North Atlantic and Arctic climate is a whole new experience, Nymoen said. “What is different from Luke when we train to operate the aircraft here is temperatures, winter, icy and slippery runways, winds,” Nymoen said. “Those are conditions that we don't necessarily get to train for when we're training in the United States.” And the Norwegian air force is taking a very cautious approach to avoid any accidents, he said. “We have to learn to crawl before we can walk, and we have to learn to walk before we can run,” Nymoen said. The first squadron of F-35s is expected to reach initial operational capability in 2019 and full operational capability only in 2025, eight years after the aircraft were delivered to Norway. This timeline would also apply to Canada, if Lockheed Martin were to emerge as the winner of the competition to buy 98 advanced aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force announced by the Liberal government last December. The list of eligible suppliers identified by the federal government also includes France's Dassault Aviation, Sweden's SAAB, the U.K.'s Airbus Defense and Space, and the U.S. defence and aerospace giant Boeing. If the federal government manages to stick to its timetable, a contract award is anticipated in 2022 and the first replacement aircraft delivered in 2025. This means that the current fleet of Canadian CF-18s and the 18 additional second-hand Australian F-18s the federal government is buying as a stopgap measure will have to operate until at least 2030, experts say. http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2018/11/21/norway-f-35-fighter-jets-offers-lesson-for-canada

CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA — The Trudeau government pressed ahead with its plan to buy second-hand fighter jets from Australia on Tuesday despite withering fire from the federal auditor general, who warned that the military might not have anybody to fly them. Six years after blowing up the Harper government's plan to buy new F-35s without a competition, auditor general Michael Ferguson targeted the Liberals' own attempts to buy jets. He first picked apart the government's aborted plan to purchase “interim” Super Hornets to bolster Canada's aging CF-18 fleet, and then its current plan to buy used Australian fighters. The government says those extra fighters are needed to address a shortage of CF-18s until a state-of-the-art replacement can be purchased and delivered — a lengthy process that will run through 2032, at which point the CF-18s will be 50 years old. But the auditor general's office arrived at a very different conclusion: The military doesn't need more planes because it doesn't even have the pilots and mechanics to operate what it already has. What it really needs, the office found, is more people. “The shortage of personnel in relation to technicians means that they don't have enough technicians to prepare and maintain the planes,” Casey Thomas, the principal auditor on the fighter jets study, told reporters on Tuesday. “And they have 64 per cent of the pilots that they need, so they don't have enough pilots to fly the planes. What National Defence actually needed was to increase its personnel.” The auditor general's report also flagged concerns that the government's plan to sink $3 billion into the current CF-18s and additional Australian fighters to keep them flying to 2032 won't be enough, as the money won't actually improve the aircrafts' combat systems. Without more money, which some analysts have suggested could mean hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars more, Canada's fighter-jet fleet will become even more obsolete, to the point where the plans might not be any use at home or overseas. Yet only a few hours after the auditor general's report was released, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced that the Liberals had signed a contract to buy the 18 second-hand jets from Australia. Officials have pegged the cost at around $500 million. Sajjan also said he had directed officials to look at options for upgrading the combat systems on the CF-18s and Australian fighters, which he acknowledged would mean investing more money into aging fighter jets. Missing from the announcement: Any new funding or other initiative to increase recruiting and retention of pilots and technicians. Instead, Sajjan said the government and military have already introduced several initiatives through the Liberals' defence policy last year, such as giving tax breaks to military personnel deployed on overseas missions, to give them reasons to stay. At the same time, the minister sidestepped questions about recruitment, saying the military can't reduce its standards for new pilots. He noted that commercial airlines are also facing a significant pilot crunch. Air-force commanders have previously said the current training system, which can only produce 115 new pilots each year, a fraction of whom are fighter pilots, is not fast enough to replace all those who move on to commercial opportunities. The subtext to much of the auditor general's report on Tuesday was the question of how Canada ended up in a position where the military will be flying fighter jets until they are 50 years old. The Liberals were urged early in their tenure to launch an immediate competition to replace the CF-18s. Instead they spent two years working to buy those stopgap Super Hornets before a trade dispute with the company that makes them, Boeing, saw the government move on to the used Australian jets. The Trudeau government insists that it was doing its due diligence, but critics — including numerous retired air force and defence officials — have accused it of trying to bend procurement rules to avoid buying the F-35. Yet even before the Liberals took the reins, the Harper government was having a hard time making any progress on buying new fighter jets. The Tories championed the F-35 before resetting the entire process in 2012. That move was prompted by Ferguson's first report, which accused defence officials of misleading parliamentarians about the stealth fighter's costs and various technical issues. National Defence later pegged the full lifetime cost of the fighters at $46 billion. “Lot of people had a hand in this,” said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, adding that the worst part is there is no easy or obvious solution to what has become a very troubling situation for Canada and its military. “I think our fighter force is in trouble.” https://lfpress.com/news/national/liberals-press-ahead-with-second-hand-jets-amid-questions-over-who-will-fly-them/wcm/859a3329-9d8b-4856-af7f-5c8064e778e7

By Beth Reinhard ,Tom Hamburger and Emma Brown The powerful U.S. defense industry is facing a rare challenge to its influence on Capitol Hill as support for arms sales to Saudi Arabia has rapidly eroded following the killing last month of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi government operatives. The defense industry's typically aggressive lobby has gone quiet as gruesome details of Khashoggi's death have leaked and American intelligence officials have laid blame at the feet of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Even as President Trump has reiterated his support for continued sales of U.S. weapons to the kingdom, congressional opposition to those sales and to U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen has mounted in recent weeks — testing the power of an industry that has sold tens of billions of dollars' worth of weapons systems to the kingdom since the 1950s. Growing bipartisan support for Senate legislation to cut off the arms sales marks a historic disruption in a seemingly inviolable arms-for-oil trade relationship that stretches back decades and is an unusual setback for one of the most influential lobbies in Washington. In the coming weeks, key senators are expected to push for a vote on a measure that would impose sanctions on Saudi officials responsible for Khashoggi's death and suspend many weapons sales to Saudi Arabia until it ceases airstrikes in Yemen that have killed tens of thousands of civilians. The bill represents one of the first major breaks between congressional Republicans and the White House, which has embraced Saudi Arabia as a key Middle Eastern ally — a strategy driven by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, who forged a strong personal relationship with the crown prince. Full article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/killing-of-khashoggi-tests-us-defense-industry-as-backlash-builds-on-capitol-hill/2018/11/21/15a1df52-dc7d-11e8-aa33-53bad9a881e8_story.html

Une entreprise québécoise repousse les limites de la technologie canadienne en robotique. SHERBROOKE, QC, le 22 nov. 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - Les nouvelles technologies comme l'intelligence artificielle (IA) transforment tous les secteurs de l'économie canadienne, y compris le secteur spatial. Le Canada met à profit son leadership dans les domaines de l'IA et de l'espace pour stimuler l'innovation dans celui de l'exploration spatiale. L'Agence spatiale canadienne explore actuellement des façons de doter d'IA les futurs robots spatiaux. Au cours des prochaines missions dans l'espace lointain, ces robots devront absolument être capables d'un certain degré d'autonomie. Comme ils se trouveront à des distances de plus en plus grandes, il leur faudra fonctionner sans intervention humaine et faire appel à l'IA pour prendre des décisions. L'Agence collabore avec MDA (en anglais), une filiale de Maxar Technologies, et des experts de Menya Solutions (en anglais), une petite entreprise de Sherbrooke, au Québec, à la conception des robots spatiaux autonomes de prochaine génération. MDA a construit le premier Canadarm, le Canadarm2 et Dextre, et a commencé à se pencher sur les robots intelligents de l'avenir en voyant à ce que le Canadarm2 et Dextre puissent effectuer certaines t'ches en autonomie. Ce travail précurseur permettra au Canada de demeurer concurrentiel dans le domaine de la robotique spatiale lorsque se présenteront les prochaines opportunités. Des pays du monde entier en sont à la planification de ce qui succédera à la Station spatiale internationale (SSI) : une station spatiale en orbite autour de la Lune (Gateway) qui servira de tremplin pour l'exploration de l'espace lointain. Contrairement à la SSI, habitée sans interruption depuis près de 20 ans, cette future station spatiale lunaire dépendra des robots autonomes intelligents. Non seulement ceux-ci l'assembleront et en assureront la maintenance, mais ils attraperont aussi les vaisseaux spatiaux qui y auront été envoyés et aideront à réaliser des expériences scientifiques pour le compte de chercheurs sur Terre. Citation « L'intelligence artificielle transforme toutes les industries et tous les secteurs, ouvrant les possibilités pour les Canadiens. Il est réjouissant de voir la façon dont la collaboration entre le secteur spatial canadien et nos chercheurs de calibre mondial dans le domaine de l'intelligence artificielle aide déjà de petites entreprises à croître, à innover et exporter leur savoir-faire. Cette collaboration mène à la création d'emplois hautement spécialisés qui jouent un rôle essentiel dans l'essor de l'économie numérique du Canada. » L'honorable Navdeep Bains, ministre de l'Innovation, des Sciences et du Développement économique « Les robots spatiaux dotés d'intelligence artificielle élargiront la portée de l'exploration spatiale habitée et aideront le Canada à se maintenir à l'avant-plan dans ce domaine technologique crucial. Les robots canadiens ont construit la Station spatiale internationale et sont utilisés à 400 km d'altitude. Quant aux robots de la station spatiale lunaire, à 400 000 km de distance, ils auront besoin d'intelligence artificielle pour fonctionner avec une certaine autonomie pendant de longues périodes. MDA est fière de collaborer avec Menya Solutions pour mettre au point et utiliser ces technologies essentielles. » Mike Greenley, président du groupe MDA « Menya Solutions est heureuse et fière de travailler avec l'Agence spatiale canadienne et MDA sur les robots autonomes intelligents de prochaine génération. Cette collaboration avec ces chefs de file mondiaux des domaines de l'espace et de la robotique créera pour notre entreprise des opportunités dans d'autres secteurs et contribuera à sa croissance. Elle s'inscrit aussi très bien dans nos efforts constants visant à aider diverses organisations à faire appel à des solutions qui aident les humains et les machines à prendre des décisions, à améliorer les conditions de vie et de travail, et à nous permettre d'économiser de l'argent, de gagner du temps et de sauver des vies. » Froduald Kabanza, PDG, Menya Solutions En bref D'ici 2020, le Canadarm2 pourra effectuer certaines t'ches sans intervention humaine, comme se déplacer autour de la Station spatiale internationale pour l'examiner et déceler tout problème. Le Canadarm2 et Dextre pourraient un jour être en mesure de s'occuper des charges utiles et de faire seuls des réparations. L'Agence spatiale canadienne et MDA développeraient aussi le savoir-faire pour qu'il soit possible d'attraper de manière autonome les vaisseaux-cargos acheminés à la Station. Selon les prévisions de PricewaterhouseCoopers, la contribution de l'intelligence artificielle à l'économie mondiale devrait s'élever jusqu'à 15,7 billions de dollars américains d'ici 2030. Le secteur spatial contribue pour 5,5 milliards de dollars et 10 000 emplois à l'économie canadienne chaque année. Quelque 92 % des entreprises du secteur spatial canadien sont des PME. Plus de 500 organisations canadiennes ont été des intervenants de la chaine d'approvisionnement liée à la construction et à la maintenance des robots canadiens à la Station spatiale internationale, des ateliers jusqu'aux entreprises de développement logiciel. Suivez-nous dans les médias sociaux! Site Web : http://asc-csa.gc.ca SOURCE Agence spatiale canadienne https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/le-leadership-du-canada-dans-le-domaine-de-lintelligence-artificielle-setend-au-secteur-spatial-701072611.html