US military news, discussions and history

[F-22Raptor]

Next Generation Jammer Prototype Powers Through Critical Test

MCKINNEY, Texas — In collaboration with the U.S. Navy, Raytheon Co. recently completed Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) testing for its Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) array prototypes at the Benefield Anechoic Facility at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

“Raytheon and the Navy developed a realistic testing program designed to ensure that the NGJ electronic warfare system meets its 2021 initial operating capability commitment,” said Travis Slocumb, vice president of Electronic Warfare Systems at Raytheon’s Space and Airborne Systems business. “Completion of EIRP testing, while an early milestone, confirms our progress to date and that the program is successfully executing to both schedule and plan.”

The prototype testing, conducted over a six-week period, indicated that the NGJ will fulfill the U.S. Navy’s stringent requirements for EIRP, a prime indicator of the system’s range and capacity for reaching and affecting multiple targets simultaneously.

The NGJ is built on a combination of high-powered, agile, beam-jamming techniques and cutting-edge solid-state electronics to achieve two goals: meet the U.S. Navy’s electronic warfare mission requirements and provide a cost-effective open systems architecture for future upgrades. It is scheduled to replace legacy ALQ-99 tactical jamming pods, delivering new capabilities for the Navy’s EA-18G Growler.

SEAPOWER Magazine Online

 

[F-22Raptor]

SEWIP Block 3 Completes Preliminary Design Review

WASHINGTON — Block 3 of the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Program on Aug. 25 successfully completed the preliminary design review (PDR) for the next-generation AN/SLQ-32 shipboard electronic warfare system, Naval Sea Systems Command announced in a Sept. 4 release.

Completed on schedule in conjunction with prime contractor Northrop Grumman, the review assessed the state of the system architecture and preliminary design. The PDR is a major program milestone, validating technology maturity and technical development plans.

“This ensures that the cutting-edge preliminary design is on track to meet necessary technology improvements to the AN/SLQ-32 family of electronic warfare systems through specific enhancements to threat identification, prioritization, defensive systems optimal assignment, and active engagement,” said RDML Jon A. Hill, program executive officer, Integrated Warfare Systems.

This system represents the Navy’s investment of nearly a decade in advanced electronic warfare through the Office of Naval Research Integrated Topside prototype program. By specifically augmenting and upgrading the current AN/SLQ-32(V)6, the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 it will deliver improved, fully integrated, threat detection and active radar-jamming capability, coupled with critical enhancements in coordinated electronic warfare defense. Critical Design Review is scheduled for 2016, and initial fielding is slated for 2019.

“This was a huge accomplishment for our SEWIP team,” said CAPT Seiko Okano, SEWIP program manager. “It is apparent that proliferation of advanced technology will continue to challenge our forces both at home and abroad. This upgrade will provide increased protection to both our ships and their crews, and the Navy is counting on us to deliver this critical electronic warfare capability improvement on schedule and cost.”

SEAPOWER Magazine Online

 

[AMDR]

Potential cyber mission for EA-18G could lead to more orders
Alert 5 » Potential cyber mission for EA-18G could lead to more orders - Military Aviation News

The Pentagon could task the EA-18G with a new role to hack into enemy computer networks, if so, the U.S. Navy will order more Growlers to meet the new demand, outgoing CNO Admiral Jonathan Greenert said.

Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Program Achieves Acquisition Milestone
SEAPOWER Magazine Online

WASHINGTON — Naval Sea Systems Command received a risk-reduction decision approval Aug. 17, known as a Milestone A decision, for the Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (LDUUV) program, the command said in a Sept. 3 release.

Milestone A approval grants the program the authority to move into the next phase of development, which will allow the Navy to commit resources to mature technology and reduce risks prior to production and fielding.

The LDUUV is a new class of large-displacement unmanned undersea vehicles that will provide increased endurance, range and payload capabilities. The system is being designed for intelligence, surveillance and mine countermeasure missions, and is based on a modular, open architecture that will allow the Navy to incrementally develop new mission sets for the craft.

LDUUV will be capable of being stowed, launched and recovered by multiple-host platforms, including littoral combat ships, Virginia-class submarines and Ohio-class guided-missile submarines. The craft is being developed by the Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office, which is part of the Program Executive Office Littoral Combat Ships).

Following the successful Milestone A decision, a draft LDUUV request-for-proposals was released on the Federal Business Opportunities website. An industry day is scheduled for Sept. 14 in Washington, at which the Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office will host a presentation and discussion for the industry community on LDUUV requirements.

 

[AMDR]

Northrop Grumman offers to accelerate JSTARS delivery
Northrop Grumman offers to accelerate JSTARS delivery - IHS Jane's 360

Key Points

• Northrop Grumman's JSTARS offering could be delivered to the USAF and enter service by 2021
• The acceleration would avoid the 2022-28 time frame when the air force is scheduled to be procuring its three most costly recapitalisation efforts

Northrop Grumman's Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) offering could be delivered to the US Air Force (USAF) and in service by 2021, ahead of a six-year period of costly acquisition for the service, company executives said during a briefing at their platform provider Gulfstream's facility in Savannah, Georgia.

An artist's conception of the Northrop Grumman JSTARS offering based on the Gulfstream G550. (Gulfstream)

The USAF currently plans to begin replacing the legacy Northrop Grumman E-8C JSTARS with a new business jet-based solution by 2023.

 

[AMDR]

Air Force Launches Competition for Revolutionary Turbine Engine
Air Force Launches Competition for Revolutionary Turbine Engine
September 2015

The Air Force is hoping that a prize contest will yield a revolutionary new engine that doubles the fuel efficiency of current systems.

The $2 million Air Force prize will go to the first team that is able to build a new turbine engine that meets the service’s specifications, said Air Force Lt. Col. Aaron Tucker, program manager of the prize.

“We want to energize research into topics that support the Air Force mission, and turbine engines provide power in a lightweight, low profile package for airborne systems,” he said at an Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in Atlanta in May. “A prize excites and motivates talented people.”

The new engine must be big enough to power a medium-sized drone but more cost-effective than larger power plants, he said. A full list of criteria can be found on the contest website at Air Force Prize

Registration opened in May. As of press time, none of the participants’ engines had reached the verification testing stage, which is slated to take place at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Tucker said $2 million is the largest monetary prize ever offered by one of the military services. The contest was inspired in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s robotics competition, which used prize money to motivate civilian engineering teams to build cutting edge robots that could perform disaster response missions.

The engine contest is being administered by the Air Force Research Laboratory, which has a mission of developing technologies to boost U.S. airpower.

The AFRL has laid out challenging criteria for participants. The turbine engine must be in the 100 horsepower class, with a 2.0 brake-horsepower per pound (bhp/lb) or better power to weight ratio. It is also required to have a brake-horsepower specific fuel consumption of 0.55 pounds per brake-horsepower per hour (lb/bhp/hr) or less at maximum continuous power. Those standards would double the fuel efficiency of existing turbine engines of that class. The new engine would weigh a fraction of piston engines in the 100 horsepower class and have 10 times the life span, according to the Air Force.

“With this prize they’re trying to get inventors to develop a turbine engine that has the power density of a turbine and good power to weight [ratio] and … also has the specific fuel consumption of a piston engine. So in a sense they want a jet engine that gets better gas mileage,” said Mike Heil, president and CEO of the Ohio Aerospace Institute and former director of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s propulsion directorate.

The AFRL wants the best of both engine worlds. William LaPlante, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said the service wants to hit the “sweet spot” between the capabilities of turbine and piston engines. “It’s something that doesn’t exist right now, this class of engine,” he said in July at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Jets can generate more power than piston engines, but they are less fuel efficient. “That’s why you don’t see many turbine-powered automobiles because their gas mileage would not be very good,” Heil said.

A key requirement for the new engine is that it must run on standard Jet A fuel.

“The other problem with piston engines is they require gasoline. … The Air Force and the military want to only deal with only one fuel when they’re deployed and operating — and that is Jet A jet fuel. So they want to get away from having to carry a secondary fuel with them,” Heil explained.

Tucker noted that relying on aviation gasoline in addition to jet fuel is “one of the major drivers of the specific logistical [tail] in combat operations, and we’d really like to remove that requirement.”

To succeed, engineers must improve performance when it comes to SWAP — size, weight and power. The Air Force is trying to reduce the weight and size of remotely piloted aircraft propulsion systems while maintaining the same power and reducing fuel consumption. Such a system would offer key advantages over the piston engines used by medium-sized drones like the MQ-1 Predator, aviation experts said.

“The turbine engines tend to have longer lifetimes and require less maintenance, so they’re trying to achieve some logistics advantages as well,” Heil said. “By going to a lighter, more compact engine with the same horsepower [and] with better fuel consumption, they will get more range and they will get more endurance. So there will be operational benefits through this improvement as well.”

Tucker said a lighter weight engine and decreased fuel fraction would enable UAVs to carry a heavier payload on their missions.

Whether any of the participants can pull off the design and engineering feat remains to be seen. Experts said meeting the contest’s technical requirements will be challenging.

“I haven’t seen anything quite as ambitious as that as far as the percentage of improvements go,” said Bill Storey, president of the Teal Group, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense market analysis firm. “I don’t quite know how they can do it. Usually the design goals are to reduce fuel consumption by 15 percent or increase durability and that sort of thing. That’s generally [a goal to promote] an evolutionary development in gas turbine engines rather than revolutionary.”

Tucker said recent advances in composite materials and manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing, could facilitate development efforts and give smaller companies precision machining capabilities that were previously only available to larger firms.

Using a contest to spur R&D for ambitious engine advancement makes sense for the military, Storey said.

“It sounds like the Air Force is just sort of challenging industry to see what they would come up with and have a safe route to experiment with evolutionary technologies on the smaller end of things rather than incorporating it into a new fighter engine or something that would be very risky,” he said. “It’s less risk and less cost to play with new technology on a smaller program like this [which is] something that might bear fruit for the major programs down the line.”

Congress authorized the Pentagon to award prizes as an acquisition model in the fiscal year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. Earlier this year, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James picked the turbine engine to be the focus of the service’s first contest.

“To me that shows the importance of propulsion and particularly propulsion for UAVs. So that shows that it’s a high priority for the Air Force and the Department of Defense,” Heil said.

However, the relatively small financial reward — when compared to the payoff for programs of record — may not be enough of an incentive to attract larger defense contractors. “As far as the jet engine business goes within DoD, this is pretty small potatoes,” Storey noted.

A spokesman for Pratt & Whitney said the company has no plans to participate in the contest because the award value is so low. As of press time, all of the registered participants were small companies, venture capitalists or individuals with engineering backgrounds.

One such company is Volta Volaré, an Oregon-based aviation company. It found out about the Air Force Prize contest from a Twitter feed. Volta Volaré had not previously done any work for the U.S. military.

“This would be our first foray. And we’re so excited about it. It’s right up our alley … and I was so pleasantly surprised when we saw this opportunity come about,” said president and CEO Paul Peterson.

The company is tweaking the design of one of its existing engines and is optimistic that it will meet all of the prize criteria, he said.

“I hope that we’ll be able to make a better product and serve the warfighters,” he told National Defense.

Tucker said he understands that a $2 million prize might not even be enough to fully finance a team through the entire development process. But he’s hoping that the prestige factor and the potential opportunity to sell the engine in the civilian market will draw participants.

“We expect some motivation to be the cache associated with receiving the first Air Force Prize,” he said.

Winning the contest does not guarantee that the Air Force will buy the contestant’s turbine engine, Tucker noted. Participants own their engine and the rights to the design and intellectual property. The Air Force will own the data from the verification testing, but the contestants will have a perpetual, royalty free, non-exclusive license to use the test data for any purpose.

Although there is no current program of record for which the service is developing the engine, Tucker said the contest “will educate our judgment on the system and its technological approach for the development of a typical research-and-development contract as appropriate.”

“We see it as an important part of our turbine engine portfolio,” he added. “We’re always interested in innovative technology with direct impact. And there are other acquisition methods by which to acquire these beyond this Air Force prize.”

Despite the relatively low prize payout, experts see business opportunities for a company that is able to win the contest and mass produce its engine.

“Your larger UAVs like the Global Hawk, they already have a jet engine on them,” Heil said. “What they’re doing is they’re talking about the smaller class of UAV — Predator class and smaller — of being able to convert them from a piston engine … to a turbine engine. … So I think it would open up all those classes of smaller UAVs that the Air Force and the other services would be interested in operating.”

A next-generation turbine engine could potentially be used on a variety of platforms, not just drones. Air Force officials said they would be interested in using it to power small manned aircraft, cruise missiles and fixed power plants.

Tucker said soldiers could potentially use the engine to power all-terrain vehicles, vertical lift aircraft and generators when they are operating “off the grid” in austere environments.

“If this works … it has huge applications,” LaPlante said, noting that it could result in technology spillover to the civilian market for use on airplanes, ATVs, watercraft and other machines.

Heil said the engine could also potentially be adopted for commercial UAVs, which are proliferating rapidly.

“There are challenges,” he noted. “You’ve got to manage the noise and the vibration and the exhaust and all those kind of things. But I think if they’re successful with this prize and if an engine gets developed that is applicable for these unmanned aerial vehicle applications, there could be other markets in other areas for it.”

Storey said the engine would have to be cost competitive with existing technologies in order to penetrate the civilian market. “There are a lot of small engines out there, and a revolutionary design could certainly make some inroads into these applications,” he said.

Heil said the contest is a good way to get non-traditional players involved in advancing Air Force technology. But a small group that builds the winning engine would face choices about how to bring it to market.

“They may want to team with one of the bigger companies in doing this. But I suspect a lot of them will be off doing it on their own now,” he said. “If it’s a winning design with market potential, of course they will be of interest to the big companies that are in the business of building turbines. But who’s to say they won’t be like a SpaceX or some of these other companies that will go ahead and strike it out on their own and get some venture capital and start a whole new company?”

 

[monitor]

As Industry Awaits Bomber Contract, New Details Emerge
By Lara Seligman, Aaron Mehta and Andrew Clevenger 9:15 a.m. EDT September 5, 2015

(Photo: Staff Sgt. Steve Thurow/US Air Force)

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WASHINGTON — For months the defense industry has been held hostage, watching closely as the Pentagon weighs a decision that will shape the aerospace world for decades to come.

The Air Force is poised to announce who will build its next-generation bomber, and the competition is steep. The two teams represent three of the five top defense contractors in the country: Northrop Grumman, builder of the B-2 stealth bomber, and a teamed Boeing and Lockheed Martin. A contract was due first in the summer, then early fall. But now there are whispers it could slip into October.

New information shared last week reveals what is behind the delay. The Air Force is using an unusual acquisition strategy, led by a shadowy office, to procure the bomber. Meanwhile, the competing designs are vastly more mature than previously known, to a level nearly unheard of in a pre-award program.


The Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) program remains shrouded in mystery, but these revelations helped paint a clearer picture of a capability that will project power and deter threats well into the 21st century. We now know the new aircraft will be significantly stealthier than the B-2, capable of carrying conventional and nuclear weapons, and optionally manned. Initial operating capability is slated for the mid-2020s, with nuclear certification planned two years after that.

In anticipation of the award, the Air Force has begun revealing additional details. During a Sept. 1 meeting, officials confirmed the service has two robust designs in hand that are complete down to the level of individual access panels, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis by J.J. Gertler.

The next challenge will be integrating the mature technologies, the officials apparently said. They pointed to integration of the engines and the placement of antennas onto the airframe as areas of potential risk, according to one source who attended. The officials apparently did not elaborate but are likely worried these components, which typically give off signatures, could compromise the aircraft's stealth.

The Air Force has not disclosed concrete plans for the aircraft’s range, payload or size. Bombers are traditionally large aircraft with much longer unrefueled range than fighters, which enables rapid strikes on targets on the other side of the globe. But with advances in aerial refueling technology, does the new bomber really need organic long range? Will the aircraft be as large as the B-2, which weighs more than 300,000 pounds loaded? And what is the range vs. payload trade-off?

Retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, former deputy chief of staff for ISR, said he sees an LRS-B with an unrefueled range radius of 2,500 nautical miles. This provides “sufficient range capability to counter any of the anti-access capabilities that are emerging from the Russians or the Chinese,” Deptula said.

As to size, the briefers were apparently cagey during the meeting. However, they indicated a UCLASS-size design was too small and the B-2 design was too large. Cost could also constrain the size of the aircraft, one source said.

No mention was made of speed during the briefing, although the combination of long range, large payload and cost constraints strongly suggest LRS-B will be subsonic.

The advanced testing, unusual this early in the acquisition process, is in part because the bomber program is being handled by the Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO), a small group inside Air Force acquisitions that handles secretive programs. As its name implies, the RCO follows a different acquisition path than the rest of the service, with more freedom in how it procures technologies.

The officials also revealed details about the procurement roadmap during the briefing, Gertler wrote. Initial acquisition will take place in five low-rate production lots totaling about 20 aircraft, and two to three test aircraft will precede the production lots.

The target price is $550 million a copy in 2010 dollars. That unit cost is a key performance parameter for the program, meaning that a company can be disqualified if its price fails to reach that goal.

To help achieve that price point, the Air Force is looking to draw on available mature technologies rather than launching new developments. At the same time, the Air Force will use an open architecture approach, similar to that already being demonstrated on the F-22, U-2 and B-2 programs, to design a plane that can be easily upgraded with new technologies over its lifetime.

But the credibility of the Air Force when it comes to cost has recently been called into question. The service has scrambled to do damage control after reports emerged last month of massive cost discrepancies in its 10-year cost estimates for the bomber. Members of Congress, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., have raised concerns over the errors; the Air Force says they should have no impact on the bottom line.

Despite recent challenges, top service officials emphasize the need to begin recapitalizing the Air Force’s aging B-1 and B-52 bombers — and fast. The B-52 was designed in the late 1940s and built in the early 1960s, while the B-1s began flying in the 1980s. The Air Force also builds the younger B-2 but only has 20 in inventory. Consequently, the average age of the bomber force is roughly 39 years.

The Air Force has said it is targeting a production line of 80 to 100 planes to replace the B-52s and B-1s, which the service plans to retire in the mid-2040s. With proper maintenance and modernization the Air Force can operate these planes until 2044, but as the aircraft age it will be increasingly difficult and costly to ensure they can carry out their missions.

“The idea that we would run a Formula One or a NASCAR race with a car built in 1962 is ridiculous, but we're going to war with airplanes built in 1962,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said during an Aug. 24 press conference. “We have got to modernize the Air Force. It's just an imperative.”

Industry Fallout
Whatever the outcome, some foresee dramatic implications for the industry. If Northrop wins, Boeing potentially exits the combat aircraft manufacturing market. Most of the company’s products are commercial derivatives, like the KC-46A tanker, and its two remaining military aircraft lines are coming to a close. The last Navy F/A-18 will be delivered in 2018, and the final Air Force F-15 will be delivered in early 2019. After that, the company’s St. Louis factory may be shuttered.

Boeing must win LRS-B to survive long enough to compete for the Sixth Generation Fighter program, some analysts said. Winning a contract to build the Air Force’s new fleet of trainers could keep St. Louis afloat, Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia said, but as one of several competitors, Boeing can’t bank on a positive outcome.

The Navy could opt to extend the F/A-18 line for as long as 10 years, suggested Jerry Hendrix, senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security. For St. Louis, this could bridge the gap between now and the sixth-gen fighter, he said.

On the other hand, if Boeing wins, Northrop’s investors may push to break up the company. Northrop has a stake in several major military aircraft acquisition programs, including the F-35 joint strike fighter, but is not prime on any.

“They would say, ‘this thing is worth more than the sum of its parts,’” Aboulafia said. “Raytheon would love radars; Boeing would probably love that share of the joint strike fighter.”

Another potential scenario if Northrop wins: Boeing tries to buy Northrop’s aerospace unit. Once Northrop has completed the LRS-B design, divesting the business to another party might make sense to investors.

Conversely, some analysts said the LRS-B decision would not cause immediate shockwaves across the industry.

No matter who wins, the losing team is unlikely to be shut out of the business of designing and producing combat aircraft, said Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners, noting UCLASS, T-X and the Sixth Generation Fighter programs are in the pipeline.

None of the firms involved need an LRS-B victory to stay in business, and none have signaled they would want to rethink their business strategies based on the outcome, he said.

“I sincerely doubt that the DoD would approve a Lockheed Martin or Boeing buy of Northrop Grumman Aerospace," Callan said. "They’re getting the benefits of competition in LRS-B, and I think they most certainly want to preserve the benefits of competition on some of these programs going forward.”

Still, analysts are divided as to how much weight the service is giving to the health of the industrial base in its final decision.

Northrop could have the industrial base argument on its side: A Northrop win would spread the Air Force’s top three priorities — Lockheed Martin’s F-35, Boeing’s tanker and the new bomber — among the three contractors. In contrast, a Lockheed-Boeing win would mean Lockheed essentially controls all Air Force combat aviation production.

But Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said it’s unlikely the Air Force will make the final cut based on industrial base concerns.

“I think that considering the health of the defense industrial base writ large is an important factor," Gunzinger said. "That said, I don’t think they are going to make a decision on this capability based on the industrial base.”

What’s Next?
Given the significance of the LRS-B to both Northrop and Boeing’s future in defense aerospace, a bid protest seems inevitable. The Air Force is doing all it can to insulate the contract award from a protest, which could not only delay the program’s start, but also set up a nasty public relations fight. In addition to the ongoing testing, sources said the Pentagon has been trying to protest-proof the contract, adding to the delay.

However, some say the Air Force may not have much to worry about. Hendrix and Aboulafia indicated the loser may be less likely to protest due to the highly classified nature of the program.

Northrop and Boeing-Lockheed have been tight-lipped about their offerings as well as contingency plans, with Boeing-Lockheed citing an Air Force wish to keep the program under wraps.

"‎Boeing and Lockheed Martin have produced and supported essential US airpower capabilities since the earliest days of military aviation,” a spokesperson said. “We believe that all adds up to the expertise in design, production and support that would make LRS-B successful, from day one to the end of its service life many decades from now.”

A Northrop representative was more succinct: “As the only company to ever design, build, field and sustain a stealth bomber, Northrop Grumman is well positioned on this program.”

Going forward, the Air Force will have to do a better marketing job for the program, explaining why LRS-B is worth the cost and resources, Callan said.

“Inevitably, it’s going to be a lightning rod, and it’s going to compete for dollars against other Air Force and DoD program priorities,” Callan said. “I’m not sure if the Air Force has fully sold this, DoD fully sold this to Congress, and taxpayers at large.”

Email: lseligman@defensenews.com | amehta@defensenews.com | aclevenger@defensenews.com

Twitter: @laraseligman | @aaronmehta | @andclev

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[AMDR]

Lockheed Martin Offers Advanced Electro-Optical Targeting System for the F-35 Lightning II
SEAPOWER Magazine Online

ORLANDO, Fla. – Lockheed Martin has introduced Advanced EOTS, an evolutionary electro-optical targeting system that is available for the F-35’s Block 4 development, the company announced in a Sept. 10 release.

Designed to replace EOTS, the F-35’s current electro-optical targeting system, Advanced EOTS incorporates a wide range of enhancements and upgrades, including short-wave infrared, high-definition television, an infrared marker and improved image detector resolution. These enhancements increase F-35 pilots’ recognition and detection ranges, enabling greater overall targeting performance.

“In today’s environment, threats to our warfighters continue to evolve,” said Paul Lemmo, vice president of Fire Control/SOF CLSS at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “With significant capability and performance enhancements, Advanced EOTS ensures that F-35 pilots can stay ahead of these threats, detecting targets faster and at greater distances while remaining unseen.”

Due to its similarity in shape and size to EOTS, Advanced EOTS can be installed with minimal changes to the F-35’s interface. It will be housed behind the same low-drag window, maintaining the F-35’s stealthy profile. Advanced EOTS production will be completed on the current EOTS line.

Advanced EOTS and EOTS are the first sensors to combine forward-looking infrared and infrared search and track functionality to provide precise air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting capability. Advanced EOTS was developed jointly through significant Lockheed Martin and supplier investment, with team members drawing on proven experience in electro-optical sensor design and manufacturing.

 

[AMDR]

AQS-24B Mine Hunting System Sets New Standard for Synthetic Aperture Sonar
SEAPOWER Magazine Online

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — In a U.S. Navy field test, Northrop Grumman Corp.’s AQS-24B mine-hunting system successfully demonstrated the ability to perform synthetic aperture sonar processing at 18 knots in real time, the company announced in a Sept. 14 release.

The AQS-24B was developed at Northrop Grumman’s Undersea Systems campus in Annapolis. The field testing took place at the U.S. Navy Central Command in Bahrain, May 19-28. The AQS-24B finished 12 for 12 in successfully executing missions during the test exercise. During separate Tactics Development trials in Panama City, Fla., the AQS-24B achieved a record long single sortie tow duration of 16.25 hours from a surface ship.

Northrop Grumman has three decades of in-fleet airborne mine countermeasure experience with 27 systems fielded. The company was the first to field electro-optic mine identification, and developed the first long-range synthetic aperture sonar for mine warfare, the first mine warfare unmanned surface vessel (jointly with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center) and the first mine warfare unmanned underwater vehicle. The AQS-24B has significantly improved image resolution, as well as the speed of real-time sonar processing.

“The AQS-24B represents a significant advancement of the U.S. Navy’s mine hunting capability, on both the MH-53E helicopters as well as the Mine Hunting Unmanned Surface Vessels (MHUs),” said Alan Lytle, vice president, Undersea Systems business unit, Northrop Grumman. “With the AQS-24B, Northrop Grumman and the Navy have worked together to effectively advance the state of the art in undersea synthetic aperture sonar.”

The U.S. Navy can detect, classify and localize modern-day mine threats through the AQS-24B’s enhanced mine hunting sonar.

'Human-Machine Collaboration' Could Be Key to Offset Strategy
'Human-Machine Collaboration' Could Be Key to Offset Strategy

LONDON — In the midst of Britain’s Strategic Defense and Security Review, US Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work let a European audience in on the thinking behind the US response to the rise of potential adversaries armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons using both conventional and non-conventional approaches.

"The third offset strategy will be based on increased human-machine collaboration and combat-teaming,” Work declared.

The increasing effectiveness of unmanned systems, he noted, particularly autonomous systems capable of learning, will result in increasingly dynamic operations.

“When combined with human-machine combat learning, these smaller dynamic systems will be even more agile, lethal and effective,” he said Sept. 10 during an address at the Royal United Services Institute. Some of these comments are taken from a late draft provided by the Pentagon.

“The margin of technological superiority the West has enjoyed for the past 25 years — particularly in guided munitions — is eroding,” he said, explaining the need for a strategy to offset enemy strengths. “Addressing this challenge is one of the most important strategic tasks facing our militaries,” Work said.

"It is undoubtedly true that we face new methods of hybrid warfare, and we need new operational concepts to confront it. But nothing can match the lethality and destruction of high-end conventional warfare, and we must do everything in our power to prevent it from happening.

“That helps explain why the United States is now pursuing a Third Offset Strategy — new combinations of technologies, operational concepts and organizational constructs to once again bolster a weakened conventional deterrence.”

Work acknowledged that the human-machine collaboration term could be intimidating.

“There's a lot of people that say, oh my gosh, you're going to have killer robots, you're going to have to turn everything over to machines.”

Then he gave the example of humans and machines collaborating in the game of freestyle chess.

“What you have is a computer that runs through possibilities and presents them to the human and the human then uses them. And what it shows is in 70 percent of the time a human and machine working together will routinely beat humans and routinely beat machines alone. That's what we want to shoot for.”

The goal, Work explained, is for “human-centered autonomy so that we make good decisions on the battlefield. And then human-machine teaming, which allows us to do different concepts of operation that we haven't ever seen before.”

Work harkened back to the innovative thinking of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding who, before the start of World War II, developed innovative tactics to defend Britain against the powerful German Luftwaffe.

“We need to actively look for visionary thinkers like Dowding who have the ability to see the potential of new technologies and use them in innovative ways to produce real operational advantages,” Work said. But unlike the situation in previous offset strategies, “the emerging competitive environment will be much more of a level playing field than in the Cold War.”

To defeat future adversaries, Work noted, two problems emerge.

“The first involves winning the emerging guided munitions salvo competition,” he said. “We need ‘raid breaking technologies’ that provide lower cost counters to enemy missile salvos, including non-kinetic ‘left of launch’ approaches coupled with directed energy weapons, electromagnetic rail guns and hypervelocity projectiles fired from powder guns

“I believe these capabilities will allow us to dominate missile salvo competitions, and thus our ability to blunt early attacks and position our forces to reverse any losses of territory.

“But we can’t stop there,” Work continued, and pointed to two earlier Cold War offset strategy elements.

“Once we shift to maneuver, we’ll be fighting on highly lethal battlefields swept by short-range guided munitions, cyber attacks, and EW weapons. What we need is another doctrinal revival like that of the early 1980s. My message to US Army and Air Force audiences is that we need an AirLand Battle 2.0. My message to every NATO country is we need modern concepts as game-changing as Follow-on Forces Attack.”

The Pentagon, Work said, has carried out a new “Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program” similar to a 1973 effort, “to survey the technology landscape, look for technological opportunities, identify ways to leverage commercial technologies and practices, and better tap into the incredible innovation that’s happening in DoD’s labs and the commercial sector.”

The effort, he said, “tells us that large units are simply too vulnerable to guided munitions attack. They must disaggregate into smaller units that still operate together to deliver combined effects.”

Work noted the importance of NATO and allied participation, but acknowledged that not all partners bring the same level of capability to the table. Some, like the UK, “have the wherewithal to join the US military in high-end operations.”

Other allies may innovate, he added, “by adopting new operational concepts or leveraging lower-cost and asymmetric technology.”

Work noted the coordinated role-sharing among many NATO members, and pledged US support to “collaborate to seek nation-specific roles and contributions.”

 

[AMDR]

Army surges cyber team development
Army surges cyber team development

The Army’s cyber evolution continues with the fielding of cyber protection teams: highly trained groups of soldiers that will target emerging threats — including some that already have reached initial operating capability.

The cyber protection teams, or CPTs, are part of a broader, military-wide directive to fill out cyber ranks under U.S. Cyber Command’s umbrella of operations. Barely a year into the process, the Army is making consistent strides, and that progress will undergo constant measurement and scrutiny to determine the best ways forward.

Eventually, the Army will have 20 CPTs assigned to the cyber protection brigade located at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Currently, those teams are in varying stages of development, including some that have reached initial operating capability, and others that will reach full operating capacity next year, according to MG John Morrison, commander of Army Network Enterprise Technology Command.

“There’s a lot of capability with our cyber protection teams that is coming online,” Morrison said in a recent interview with C4ISR & Networks. “And now, what we’re really working towards is that integrated concept of operations on how do we employ them across the very broad mission set.”

The teams will serve a variety of missions — some supporting combatant commands, some supporting national requirements, some supporting U.S. Cyber Command and seven teams dedicated to service-specific areas of focus.

“The brigade itself is under the operational control of Army Cyber, and then what we do is, we’re responsible for training men for the team and the brigade,” Morrison said.

Eventually the different teams may take on different areas of specialty, but for now — early on in the process — all of the teams are being trained to a uniform standard.

“The teams are all comprised the same right now, because we are just now [in] the initial throes of building combat power,” he said. “We’ve only been building combat power for a little over a year-plus at this point. But there is a standard structure to the teams. However, as we’re starting to employ capabilities, I’m sure that you’ll see the structure, and the capabilities that we provide the teams change over time.”

Once operational, the CPTs likely will be serving emergent needs in cyber operations, augmenting the regional cyber centers that handle day-to-day network maintenance and security.

“These safety teams are very highly trained teams and they are much more threat-focused, whereas the RCCs are sort of like your terrain owners from our perspective,” Morrison said. “They are sort of like the folks that own the ground like a brigade combat team would. The CPTs are much more specialized; they can come in and address a [more] specific threat.”

The Army’s cyber build-out

The changing dynamics of cyber training aren’t limited to the cyber protection teams. Across the Army a widescale shift in the focus on and approach to training and education serves to emphasize a spinoff from cyber as an ancillary skillset to a dedicated discipline with its own elite corps dedicated to the cyber domain.

“We just commenced the first cyber officer leader course on July 29. That’s a historic moment for us,” said MG Stephen Fogarty, commander of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Gordon. “We have 30 officers from West Point and 30 from [the Reserve Officers Training Corps]. This is a remarkable group of young men and women … the bar to get into this branch is exceptionally high and they are exceptionally qualified.”

A significant element of the CPTs will be composed of Army Reserve and National Guard troops, a component that will augment the Army’s cyber mission force — another key piece of the Army cyber mission. The CMF, too, is under development in various stages of completion and currently part of “exponential” growth in the area, according to LTG Edward Cardon, commander of Army Cyber Command.

“We are on track to have all 41 CMF teams established and operating by the end of fiscal year 2016. However, they will not all be fully operationally capable until FY17,” Cardon told Congress earlier this year. CMF teams are allocated to combatant commanders, where they provide defensive and offensive cyber capabilities.

Cardon added that earlier this year the Army approved special-duty assignment pay, assignment incentive pay and bonuses for soldiers serving in operational cyber assignments, and that Army leadership is implementing a Cyber Career Management Field for enlisted personnel by the end of fiscal 2015.

The career-field changes reflect a larger shift in how the Army educates and classifies its cyber professionals. That’s one area that currently is being assessed in an end-to-end review by the CIO/G-6 that could integrate some cyber, signal and electronic warfare military operational specialties.

“I think we’ve come to the conclusion that there was a period of time where having 17 specific MOSs … that probably made sense,” Fogarty said. “As we look to the future, based on models we’ve seen in the special operations forces, we think we can combine some of those skills.”

Fogarty also said signal and cyber will see integration in other areas as well — including in training at the senior professional development school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and at the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

This cyber build-out has evolved considerably in the past five years, and most Army leaders agree that the approaches to education, training and operations could continue to change in the future as the services figure out what works — and what doesn’t.

“I think this is going to be very much a learning journey,” Morrison said. “And as we employ these new capabilities, we will learn what we got right, and what we need to adjust. And then we’ll make the smart adjustments.”

 

[AMDR]

Air Force Could Speed up Acquisition of T-X Trainer, JSTARS

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Air Force may not be doing a technology risk reduction phase with its upcoming T-X jet fighter trainer program, the service’s chief acquisition official said Sept. 15 at the Air Force Association annual conference.

That could speed up the schedule of replacing the 50-year-old plus aircraft the service currently uses to train its jet fighter pilots.

“Schedules” has been the buzzword at this year’s conference. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James on the first day introduced its new acquisition strategy dubbed “should-schedule.”

The should-schedule approach will work in a similar manner to an acquisition management tool the service has been using called “should-cost,” said James.

Unlike should-cost, the new should-schedule strategy will focus on delivery time, James said. “We asked ourselves, ‘Can we develop a structure that challenges us and our industry partners to deliver faster than the schedule determined as part of the independent cost estimate?’”

“If we can collectively beat the historical developmental schedules and reward behavior in government and industry that speeds things up, we have a real chance to make a difference,” James said.

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Bill LaPlante noted the service has loads of data saying that it is saving money on programs through new acquisition strategies. What isn’t changing is the problem of schedule delays. They aren’t becoming worse, but they aren’t improving, either, he said in a speech and later to reporters.

Industry wants the Air Force to be transparent as to what the requirements are as far in advance as possible, and to give it time to work on them. “That’s what we’re trying to do with T-X,” he said. The Air Force has published the requirements and is now gathering comments. It’s working on a cost capability analysis. “We are being extremely open with industry as we approach the release of the [request for proposals], which will be in about one year,” he said.

Since potential competitors have aircraft that are far along in their designs, the Air Force is “probably” going to skip an early risk reduction phase, he said. It may go directly to a first round of awards to build potential aircraft.

The question was then asked of LaPlante if the schedule could be sped up for the Joint Surveillance Targeting Attack Radar System, another rapidly aging aircraft that the Air Force must replace in the coming years. Two major industry competitors have said they could deliver aircraft several years ahead of the Air Force schedule.

“We would all like to do that with the caveat that we want to keep the competition. We would like to have things faster. We always want things faster,” he said.

The should-schedule strategy is starting out with lesser-known, smaller programs. “There is no reason we can't start using that philosophy in how we do acquisition in our bigger programs,” LaPlante said.

The Air Force has three JSTARS industry teams on contract to do risk reduction. The idea is to end up with a mature design, do a downselect, “Then hopefully move fast,” he said.

“We always have a bias of optimism in acquisition,” he said. Independent cost estimates that look at historic data usually throw cold water on those who are overly positive, but the “should-cost” system challenges them to beat the auditors’ predictions, he said. It is similar to those who can say they can move a schedule to the left, he said.

“If they say, ‘I can do that program faster,’ I say ‘you might have a chance. Prove it,’” he said.

“I will say it very directly. I would love to pull … [JSTARS] to the left and see if we can get that [initial operating capability] as left as possible,” LaPlante said. But until there is a Milestone A or Milestone B decision on the program, no IOC is set in stone, he said.

Talking about initial operating capability before such milestone decisions is like talking to a one-year-old child about their college plans, he said. “It’s interesting, but not terribly meaningful.” Once there is a contract award and milestone B is passed, then you have more knowledge, he said.

“We are working hard to get the JSTARS recap into a milestone A decision,” he added. There will be a meeting about it on Sept. 18 at the Pentagon, he said.

The new “should-schedule” movement will give incentives to industry and program managers, he added. “But you’re going to have to prove it. You can’t just show us a brochure that says, ‘I can do it.’ You’re going to have to actually see it happen as the program develops.”

“Industry will always say things they think they can do and should. We should give them an opportunity. But what we want to do is give them a competition. I would like to get to a point in general where we get industry teams on contract, do risk reduction … and then fire a starting gun.”

LaPlante gave some insight into the highly secretive long-range bomber program. An award is expected “soon,” he said. Those who give a more exact timeline don’t know what they are talking about, he said.

“The people that are talking don’t know what’s going on. And the people that know what’s going on aren’t talking,” he said.

Risk reduction was carried out on the program for several years, he said. The industry teams will have brought the level of designs to a maturity that is “almost unprecedented,” he said. They were well thought through, fixed requirements. “We are going to have a very good execution plan,” he said.

One of the few data points on the long range bomber that the Air Force has spoken about publicly was the $550 million per aircraft price tag. Making that known was an incentive for those working on the program behind the scenes to keep requirements fixed and not to add anything that would raise that figure, he said.

“It’s going to be done soon. Everything is going extremely well,” he added.

 

[AMDR]

USAF seeks ‘interim’ CHAMP, longer-range air-to-air missiles
USAF seeks ‘interim’ CHAMP, longer-range air-to-air missiles

The US Air Force plans to introduce Boeing and Raytheon’s “CHAMP” high-power-microwave emitting cruise missile into the combat force on board the 1990s conventional air-launched cruise missile as an “interim capability” while the technology transitions to Lockheed Martin’s JASSM-ER.

Air Combat Command chief Gen Hawk Carlisle says the computer-killing capability, which knocks out electronic equipment with bursts of high-frequency electromagnetic energy, is a “great capability” that will be fielded in small numbers initially with US Global Strike Command – the air force’s nuclear combat force.

“We’ve talked about the transition of that capability for Global Strike Command, but that will probably be small numbers because what we really want to do is get CHAMP into next-generation missiles, so JASSM-ER,” Carlisle said at an Air Force Association event in Washington.

“[Global Strike commander Gen Robin Rand] and I are talking about how to transition some number, an interim capability that’s on the current [CALCM] system and then how do we move to even an improved capability into the next generation air-to-surface cruise missiles we’re producing today.”

The weapon has been in development with the Air Force Research Laboratory since 2009 and was successfully demonstrated at a test range in Utah in 2012. The technology has been deemed ready for development and fielding, and is already being improved and adapted to new platforms such as the JASSM-ER and possibly even reusable unmanned aircraft.

AFRL has been pursuing the Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) as a niche capability that is difficult and expensive to harden against.

In terms of air superiority weapons, Carlisle says the development of next-generation air-to-air missiles is also “an exceptionally high priority”.

Raytheon’s AMRAAM is the current go-to Western weapon for beyond-visual-range air combat, but new long-range missiles being fielded by Russia and China are a significant concern to the Pentagon.

Carlisle says outmatching the Chinese PL-15 air-to-air missile in particular is an “exceedingly high priority”.

“The PL-15 and the range of that missile, we’ve got to be able to out-stick that missile,” he says.

The air force is currently exploring a range of next-generation weapon concepts as it also pursues a sixth-generation fighter aircraft.

 

[AMDR]

Navy Developing Shipboard Cyber Protection System
http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20150917-rhimes.html

ARLINGTON, Va. — For most people, the term “cyber security” calls to mind stories of data theft like the recent hacks of the Office of Personnel Management database, or network spying like the 2012 breach of the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet.

But in this networked world, hackers might also try to disable or take control of machines in our physical world-from large systems like electric power grids and industrial plants, to transportations assets like cars, trains, planes or even ships at sea.

In response, the U.S. Navy is developing the Resilient Hull, Mechanical, and Electrical Security (RHIMES) system, a cyber protection system designed to make its shipboard mechanical and electrical control systems resilient to cyber attacks, the Office of Naval Research reported in a Sept. 17 release.

“The purpose of RHIMES is to enable us to fight through a cyber attack,” said Chief of Naval Research RADM Mathias Winter. “This technology will help the Navy protect its shipboard physical systems, but it may also have important applications to protecting our nation’s physical infrastructure.”

Dr. Ryan Craven, a program officer of the Cyber Security and Complex Software Systems Program in the Mathematics Computer and Information Sciences Division of the Office of Naval Research, said that RHIMES is designed to prevent an attacker from disabling or taking control of programmable logic controllers-the hardware components that interface with physical systems on the ship.

“Some examples of the types of shipboard systems that RHIMES is looking to protect include damage control and firefighting, anchoring, climate control, electric power, hydraulics, steering and engine control,” Craven said. “It essentially touches all parts of the ship.”

Attacks on mechanical systems that are operated by computers have happened before. Stuxnet, the famous industrial “computer worm” discovered in 2010 was designed to attack controllers of Iranian centrifuges, causing the centrifuges to run at very high speeds, effectively tearing themselves apart.

“Another powerful example is the hacking of a German steel mill in 2014,” Craven said. “The hackers reportedly got in and overheated a blast furnace, and even made it so that the plant workers couldn’t properly shut down the furnace, causing massive damage to the system.”

Traditionally, computer security systems protect against previously identified malicious code. When new threats appear, security firms have to update their databases and issue new signatures. Because security companies react to the appearance of new threats, they are always one step behind. Plus, a hacker can make small changes to their virus to avoid being detected by a signature.

“Instead, RHIMES relies on advanced cyber resiliency techniques to introduce diversity and stop entire classes of attacks at once,” Craven said. Most physical controllers have redundant backups in place that have the same core programming, he explained. These backups allow the system to remain operational in the event of a controller failure. But without diversity in their programming, if one gets hacked, they all get hacked.

“Functionally, all of the controllers do the same thing, but RHIMES introduces diversity via a slightly different implementation for each controller’s program,” Craven said. “In the event of a cyber attack, RHIMES makes it so that a different hack is required to exploit each controller. The same exact exploit can’t be used against more than one controller.”

This work aligns with higher level strategic guidance to protect against cyber threats, like the U.S. Navy’s “Cyber Power 2020,” but the technology may also have benefits outside of the Navy.

“Vulnerabilities exist wherever computing intersects with the physical world, such as in factories, cars and aircraft,” Craven said, “and these vulnerabilities could potentially benefit from the same techniques for cyber resilience.”

 

[AMDR]

Rockwell Collins Wins DARPA Contract To Develop GPS Backup Technologies For Contested Environments
Rockwell Collins Wins DARPA Contract To Develop GPS Backup Technologies For Contested Environments

Rockwell Collins has won a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop technologies that could serve as a backup to GPS.

The research is being conducted as part of DARPA’s Spatial, Temporal and Orientation Information in Contested Environments (STOIC) program. Further, the research aims to reduce warfighter dependence on GPS for modern military operations, the company announced Thursday.

Under the terms of the agreement, Rockwell Collins will develop innovative architectures and techniques to enable communication systems that will support time transfer and positioning between moving platforms independent of GPS, with no impact on primary communications functionality.

“STOIC technology could augment GPS, or it may act as a substitute for GPS in contested environments where GPS is degraded or denied,” said John Borghese, vice president of the Rockwell Collins Advanced Technology Center.

“The time-transfer and ranging capabilities we are developing seek to enable distributed platforms to cooperatively locate targets, employ jamming in a surgical fashion, and serve as a backup to GPS for relative navigation.” Borghese added.

The goal of the STOIC program is to develop positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) systems that provide GPS-independent PNT, achieving timing that far surpasses GPS levels of performance.

The program is comprised of three primary elements. When integrated, they have the potential to provide global PNT independent of GPS, including long-range robust reference signals, ultra-stable tactical clocks, and multifunctional systems that provide PNT information between cooperative users in contested environments.

For this third technical element, Rockwell Collins is tasked with developing multifunction communication system solutions that yield DARPA STOIC objective picosecond-accurate time transfer and enable GPS-levels of relative positioning accuracy in contested environments.

 

[AMDR]

DARPA demonstrates prototype Persistent Close Air Support
DARPA demonstrates prototype Persistent Close Air Support - UPI.com

NELLIS, Nev., Sept. 18 (UPI) -- DARPA's recent demonstration of its prototype Persistent Close Air Support system showed that future airstrikes can be ordered with as few as three clicks on a handheld tablet.

The system was tested on an A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, also known as the Warthog, conducting 50 successful sorties near the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. This marked the system's debut on a U.S. Air Force platform. The system is designed to deliver airborne munitions to support ground forces in combat.

DARPA's program aims for the technology to evolve to become more accurate and easier to use, keeping stressful operational conditions in mind.

This development in close air support technology could change how airstrikes on the battlefield are ordered and conducted. Currently, strikes are done through a coordination of pilots, forward air controllers, and joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs). To deliver a strike, all parties involved must be focused on one target at a time, with the process involving voice directions and paper maps. PCAS systems, however, can digitally link aircraft to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to call in an airstrike, and improve support for ground units.

"We have shown that a flexible architecture and extensible technology toolsets are the key to making groundbreaking improvements in air-ground coordination," DARPA program manager Dan Patt said in a statement, "these and other tests results suggest PCAS-like approaches have the potential to provide an unprecedented synchronized understanding of the active battlefield."

DARPA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, and is responsible for researching, developing, and testing new technologies for military use. It has an annual budget of about $2.8 billion.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Lockheed Martin Offers Advanced Electro-Optical Targeting System for the F-35 Lightning II
SEAPOWER Magazine Online