Incidents of maritime piracy reached an all-time high since the start of the European Union's anti-piracy naval mission more than three years ago, according to the annual report by the EU on Operation Atalanta. There were 176 pirate incidents during 2011, up from 174 in 2010 and 163 in 2009. The total number of pirated ships dropped to 25 from 47 the previous year. But even those figures may be low, according to Ecoterra International, an independent organization that tracks Somali-area piracy.
One person's junk is another person's treasure—or at least that appears to be the premise behind a new effort, appropriately called Phoenix, sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). The basic idea is to harvest parts from decommissioned satellites to build new spacecraft on the cheap. Darpa wants to take advantage of leftover equipment from more than 1,000 satellites that have been launched in geostationary Earth orbit over the past 50 years, many of which are retired but still have salvageable hardware.
Military forces have faced the potential of crippling radiation exposure for decades, first during the Cold War and recently with “dirty bombs” emerging as a potential terrorist weapon. Antidotes for radiation sickness exist, but work is ongoing to develop more effective treatments that increase survival rates. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) last month announced encouraging findings from work in this area, some of which resulted from the Radiation Biodosimetry (Rabid) program that concluded last year.
Israeli air force air and missile defenses are to be combined and reorganized to better protect the entire nation. Under this doctrine, defense of Israel's skies will combine all forces designated to intercept enemy aircraft with all the assets allocated to intercept missiles, regardless of range. The multilayered, active defense will be run by a centralized interception-management center, which will also provide the common air picture that enables aircraft and interceptor missiles to safely coexist.
Concerns over China's claims to the South China Sea are sparking an arms race among its Southeast Asian neighbors, some of which have maritime patrol, airborne early warning and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft high on their priority lists. China has laid claim to most of the South China Sea, a body of water that includes vital sea lanes and under which lie rich deposits of oil and gas.
A new hyperspectral sensor that could be used to detect drug labs or bomb-making facilities is set to deploy in early 2012 onboard the MQ-1 Predator, according to the U.S. Air Force. The Airborne Cueing and Exploitation System Hyperspectral (ACES HY) sensor works by collecting light reflected off objects on the ground from across the electromagnetic spectrum, which can help identify objects not visible to the human eye. By looking for specific spectral “fingerprints,” hyperspectral sensors can identify the composition of materials and even see through camouflage.
Reviewed by Michael Fabey American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History By Chris Kyle William Morrow; January 2012 400 pp., $27 With a title like American Sniper, the Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, a sense of bravado is inescapable.
“Fitted for but not with” is not a popular phrase with sailors. The idea of building a warship with only space and power reserves for important systems is attractive to budget managers, but it can leave navies facing sudden wars with weak and vulnerable ships. Yet when such ships' reserves are put to good use, the result can be a remarkable transformation. Australia's eight Anzac-class frigates are becoming a model example of that, as Canberra moves ahead with the next stage of their upgrade program.
At one level, the end of 2011 brought good news for Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter program, which for the first time was performing test flights and delivering aircraft on schedule—albeit a new schedule that was announced at the beginning of the year. Japan also selected the JSF as its next fighter aircraft, planning a long-term program of co-production and changing its policies to allow Japanese-made parts to be exported.
Two stories that broke in the last few weeks of 2011 flag what is likely to become an ever-more dominant concern for militaries and defense contractors in the years ahead: the security, or vulnerability, of mobile communications. The two developments underline the challenges that have yet to be overcome as the defense establishment seeks to reap the technological and economic advantages of using cheap, proven, off-the-shelf communications technology. The first item did not, at first, appear to have much to do with defense.
Countries are addressing budget shortfalls by slashing defense expenditures, the U.K. among them. Cutbacks will not affect all programs —sectors vital to countering evolving threats or achieving battlespace dominance will continue to receive funding, such as unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The Defense Ministry in late December awarded a four-year, £40 million ($62 million) research contract to BAE Systems for the Future Combat Air System. The results will “sustain and develop . . .
Over in China and Russia I'm sure that engineers at both Chengdu and Sukhoi will be raising their glasses in the New Year to the F-22 and the F-35 as doing more damage to the U.S. fighter world than all their fighter aircraft combined! —RSF in a comment about the F-35 on the Ares blog. Phabulous! I said it last time, but an F-4F-ICE full of Amraams and IRIS-Ts getting herded around by savvy Luftwaffe crew is very much a modern phormidable threat. —Frink-L in a comment about Phantoms
Portable radar that sees through walls is a growing area of development. A recent entrant is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, which developed an ultra-wideband (UWB), multiple input/multiple output phased-array sensor with real-time acquisition and processing capabilities and video-like synthetic aperture radar imaging. The device is 8.5 ft. wide and 2 ft. high. When mounted on a mobile platform, it is 5 ft. tall. Importantly, the radar reduces through-wall data collection time to less than 100 millisec., an extremely fast rate.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Air Force-run tests in New Mexico for the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee were flawed, according to LightSquared. (GPS IIF image: Boeing)
After the disappointment of the re-opening of the UAE fighter competition when Dassault Rafale was dropped from the first choice, the French manufacturer is today celebrating its selection by the Indian government.
AIR FORCE Raytheon Co., Missile Systems, Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $17,424,398 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide test integration of software to enhance the system performance of the AIM 120D missile. The location of the performance is Tucson. The work is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2013. AAC/EBAK, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA8675-090C-0201 P00013).
LONDON — The Australian government is assessing how U.S. plans to reduce near-term F-35 purchases and mothball the C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft may impact its own procurement plans. Following last week’s Pentagon announcement that the pace of F-35 purchases was under scrutiny, Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith says, “We will now give consideration to whether the timetable for the purchase of those 12 Joint Strike Fighters should occur on the same timetable.”
The U.S. Navy’s only major satellite program, which is designed to provide unprecedented Ultra-High Frequency satellite communications to military personnel around the globe, has so far slipped through the round of fiscal 2013 budget cuts unscathed despite some development shortcomings. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced Jan 26 that he was terminating the Air Force’s Defense Weather Satellite System because it was “premature to need.”
The U.S. Navy has already altered its Freedom Class Littoral Combat Ship, LCS-1, to address problems uncovered in testing, but the ship still needs to be fundamentally redesigned, say leading defense analysts. They base their conclusions on briefings from the Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) revealing findings of Navy and industry reports detailing the vessel’s hull and deckhouse cracking and engine problems. AWIN was given exclusive access to the documents.
LONDON — The Hungarian government has extended its lease of Gripen fighters until at least 2026. The move comes as the Czech Republic, another Gripen user, considers its course of action, with air force officials suggesting they, too, would like to remain committed to Saab’s single-engine fighter. Prague is due to make a decision this year on how to sustain its fighter capacity after 2015.
