CYBERSPACE PROGRESS: At the House Armed Services intelligence and emerging threats subcommittee markup of the 2014 defense policy bill last week, Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) praised the military’s progress in protecting the U.S.
The Pentagon’s latest cost report on the stealthy F-35 shows no change in the high price of estimated flying hour usage or total lifetime sustainment, two areas of great interest to operators in the U.S. and abroad.
Spy movies and drone imagery may give people the idea that the problem of night vision has been definitively solved, but in fact the past few years have seen a vigorous three-way technology conflict at the lower end of the market, where users need portable and wearable sensors and want to fit very small unmanned vehicles—and large fleets of trucks—with night-vision devices.
Commo. Stephen Braham Head of Global Ship Integrated Export Team, U.K. Trade & Investment, Defense & Security Organization Education: Engineering degrees (bachelor's and master's) from Royal Naval Engineering College, Royal Naval Staff College.
Recent technology advancements and risk reduction in the U.S Navy's proposed air and missile defense radar (AMDR) are slashing cost estimates by nearly two-thirds and making it more likely that the sensor suite will survive budget cuts. The technological strides and price cuts put the program on course to deliver a sensor suite relatively soon that not only protects ships against immediate and future missile threats, but helps vessels provide better ballistic missile defense (BMD) for allies.
A breakthrough thermal insulator could significantly reduce the heat generated by radio-frequency (RF) systems, increasing power and range. The achievement was announced by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) as part of its Near Junction Thermal Transport program. RF systems such as radar and communication devices use power amplifiers called monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC). These have gallium nitride (GaN) transistors to enhance RF performance.
Explosions do not disturb residents of Draguignan, the “artillery capital of France.” But a visitor to this southeastern city is surprised that the sound of an 18-ton Caesar self-propelled howitzer travels 20 km (12 mi.) from Camp de Canjuers, the biggest proving ground in Western Europe.
Scraping coatings off aircraft by hand will soon be a thing of the past at Hill AFB, Utah, which is deploying robots for this task in 2014. Concurrent Technologies Corp. of Johnstown, Pa., and Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics and Engineering Center in Pittsburgh developed six coating-removal robots under contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and Ogden Air Logistics Center. The robots use 6-kw fiber lasers for coating removal.
Shooting down unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is of less concern than countering their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. This is the idea behind a program at Georgia Tech Research Institute, which develops integrated hardware devices that simulate sensors on enemy UAVs. The Threat Unmanned Devices Program, funded by the U.S. Army Threat Systems Management Office, assesses UAV countermeasures. The hardware simulates electro-optical infrared sensors, and systems for signals-intelligence intercepts and weapons jamming.
Unmanned platforms have many advantages and one major impediment: interoperability. It's difficult for personnel in one service to control robot systems fielded by another, owing to the use of proprietary operational software. This may change. The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) has developed the Common Control System (CCS), which uses software that reportedly allows any unmanned system to communicate and work with any other system in the military.
Israel Shipyards is expanding the Saar class of missile boats used by the country's navy and also sold to foreign customers. The company is making the ship a “mini-corvette,” with longer range—beyond 3,000 nm—and sophisticated defensive capabilities. The move addresses the need for Israel and other nations to project power well beyond their territorial waters.
The complexity of software still to be integrated, and the potential impact of sequestration cuts on development, are calling into question whether the full combat capability will be ready when the Lockheed Martin F-35 formally enters service with the U.S. Air Force and Navy.
U.S. Air Force officials are preparing by year-end to begin flight-testing a communications gateway technology designed to enable stealthy aircraft to communicate with legacy fighters despite the disparate protocols tailored to their covert missions. The goal is to network combat air forces so pilots of the F-22—and, in the future, the F-35—can share data with those flying older aircraft such as the F-15 and F-16, says Lt. Col. Scott Hamilton, chief of the tactical data-links program branch at the service's Air Combat Command (ACC).
Through more than 11 years of war in Afghanistan, airdropping of supplies has become a key part of the U.S. strategy for supporting forces that are geographically dispersed over difficult and dangerous terrain. But as this conflict winds down, and the Pentagon turns to future operations, what is the role for a resupply method that requires the aircraft to overfly its target?
The French air force is responding to operational needs of special forces fighting Islamist rebels in Mali, speeding integration of a new laser-guided air-to-ground missile on the Rafale fighter and declaring initial operating capability for its use against moving targets.
With air threats to ground forces expanding beyond traditional manned aircraft and ballistic missiles, the U.S Army must decide how to counter lower-cost unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles, as well as rocket, artillery and mortar (RAM) threats at an affordable price.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) plans for a High-Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW) demonstration program to follow on from hypersonic flights of the Boeing X-51A WaveRider scramjet demonstrator are in flux. A notice issued on May 21 announced that a planned solicitation for the HSSW demo program had been canceled. AFRL held an industry day for potential bidders in June 2012, at which time the program was expected to begin this year.
Lockheed Martin has begun to equip and test the Aegis Ashore development facility in Moorestown, N.J., company officials say. The company has built a ship deckhouse near the so-called “Cruiser in the Cornfields” ship superstructure facility, to test vessel-installed Aegis equipment systems to run Aegis Ashore components through their paces before global operational installation. Use of Aegis Ashore is part of theU.S.’s strategy for ballistic missile defense (BMD).
Much of the focus lately on shifting U.S. resources to the Asia-Pacific has been on how Chinese ballistic anti-ship missiles may affect U.S. Navy aircraft carrier plans for the region. But there also continues to be rising concern about what effect the growing Chinese submarine fleet could have on naval operations in those waters. Navy officials say they own the undersea domain. But a recent Pentagon report on the Chinese submarine fleet underscores the growing might those ships represent for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy.
