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Ambitious Turkey Seeking To Sync National Air and Space Firepower
By Burak Ege Bekdil | Jul. 1, 2013
Ambitious Turkey Seeking To Sync National Air and Space Firepower | SpaceNews.com
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey aims to maximize its aerial firepower through several simultaneous programs, mostly indigenous, that better synchronize air and space assets.
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Turkey-Ukraine to cooperate in aviation, space technologies
Leonid Kozhara (Photo: Today's Zaman, Mevlüt Karabulut)
30 June 2013 /AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ANKARA
The bilateral relations between Turkey and Ukraine may be expected to develop by leaps and bounds in the following years, as the two countries are set to boost their cooperation in defense, energy, space technologies and transportation.
Energy may also become an area of close cooperation. Ukraine offers support to the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) project, which is designed to carry Azerbaijani natural gas to European markets via Turkey. “We are also going to cooperate with the Turkish government in TANAP,” said Kozhara, underlining the country's willingness to be part of TANAP. Ukraine, which has Europe's biggest natural gas storage facilities, has made considerable progress in reducing consumption of imported energy.
Having two of the world's biggest solar power stations, Ukraine has been developing solar technology for some time. In fact, the world's biggest solar power station is situated in Crimea in Ukraine. The minister believes solar power may be yet another area of cooperation. “I've informed Davutoğlu on our recent very successful projects,” he said.
Transportation around and over the Black Sea is still another area on which the two countries are set to cooperate. “There is a strong mutual interest to develop transportation corridors running from the north to the south, connecting the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, Foreign Minister Kozhara remarked, noting that Ukraine has launched some very successful transportation projects with Baltic countries.
The transportation project is not only about water routes but also about container transportation, railway routes, ferry lines and air routes. “We have full support from the Turkish side,” Kozhara said. The transportation corridor may also extend down to Egypt and North Africa and countries in the South Caucasus. The minister, who was recently in Georgia, affirmed that Georgia is also willing to take part in the project.
A ring-road around the Black Sea is another project to which both countries give support. It is projected to be a project in which not only highways but also railroads and other means of transportation will be used, thanks to which Black Sea littoral states and other nearby countries will be strongly connected to one another.
Ukraine, which will soon sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union, is also conducting similar negotiations with Turkey. An FTA between the two countries is expected to further boost bilateral trade. In the medium term, Ukraine and Turkey aim to increase bilateral trade volume, which was a little over $6 billion last year, to $20 billion.
One of the issues that bind Turkey and Ukraine is their cooperation in the resettlement of the Crimean Tatars, who were forced to migrate from Crimea to other Soviet republics during the Stalin era. As Hasan Kanbolat, head of the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), previously noted in his column in Today's Zaman, Crimean Tatars have never been a source of tension between the two countries; rather, they have served as a bridge of friendship and cooperation.
Kozhara appreciates Turkey's assistance in issues related to Crimean Tatars, with whom Turkey has close social and cultural links, and Turkey's interest in the development of the region where a considerable Tatar population live in Ukraine. “Ukraine and Turkey are very interested in developing regional projects in which Crimea may also be involved,” informed the minister, adding that Odessa may also be included in regional cooperation projects.
By Burak Ege Bekdil | Jul. 1, 2013
Ambitious Turkey Seeking To Sync National Air and Space Firepower | SpaceNews.com
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey aims to maximize its aerial firepower through several simultaneous programs, mostly indigenous, that better synchronize air and space assets.
- 1 The most ambitious program is locally designing, developing and building, with foreign technical support, the country’s first “national” fighter jet, dubbed the F-X.
Turkey’s procurement authorities recently decided to employ Sweden’s Saab, maker of the JAS 39 Gripen, to help shape their plans to manufacture the F-X. Turkish engineers, with help from Saab, have drafted three models that will be presented to top management at the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) procurement agency and the air force in September.
According to a draft plan, Turkey aims for its national fighter jet to make its maiden flight in 2023, the Turkish Republic’s centennial. Production will commence in 2021 and deliveries to the Air Force are planned between 2025 and 2035.
Turkey, whose fighter fleet is composed of U.S.-made aircraft, plans to buy the F-35 joint strike fighter.
“The F-35 will be the principal air power asset, with the Turkish fighter complementing it,” one procurement official said.
In January, SSM announced that it put off plans to order an initial two F-35s, citing rising costs and technological failures, although it said it still intends to buy 100 more in the long run. Turkey is one of nine countries that are part of the U.S.-led F-35 consortium.
- 2 Turkey’s plans heavily rely on several unmanned aerial vehicle variants that Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has been striving to develop. TAI will soon finalize a contract with SSM for the sale of 10 locally made Anka drone systems. The last of these passed acceptance tests in January, including a full endurance, 18-hour flight, successful automatic landing and data link performance at a distance of 200 kilometers.
Anka is the first medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle to be produced by TAI.
- 3 A more ambitious program involves development of an unmanned combat aerial vehicle, which would have longer range and function as a strategic bomber. TAI officials declined to provide details, citing confidentiality.
- 4 A Turkish air force official said these aircraft programs would be synchronized with numerous planned satellite programs.
“We aim to achieve an excellent interoperability between our aerial and space assets,” the official said.
- 5 One highly ambitious program aims to build a missile with a maximum range of 2,500 kilometers. In 2011, the Turkish government announced plans to develop that missile, not revealing whether it would be ballistic or cruise.
Although little information about the program has been released, a Turkish Cabinet minister in January confirmed that Turkey can produce a missile with a range of 800 kilometers.
State scientific institute Tubitak-Sage has been awarded the development contract and said it intends to test a prototype in the next two years. But while Turkish officials have indicated a desire for an independent capability to launch satellites, the military aspects of the missile program have not been released.
- 6 Earlier this year, the Air Force devised a national roadmap that will eventually lead to the launching of Turkish space command within its structure, a move that may be a boon for space-related procurement in the country. The space command will become fully operational by 2023.
As a first step, the air force is founding a space group command, or a de facto “aerospace force” unit that will comprise reconnaissance, early warning, electronic support, satellite command and satellite launching center departments.
Air force officials said the work and procurement under the roadmap would enable the service to perform reconnaissance and observation through imagery intelligence regardless of weather and geographical conditions; build a communications system for secure command and control; provide early detection of ballistic missile threats; and conduct electronic support for operational and warfare purposes.
The system will enable the air force to monitor Turkish and non-Turkish satellite activity and upgrade Turkish satellite programs.
- 7 Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz said Jan. 3 that the government would start negotiations with state-run missile maker Roketsan for the early design phase of a new launch system “to ensure that military and civilian satellites can be sent into space.”
Also in January, Turkey’s top decision-maker in procurement, the Defense Industry Executive Committee, approved starting talks with TAI for domestic development of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft dubbed Gokturk-3, with support from defense electronics manufacturer Aselsan and Tubitak.
With a space segment composed of a single satellite equipped with a SAR payload, a fixed main ground terminal and mobile backup station, Gokturk-3 will provide high-resolution radar images from anywhere in the world in day/night, all-weather conditions, according to Defense Ministry requirements.
The Turkish military’s space-based assets are geared more toward intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
Placed in orbit late in December was Gokturk-2, an Earth observation satellite designed and built by Tubitak’s space technologies research unit, Tubitak-Uzay, in cooperation with TAI.
Gokturk-2, launched Dec. 18 from China, encompasses 80 percent indigenously developed technology and 100 percent domestically developed software. It provides day imagery of 2.5 meters’ resolution. It is Turkey’s second national satellite.
The intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data gathered by national assets, including Gokturk-2 and an unknown number of operational and planned unmanned aerial vehicles, will be integrated into Turkey’s command and control network.
Turkey plans to launch the next satellite in the series, Gokturk-1, in the next few years. Gokturk-1, under construction through a deal with Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space, is a larger and more powerful optical imaging spacecraft capable of sub-meter resolution. Under the government roadmap, Turkey plans to send 16 satellites into orbit by 2020.
A space industry expert based here said the next five years’ satellite contracts could amount to $2 billion.
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Turkey-Ukraine to cooperate in aviation, space technologies
Leonid Kozhara (Photo: Today's Zaman, Mevlüt Karabulut)
30 June 2013 /AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ANKARA
The bilateral relations between Turkey and Ukraine may be expected to develop by leaps and bounds in the following years, as the two countries are set to boost their cooperation in defense, energy, space technologies and transportation.
- Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) and Ukraine's state-owned aircraft company Antonov are planning, in a joint venture, to develop medium-range aircraft for civilian and military purposes. “We have a developing cooperation between Antonov and TAI,” Leonid Kozhara, the Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs, told Today's Zaman in an exclusive interview. As part of the cooperation in the aerospace industry, the two countries are also considering the joint production of space launch vehicles.
Kozhara, who was in Ankara on Friday to attend, accompanied by his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoğlu, a subcommittee meeting of the high-level strategic cooperation council between the two countries, emphasized the strategic character of the bilateral relations. A broad range of issues has been taken up in the meeting in preparation for the third of the strategic cooperation council meetings between Ukraine and Turkey, which is to take place in the second half of the year.
[*] Cooperation in ground combat vehicles is also on the agenda. The two countries are talking on possible cooperation in the construction of combat vehicles and there is a developing project to jointly build engines for combat vehicles, including tanks. “That's only the beginning of a project, but we [Ukraine and Turkey] both feel strong interest in that,” Kozhara affirmed. All these issues will be elaborated on in the next strategic council meeting.
Energy may also become an area of close cooperation. Ukraine offers support to the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) project, which is designed to carry Azerbaijani natural gas to European markets via Turkey. “We are also going to cooperate with the Turkish government in TANAP,” said Kozhara, underlining the country's willingness to be part of TANAP. Ukraine, which has Europe's biggest natural gas storage facilities, has made considerable progress in reducing consumption of imported energy.
Having two of the world's biggest solar power stations, Ukraine has been developing solar technology for some time. In fact, the world's biggest solar power station is situated in Crimea in Ukraine. The minister believes solar power may be yet another area of cooperation. “I've informed Davutoğlu on our recent very successful projects,” he said.
Transportation around and over the Black Sea is still another area on which the two countries are set to cooperate. “There is a strong mutual interest to develop transportation corridors running from the north to the south, connecting the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, Foreign Minister Kozhara remarked, noting that Ukraine has launched some very successful transportation projects with Baltic countries.
The transportation project is not only about water routes but also about container transportation, railway routes, ferry lines and air routes. “We have full support from the Turkish side,” Kozhara said. The transportation corridor may also extend down to Egypt and North Africa and countries in the South Caucasus. The minister, who was recently in Georgia, affirmed that Georgia is also willing to take part in the project.
A ring-road around the Black Sea is another project to which both countries give support. It is projected to be a project in which not only highways but also railroads and other means of transportation will be used, thanks to which Black Sea littoral states and other nearby countries will be strongly connected to one another.
Ukraine, which will soon sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union, is also conducting similar negotiations with Turkey. An FTA between the two countries is expected to further boost bilateral trade. In the medium term, Ukraine and Turkey aim to increase bilateral trade volume, which was a little over $6 billion last year, to $20 billion.
One of the issues that bind Turkey and Ukraine is their cooperation in the resettlement of the Crimean Tatars, who were forced to migrate from Crimea to other Soviet republics during the Stalin era. As Hasan Kanbolat, head of the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), previously noted in his column in Today's Zaman, Crimean Tatars have never been a source of tension between the two countries; rather, they have served as a bridge of friendship and cooperation.
Kozhara appreciates Turkey's assistance in issues related to Crimean Tatars, with whom Turkey has close social and cultural links, and Turkey's interest in the development of the region where a considerable Tatar population live in Ukraine. “Ukraine and Turkey are very interested in developing regional projects in which Crimea may also be involved,” informed the minister, adding that Odessa may also be included in regional cooperation projects.
