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.
The U.S. Air Force and launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) have once again scrubbed the launch of the fifth Wideband Global Satcom (WGS-5) spacecraft, this time due to an issue with a helium pressurization line that is part of the Delta IV rocket’s ground support equipment. Launch from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., which had been targeted for a 30-min. window opening at 8:27 p.m. EDT May 23, has now been pushed back 24 hr. to the same window on May 24. Weather forecasts predict an 80% chance of favorable conditions for liftoff, according to ULA.
Buoyed by greater-than-anticipated activity in the single-utility turboprop market, Honeywell is supporting a range of additional applications for its TPE331 family, as well as studying potential new engine developments to compete with Pratt & Whitney Canada’s ubiquitous PT6 and its planned successor.
BEIJING — EADS is offering to invest $2 billion in South Korea’s KF-X fighter program if the country buys the Eurofighter Typhoon, local media report. The EADS offer also includes an aircraft maintenance facility and an aerospace software center, says Yonhap news agency, citing the European company and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) of the defense ministry.
House Armed Services seapower subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and ranking Democrat Mike McIntyre (N.C.) remain concerned that the U.S. Navy’s long-term shipbuilding plan is unaffordable unless the shipbuilding budget is increased by several billion dollars a year in the near future.
With House lawmakers marking up the fiscal 2014 U.S. defense authorization this week, the congressional challenge to the U.S. Air Force plan to kill the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) begins its second year.
NEW DELHI — India’s long-delayed effort to acquire 197 light reconnaissance and surveillance helicopters for its army and air force is spiraling toward what might be the program’s second cancellation.
Officials at NASA on May 23 denied an account in the pending fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill that it disclosed the transfer of missile-defense technology to China, leaving a mystery clouded by the secrecy classification of part of the legislation. “NASA has no record of a voluntary disclosure being filed with the Department of State regarding the alleged transfer of controlled U.S. Missile Defense Agency defense technology to the People’s Republic of China,” an agency spokesman said after a day-long review of the matter at NASA headquarters.
The FAA is advising air carriers transporting “heavy vehicle special cargo loads” to review policy and guidance on weight and balance-control procedures due to the “potential safety impact” of carrying and restraining the equipment. The timing of the "Safety Alert for Operators," published on May 20, suggests that it may be related to the fatal crash of a National Airlines Boeing 747-400 freighter departing from Bagram AB in Afghanistan on April 29, though the FAA did not specify this.
NEW DELHI — India successfully test-fired the vertical-launch version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile off the coast of its western state of Goa on May 22. The BrahMos was launched from the Indian navy’s latest Russian-built guided missile warship, INS Tarkash, BrahMos Aerospace chief Sivathanu Pillai says. The missile hit its target, Pillai says. “Today’s vertical launch configuration of BraMos will help improve the stealth abilities of the ship as the missiles are under the deck and not exposed,” Pillai says.
