20 Jul 22. Scanning the horizons for smarter, cooperative missiles.
Dstl is searching for technologies that enable missiles to cooperate with each other to complete shared objectives
- The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) has launched a new Themed Competition: It’s Good For Missiles To Talk
- Funded by the Defence and Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl)
- Up to £800K funding available for advanced technologies which can underpin a future cooperative missile
The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is pleased to launch a new Themed Competition called It’s Good for Missiles to Talk. Run on behalf of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), this Themed Competition aims to identify and develop novel technologies that could be exploited in the development of a new category of missile – cooperative missiles.
Cooperative missiles can communicate with each other, share situational awareness and organise themselves to ‘work together’ efficiently to achieve a common objective. The aim of the work is to investigate how inter-missile communication and cooperative behaviours can be technically achieved to solve UK military challenges.
UK defence systems enabled by AI, including missiles, will always be subject to context appropriate human involvement. For this competition, we are only interested in technologies that could enable cooperation between missiles.
This themed competition focuses on the following challenge areas:
- Challenge 1: Distributed target detection and identification
- Challenge 2: Data processing onboard and between missiles
- Challenge 3: Enhanced navigation through cooperation
- Challenge 4: Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Key dates and funding
Total funding available for Phase 1 is up to £800,000 (ex VAT) and is expected to fund multiple proposals.
The deadline to submit a proposal is midday 3 August 2022.
Do you have an innovation? Read the full competition document and submit a proposal.
It’s Good for Missiles to Talk in complex operational environments
The development of cooperative missiles for future UK missile systems is a novel and key challenge that Defence is seeking to solve.
At the moment, missile development seeks to overmatch adversary capabilities by improving the performance of individual missiles. For example, through use of more sophisticated seekers or navigation systems.
However, through the cooperative missile approach, overmatch can be achieved through leveraging networked technologies. This approach is potentially disruptive because the technologies and sub-systems used in a cooperative missile system will be less complex than current designs, while offering greater performance when working together.
This capability is important because the operating environment for UK missile systems is growing increasingly complex. For example, potential targets are often concealed and are likely to be surrounded by buildings, trees and vegetation, which can make identification and navigation challenging. Cooperative missiles will also be beneficial in environments where Global Navigation Satellite Services (GNSS) is degraded.
Generation-after-next cooperative missiles: Challenge areas
Submitted proposals should choose to target one or all of the below challenge areas.
Challenge 1: Distributed target detection and identification
This challenge area seeks novel ways to detect, recognise and identify intended targets using missile sensors distributed over a cooperative group. For example:
- combining sensor data to build a shared image of the target area, with multiple missiles potentially approaching the target from different directions. Increasing detection and identification range through use of multiple, low-cost sensors
- improving the accuracy of target tracking in a complex scene by combining data from multiple sources
- approaches to the above with homogenous and/ or heterogeneous arrays of sensors
Challenge 2: Data processing onboard and between missiles
This challenge area seeks innovations to process large quantities of data across cooperative missile networks for particular missions. For example:
- distributed processing in a missile environment
- distributed database systems within a cooperative missile network
- edge processing – this is an alternative and complimentary technique to analyse and process strong data at the point of generation
- transmission of data within a limited bandwidth cooperative missile network
Challenge 3: Enhanced navigation through cooperation
This challenge area seeks to understand how novel alternative navigation (AltNav) technologies and distributed navigation sensors can be used. For example:
- use of multiple low cost Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) across the cooperative missile network to improve group navigation
- use of multiple GNSS feeds across the cooperative missile network when some are jammed or degraded to improve group navigation
- use of geolocation using diverse technologies that are distributed across the missile network
- synchronisation of timing information within the cooperative missile network
Challenge 4: Application of Artificial Intelligence
This general challenge area seeks to understand how advances in AI could be exploited in cooperative missile systems. For example:
- improving the robustness of limited bandwidth communications between the cooperative missile network
- optimising the searching of a scene across the distributed cooperative missile network
- target detection in the presence of obscurance (e.g. smoke or camouflage systems) across a distributed cooperative missile network
Want to learn more about these challenge areas? Read the full competition document here.
Webinars and online events
Competition Webinar: 20 June 2022
This webinar will provide more information on the challenge areas and how to submit a proposal. There will be an opportunity to ask questions. If you would like to get involved, please register on the Eventbrite page.
Register now: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/its-good-for-missiles-to-talk-qa-session-tickets-350506714017
Submit a proposal
Do you have a solution or novel approach that may help our ability to develop cooperative missile technologies? Submit an idea and help DASA and Dstl exploit cooperative missiles that can communicate with each other to complete a shared mission.
Read the full competition document to learn more and submit a proposal: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/competition-its-good-for-missiles-to-talk (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
21 Jul 22. ‘Bigger, faster, longer’: As market grows, loitering drone makers eye next evolution.
“The loitering munition market is going to evolve certainly,” Rafael’s Roman Palaria told Breaking Defense. “I personally believe that it’s a new market that is building up very quickly.”
As the conflict in Ukraine demonstrated the lethal effectiveness of loitering munitions, the makers of the modern weapons said they’re responding to global demand by working to improve their products into more capable and increasingly survivable systems to stay ahead in the market.
Loitering munitions, colloquially called kamikaze drones or suicide drones, provide small teams of soldiers with single-use small unmanned aerial systems, equipped to track and strike a target. While they have been around for decades, they garnered significant attention during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, in which both employed loitering munitions.
But in interviews with manufacturers of loitering munitions, it is clear that in the wake of Ukraine’s high-profile success, the demand is growing not just for weapons on the market, but the next generation of capabilities. Western customers are looking for loitering drones with more power, increased distance, bigger payloads and advanced technology, while maintaining the ease of use, they said.
“The loitering munition market is going to evolve certainly,” Roman Palaria, head of marketing and business development for Israel-based Rafael’s precision tactical weapon systems directorate, told Breaking Defense in June. “I personally believe that it’s a new market that is building up very quickly.”
Loitering munitions vary significantly in sizes and capabilities. Depending on their size, they can linger in an area for a few minutes or several hours, and, depending on their payload, can target personnel or armor. Some are tube-launched, while others have vertical take-off and landing abilities.
Since Russia’s invasion, the US has shipped more than 800 loitering munitions to the Ukrainians. According the most recent fact sheet from the Pentagon, the shipments have included “more than” 700 Switchblades from US company AeroVironment and an additional 121 Phoenix Ghosts, a secretive loitering munition developed by the US Air Force and AEVEX Aerospace.
As the conflict continues, Western countries are exploring further purchases. For example, the French Army, Defense News reported, plans to place a foreign military sales request with the US to buy AeroVironment’s Switchblades. The Pentagon, too, has taken notice.
“Loitering munitions, I think we’re learning a lot about what they can do and the value that they could have,” said Maj. Gen. Peter Andrysiak, deputy commander of US Army Europe and Africa, in an interview with Breaking Defense in June.
And there are now close eyes on what loitering munitions can do in the future.
“Almost every customer wants bigger, faster, longer,” said Brett Hush, vice president and product line general manager for tactical missile systems at AeroVironment. “But with bigger, longer, faster, … there’s this trade off on portability. But what has been happening [is] the technology just keeps getting better in the propulsion system, in the energy storage … So duration and distance, range that you can go is improving over time. So we’re addressing those desires by customers.”
There’s also interest in payload diversity. The director of loitering munition systems at Israeli Aerospace Industries, an Israeli manufacturer whose Harop loitering munitions featured in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, told Breaking Defense that giving soldiers on the battlefield the ability to put different warheads on the drones is another important iteration.
“We believe that for lower echelons, quadcopters, VTOL [vertical take-off and landing] capabilities is a must have, not a missile,” the IAI official said, speaking with Breaking Defense on the condition of anonymity. “So that would be more different kinds of warheads [and] the capability to pick and choose and to change, like you’re changing shells in a mortar. That’s the idea, but easy to use.”
For The US, ‘Does It Fit In The Conventional Force?’
For the US military, loitering munitions have primarily been used by special forces. Any observations about the use of loitering munitions in Ukraine may shape how the US would integrate the capabilities into conventional forces.
“As we go through this and learn about what’s happening in Ukraine, we’ll figure out what’s the right level to put those things, and where does it fit in the conventional force? Because I think most of the lessons learned and capabilities came out of special operations,” Andrysiak said.
The Army experimented with Rafael’s new loitering mini-drone, Spike Firefly, during its Army Expeditionary Warrior experiment earlier this year. At that experiment, infantry squads used the mini-drone in an urban setting, including simulating an attack on a sniper position. Loitering munitions could be effective in urban combat because their ISR capabilities improve soldier’s battlefield awareness, makers said.
“When a company enters the urban environment they have normally very limited situational awareness. They don’t know what happens on the streets parallel or just behind the corner,” Rafael’s Palaria said. “If you detect targets, you can eliminate them before the company encounters them.”
Adding Automation, EW Protection And Being Part Of Something Bigger
As industry continues to evolve its loitering munitions offerings, AeroVironment’s Hush said his company wants to add more autonomy to Switchblades, including automatic target recognition and “cooperative engagements,” also known as swarms, adding that swarms are the “next big wave.”
In addition, he added buyers want to be able to integrate the munitions into air and sea assets, as well as plug them into their battlefield networks.
“They want the other elements of that command to be able to see the information and be able to transfer back and forth: ‘Hey, where’s the target? What’s going on with the target?’ BDA [battlefield damage assessment] information, so you get kind of a battlefield awareness,” Hush said.
But to provide that type of information or target enemy positions, loitering munitions need to be survivable, meaning able to withstand electronic warfare threats trying to interfere with its communications systems or knock it out of the sky.
Hush said the two big threats to loitering munitions are GPS jamming and spoofing, and jamming its communications link. Loitering munitions will have to be able to deal with that, with Hush pointing to autonomy as a solution.
Additional survivability challenges depend on the sizes of the munitions. Small ones, which tend to have less range, have “more inherent” survivability. Larger munitions, which have longer ranges, will be more challenging to make survivable.
“Survivability for loitering munitions, for big ones — especially for long distances — is quite a challenge,” Palaria said. “It will be a challenge in the next coming years. It will define how they will look and what [the] market will require.”
He later added, “if you can survive, you’re relevant. If not? No.”
(Source: Breaking Defense.com)
21 Jul 22. Rolls-Royce and Safran Power Units have jointly signed an Assessment Phase contract with MBDA, as part of the Franco-British Future Cruise / Anti-Ship Weapon (FC/ASW) programme. Both partners will work collaboratively to mature a new propulsion solution for a subsonic, low observable missile expected to be fielded before the end of the decade.
Signed at Farnborough International Airshow, the agreement now means that Rolls-Royce and Safran Power Units will work alongside MBDA to meet the propulsion requirements for the UK and French Governments, with the intent to provide a game changing capability to overcome hardened targets and air defence systems in increasingly contested battlespace environment.
Earlier the UK Ministry of Defence and the French Armament General Directorate (Direction Générale de l’Armement -DGA) signed a bilateral agreement for the FC/ASW programme that will see the joint development of a next generation of deep strike and heavy anti-ship missiles.
Éric Béranger, MBDA CEO, said: “FC/ASW is a strategic programme for the UK and France and we are very pleased to welcome Rolls-Royce and Safran Power Units into the team. Their joint expertise will prove fundamental to the success of the subsonic FC/ASW concept, further strengthening the benefits of UK/French co-operation on this programme”.
Alex Zino, EVP Business Development and Future Programmes for Rolls-Royce Defence said: “Combining the strengths of industry from across the UK and France underlines the significance of this programme. With this collaboration, both companies will be able to demonstrate the strong alignment between the UK and French industry and can effectively work together to provide the power to protect our armed forces and our societies”.
21 Jul 22. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) successfully completed the third live fire test of its AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile Extended Range (AARGM-ER). The U.S. Navy launched the missile from an F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft recently at the Point Mugu Sea Range off the coast of California. Utilizing its advanced emitter acquisition system, the missile detected a land-based threat and engaged the threat system.
“The Navy requirement for AARGM-ER is now,” said Captain A.C. Dutko, Navy Program Manager for Direct and Time Sensitive Strike (PMA-242). “AARGM-ER performed as expected and detected, identified, located and engaged a land-based air defense radar system. The continued success of our developmental testing moves the program closer to fielding and providing the aircrews with the protection they need to remain ahead of adversary threats.”
Since achieving a Milestone C Decision (authorization for Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP)) in September 2021, AARGM-ER prime contractor Northrop Grumman has continued to lead its industry team in timely development of critically needed warfighting capability. LRIP Lot 1 AARGM-ER missiles are currently in-production to support Initial Operational Capability (IOC) fielding. LRIP Lot 2 missiles, under contract, will further augment the inventory in the Fleet.
AARGM-ER leverages existing state-of-the-art AARGM sensors, electronics and digital models with the addition of a new high-performance air vehicle, a propulsion system providing extended range and an advanced warhead.
“Northrop Grumman is focused on delivering AARGM-ER capability to the U.S. Navy on-time to meet a critical warfighting need,” said Mary Petryszyn, corporate vice president and president, Northrop Grumman Defense Systems. “We understand the requirement and we have the experience and know-how as a missile prime to deliver this time critical asset on an accelerated schedule.”
AARGM-ER is being integrated on the Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler aircraft as well as the F-35 aircraft.
20 Jul 22. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) delivered the first of six production Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) Engagement Operations Centers to the U.S. government under a contract for Poland’s WISLA program. WISLA is Poland’s program of the country’s medium-range air and missile defenses, and it marks the first foreign military sale of IBCS.
“As Poland acquires IBCS to modernize their air defenses, they are also taking major steps toward real Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and mission readiness in the future battlespace,” said Christine Harbison, vice president and general manager, combat systems and mission readiness, Northrop Grumman. “Multiple live exercises and flight tests have demonstrated the JADC2 capabilities inherent in IBCS’ architecture.”
Poland is also working with the U.S. government for deliveries of IBCS equipment racks and software to be installed in operations centers designed, manufactured, and delivered in partnership with Polish industry, in support of the country’s NAREW short-range air defense modernization.
IBCS has an open, modular and scalable architecture that is foundational to integrating all available assets in the battlespace, regardless of source, service or domain. Its architecture enables the efficient and affordable integration of current and future systems. Through numerous successful tests and demonstrations, IBCS has validated the ability to connect and fuse multi-service sensor data to multi-service weapons demonstrating JADC2 capabilities.
20 Jul 22. Ukrainian Angel of Mariupol to Visit NP Aerospace Armour Factory. Yuliia Paievska, the famous ‘Taira’ Angel of Mariupol who saved 500 Ukranian lives in the conflict is set to visit NP Aerospace’s Foleshill Road facility tomorrow (Thursday 21st July) to find out what goes into manufacturing life-saving armour used by Ukrainian soldiers. She will be accompanied by a group of Ukraine frontline military and humanitarian personnel who are in the UK training for the US Army’s Warrior Games in Miami to recognise the resiliency of wounded, ill, and injured veterans. Yuliia is the founder and leader of Taira’s Angels, a volunteer medical evacuation unit which has been working in Mariupol to support military personnel and civilians. NP Aerospace has manufactured and delivered more than 20,000 sets of life-saving body armour plates and carrier vests to Ukraine military personnel in the last three months and is continuing to increase production to meet demand with the addition of 90 factory operators.
19 Jul 22. Hypersonic missile launches off Marine Corps truck in DARPA test. The OpFires system achieved all test objectives, including first ever use of a U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) logistics truck as a medium-range missile launcher. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Pentagon office that conducts research and development of emerging technologies, said it successfully conducted the first flight test of the Operational Fires Program at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
The medium-range hypersonic missile was launched from the back of a Marine Corps logistics truck. Any USMC or Army trucks equipped with the Palletized Load System can be converted into a launch platform. The program uses missile round pallets that are designed to be used with the load handling systems on these vehicles. An Army artillery fire control system was used to initiated the launch as well.
An integrated systems critical design review of the OpFires program will be completed in 2022, DARPA said.
“This is a promising step toward a [transporter erector launcher] on-demand capability for accurately firing medium-range missiles from highly agile, readily available logistics trucks that are already in both the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps inventory,” Lt. Col. Joshua Stults, the DARPA program manager for OpFires, said in a statement. “Our successful agile hardware development approach prioritizes full-scale flight testing that will inform further design maturation this year.”
A Lockheed Martin project, OpFires integrates a throttleable boost motor into the hypersonic missile, which typically fly at faster that five times the speed of sound. The variable motor allows the missile to strike targets across the medium-range spectrum without having to preform energy-bleed maneuvers.
Lockheed Martin also adapted proven electronics and precision fires subsystems from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems into the OpFires project, allowing for interoperability with the Army’s existing Advance Field Artillery Tactical Data System infrastructure.
HIMARS, another Lockheed product, have been making headlines for their effectiveness against Russian forces and countermeasures while in use by the Ukrainian military. They have been credited with the destruction of Russian supply depots, forward command posts and the commander of a VDV paratrooper regiment. The system currently is capable of striking targets over 300 km away, according to Lockheed Martin.
“The OpFires program is a great example of how DARPA, in partnership with industry, is helping the Department of Defense facilitate rapid development and testing of advanced hypersonic technologies to accelerate the delivery of transformational warfighting capabilities,” Michael White, principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
20 Jul 22. Hypersonic Missile Defense Requires Advanced Solutions.
- SAIC’s counter-hypersonics development support includes threat modeling and simulation, bolstered by cloud, digital engineering and advanced communications and computing technologies
Hypersonic weapons pose a major new threat to United States’ national security around the world. Hypersonic missiles can move at five times the speed of sound and maneuver in flight, and they are emerging from adversarial nations. U.S. officials recently acknowledged Russia’s use of hypersonics in its invasion of Ukraine, and China’s hypersonics capabilities are top of mind for allied forces operating in the Pacific. Defending against the fast and agile missiles, known as counter-hypersonics, requires an improved and layered defense architecture that includes advanced sensors in space, missile interceptors, directed energy weapons and non-kinetic methods.
The Department of Defense is working on next-generation interceptors, which aim to strike and eliminate hypersonic missiles where they are most vulnerable — in their midcourse or glide phase. For example, DARPA’s Glide Breaker could come online in 2026, while the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is developing the Glide Phase Interceptor with a 2027-to-2028 timeline. They are part of a host of programs to evolve and upgrade the U.S. missile defense system and the DOD’s sensing, tracking and engagement architecture currently designed for ballistic missiles.
While the hypersonic interceptor programs are running in parallel, concurrent inter-agency projects to build an improved missile warning and tracking sensor layer are underway. The U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command, with MDA and the Space Development Agency (SDA), is overseeing the next-generation overhead persistent infrared (Next Gen OPIR) program to develop resilient constellations of sensor satellites to detect, track and disseminate timely data on missile launches.
Providing support to answer important hypersonics questions
SAIC is supporting Space Systems Command and the Next Gen OPIR at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, Calif. and at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle in the analysis and integration of the payloads for the satellites. SAIC is also working with MDA on contributions to counter-hypersonics.
Traditional defense against ballistic weapons has focused on defeating missiles while they are in their midcourse phase or terminal phase when they glide and descend to their targets. Hypersonic missiles present far higher complexity for glide- and terminal-phase defense because of their extreme speeds and ability to maneuver.
While MDA is addressing boost-phase and glide-phase capabilities, we focus our counter-hypersonics support for the agency with modeling and simulation of operational scenarios involving missile defeat as well as “left-of-launch” techniques.
Left-of-launch methods look to preemptively disrupt or destroy our adversaries’ hypersonic capabilities while missiles are still on the ground, since a long chain of infrastructure assets exists to send off a hypersonic weapon. We must also address alternative, non-kinetic kill mechanisms that hit at the source through cyber and electronic means to obviate the costs and risks of missile engagement.
“We support a lot of analyses and systems development for left-of-launch activities, where you strike the hypersonic launcher on the ground,” said Kenneth Running, SAIC’s director of engineering for Air Force and agencies. “Over the past five years, we have been doing a lot of counter-hypersonics analyses, as emerging threats transitioned away from ballistic and cruise missiles. For MDA, we completed an 18-month analysis-of-alternatives study that modeled nine classes of hypersonic interceptors and ran five bn Monte Carlo simulations, and reported the results.”
The analysis covered possible outcomes of scenarios involving different defense strategies and thousands of variables. MDA disseminated SAIC’s report to the Secretary of Defense and Congress, but the legislative and executive branches of the government will often turn to us directly for modeling and simulation support when they need to see the broad implications of emergent and urgent operational needs. Fortunately, not all of our “what-if” studies take a year or longer.
“We can be very future-looking at threats and countering solutions at the beginning of systems engineering lifecycles,” said Running. “Or, we often run analyses to support real-world and live events.”
A quick-response modeling task may be an hour-long exploration. A full parametric evaluation of a range of mission scenarios could take a few hours to get answers to questions such as “Where can this threat go and what can it do?” “How do we counter it, and where do we place our assets?” and “What will happen if this happens?”
JADC2 could be key to left-of-launch counter-hypersonics
Left-of-launch missile defeat opportunities could open up further as the DOD overlays its joint all-domain command-and-control (JADC2) strategy on top of the hypersonic defense architecture. JADC2 initiatives to interconnect the right sensor to the right shooter with the right communication anywhere across air, land, sea, space and cyber domains would accelerate coordinated and decisive actions to deny adversaries the ability to strike with hypersonic weapons.
In end-to-end counter-hypersonics, JADC2 “can solve the left-through-launch piece,” said Running.
Our team of analysts, modeling and simulation engineers, mathematicians and data scientists leverage tools in SAIC’s digital engineering suite to rapidly visualize and test systems architectures and decision models, weighing their pros and cons. The digital engineering ecosystem runs on our high performance computing (HPC) resources on site and in our secure cloud that can expand to tens of thousands of CPUs for processing power.
We use artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to bolster the mathematical techniques and run ms or bns of samples in helping customers understand how each architectural or strategic decision might gain one benefit and lose another, affect program risk and requirements, and influence the decision-making chain of events.
“Counter-hypersonics is a challenging mission, and SAIC is bringing a number of capabilities and technologies to bear. Modeling and simulation and digital engineering are part of those,” said Running. “AI/ML is baked into a lot of what we do, and then we have enablers like the cloud and HPC in order to generate the massive amount of compute runs.”
Whether it is from a long-term study or a quick-turn exercise, decision-makers walk out of SAIC’s hypersonics analyses informed of strengths, disadvantages and opportunities, knowing how their hypersonic defense architectural decisions can impact outcomes and mission effectiveness. (Source: ASD Network)
20 Jul 22. USMC Successfully Tests Iron Dome Based Air Defense Prototype July 19, 2022. A major breakthrough for the US Marine Corps (USMC) integration of RAFAEL’s Iron Dome ground launcher and Tamir interceptor missile into Marine Corps’ Medium-Range Intercept Capability (MRIC) Prototype with the USMC G/ATOR Radar and CAC2S Battle Management System.
A live fire test at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico proved:
- USMC has Iron Dome defense capabilities
- Iron Dome was successfully integrated into USMC Architecture
- The system performed exactly as was predicted by a USMC simulation prior to the test itself.
“This demonstration proves that we do now have a relevant capability,” said Don Kelley, program manager for GBAD at PEO Land Systems, immediately following the successful test.
Brigadier General (Res.) Pinhas Yungman, Executive Vice President and Head of RAFAEL’s Air Defense Systems Directorate:
“Once again, RAFAEL’s systems have proven that they are capable of seamless, optimized integration with other defense systems. The Marines live-fire test demonstrated a successful combination of an Iron Dome ground launcher, Tamir interceptor with the Marines’ radar system and battle management system. This is an important and significant message for RAFAEL, for the Marines and the other customers in the United States and in the international market.”
Head of the IMDO in the Ministry of Defense, Mr. Moshe Patel: “This test has proven the Iron Dome Tamir Interceptor and associated ground components can be integrated quickly and efficiently in any relevant defense architecture and intercept various aerial threats successfully in complex and advanced scenarios. We look forward to further partnerships with the US Armed Forces on Air and Missile Defense.” (Source: ASD Network)
19 Jul 22. USAF, Raytheon Missiles & Defense Execute 1st Live-fire Test of AMRAAM F3R.
- The Form, Fit, Function Refresh is AMRAAM’s latest upgrade
The U.S. Air Force and Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies business, successfully conducted the first AMRAAM® F3R, an AIM-120D3 missile, live-fire test against a target. The test used production missile hardware developed under the AMRAAM Form, Fit, Function Refresh program, which updates both the missile’s hardware and software.
The AIM-120D3 combines System Improvement Program 3F software updates with F3R hardware, putting tremendous capability against advanced threats into the warfighter’s arsenal.
During the June 30, 2022 test, the missile was fired from an F-15E Strike Eagle and guided toward an aerial target at long range. The primary objective was to prove out sub-system integration to support all phases of guided flight. The test also demonstrated full system integration and performance.
“Our warfighters deserve to have the most advanced technology in the air when they need it,” said Paul Ferraro, president of Air Power at Raytheon Missiles & Defense. “F3R upgrades multiple circuit cards to address obsolescence, enhances the weapon’s capabilities, and extends the production line for the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and our Allied partners.”
The live fire was the first of five planned missile shots in an integrated test series for the AIM-120D3 to qualify the new configuration for production and fielding. These tests incorporate various scenarios and targets to prove out the weapon’s advanced functionality and capabilities. An additional live fire for the Foreign Military Sales AIM-120C8 variant will occur in the near future. These live-fire tests are the culmination of captive flight tests, workup flights, and simulations.
Under the F3R program, engineers used model-based systems engineering initiatives and other digital technologies to upgrade multiple circuit cards and hardware into the guidance section of the missile and to re-host legacy software in the AIM-120D3 and AIM-120C8 AMRAAMs. Over the past year, F3R software was merged with SIP 3F advanced software capabilities to accelerate the fielding of this combined upgrade to the warfighter. (Source: ASD Network)
19 Jul 22. Norway Selects StormBreaker Smart Weapon for F-35 Fleet. The government of Norway has confirmed its intention to procure Raytheon Missiles & Defense’s StormBreaker® smart weapon from the U.S. Air Force. Preparations are now underway to integrate the network-enabled weapon into the capabilities of the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
“We see StormBreaker as an essential component in achieving the full operational capability of our F-35 fleet,” said Brig. Gen. Sigurd Fongen, head of the F-35 project office, Norwegian Defence Staff. “The weapon will bring significant capability against stationary and moving targets at stand-off ranges, further enhancing the Norwegian Air Force’s ability to maintain national and regional security alongside our allies.”
The StormBreaker smart weapon gives operators an upper hand in combat by hitting stationary and moving targets in some of the worst weather conditions. The network-enabled munition autonomously detects and classifies targets in poor visibility situations caused by darkness, bad weather, smoke or dust.
“StormBreaker delivers a unique combination of power, precision and operational flexibility to the joint and allied fight,” said Paul Ferraro, president of Air Power for Raytheon Missiles & Defense.
StormBreaker is a fielded munition on the U.S. Air Force’s F-15E Strike Eagle, and the weapon has performed various live drops and weapons evaluations since. The U.S. Navy will declare initial operating capability on the Super Hornet after operational testing concludes. Integration activities are also underway on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well as additional manned and unmanned platforms. (Source: ASD Network)
19 Jul 22. MBDA Presents its Vision for Weapon Effects Optimisation in the FCAS. At the Farnborough International Airshow 2022, MBDA is presenting, as part of Team Tempest on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) stand, its vision for optimising weapon effects in the future battlespace through its Weapon Effects Management System.
As part of its involvement in the FCAS programme, MBDA is developing a Weapon Effects Management System. Working closely with our Partners in the programme, the concept intends to deliver software that works in harmony with the core platform’s mission systems and sensor suite, providing the best threat response, deployable at the most opportune moment, therefore maximising the overall mission effectiveness.
In an ever increasingly complex operating environment, a pilot – or even remote operator – will need the assistance of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) of a Weapon Effects Management capability to reduce their cognitive burden and facilitate the coordination of all available complex weapons in a battle space.
It may also be that the best effect does not come from the system’s core platform, but an un-crewed adjunct or UCAV or even from wider in the battlespace such as a ground or naval-based systems, or a combination of them. An additional capability of the system is to exploit sensing and data-linking capabilities on an Effector to contribute into a mission system thus increasing situational awareness This is what MBDA’s weapon effects management capability aims to manage for the pilot, providing them the optimal solution to choose from before they even have to think about it.
Chris Allam, Managing Director of MBDA UK and Executive Group Director of Engineering, said: “At MBDA, we know that networked weapons, cooperating in packs, or even swarms, will provide an operational advantage in the future battlespace. The Future Combat Air System will also have the information advantage in that same space. Coupling the two, the vision for the Weapon Effects Management System is to enable true effects optimisation, making complex weapons simple.”
Lorenzo Mariani, Managing Director of MBDA Italia and Executive Group Director of Sales and Business Development, said: “MBDA is able to provide customers with the ability to co-operatively manage effects, including all the technologies needed to defeat increasingly challenging future threats. These capabilities will be the basis of best-in-class next generation multi-domain systems. The FCAS programme is a further great opportunity to co-operate internationally and leverage each country’s advanced capabilities to offer the market new cutting edge performances”.
Working as part of Team Tempest from the outset of the programme is enabling MBDA to concept and assess this weapon effects management system alongside all the other partners in the FCAS programme, in keeping with the objective of designing a system from sensors through to effectors from the outset. (Source: ASD Network)
19 Jul 22. DARPA completes second flight-test for HAWC missile. The test achieved all primary and secondary objectives, including a demonstration of tactical range capabilities. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has successfully completed the second flight test for the scramjet-powered Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) missile. It was conducted in collaboration with Raytheon Missiles & Defense and Northrop Grumman. During the test, Raytheon’s HAWC design was released from the aircraft and was boosted to the expected ignition envelope using Northrop Grumman’s scramjet engine. The cruiser was propelled to a speed of Mach 5 to reach altitudes exceeding 60,000ft for more than 300nm. The test achieved all primary and secondary objectives, including a demonstration of tactical range capabilities.
The latest test used data from the first flight test, held in 2021, to mature an operationally relevant weapon concept design.
Raytheon Missiles & Defense Advanced Technology president Colin Whelan said: “The test demonstrated how we’ve rapidly matured affordable scramjet technology, which is the basis for air-breathing weapons.”
Separately, Raytheon Missiles & Defense and the US Air Force (USAF) have also executed the first guided launch of AIM-120D3 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM) form, fit, function, refresh (F3R).
The first of five planned missile shots in an integrated test series was conducted from an F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft against a QF-16 full-scale aerial target at long range on 30 June.
The test aimed to validate sub-system integration to support all phases of guided flight.
Furthermore, the Norwegian Government is planning to procure Raytheon Missiles & Defense’s StormBreaker smart network-enabled weapon for the Royal Norwegian Air Force’s (RNoAF) F-35 fleet. The company has started the preparations to integrate StormBreaker into the RNoAF capabilities. (Source: airforce-technology.com)
18 Jul 22. Raytheon Missiles & Defense, Northrop Grumman complete second hypersonic weapon flight test. Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) business, in partnership with Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), successfully completed its second flight test of the scramjet-powered Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, or HAWC, for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Air Force.
This flight test applied the data and lessons learned from the first flight to mature the operationally relevant weapon concept design. The test met all primary and secondary objectives, including demonstrating tactical range capabilities.
“The test demonstrated how we’ve rapidly matured affordable scramjet technology, which is the basis for air-breathing weapons,” said Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology for Raytheon Missiles & Defense. “Our second HAWC flight test success is an important milestone for our nation as we advance hypersonic systems.”
During the flight test, after releasing HAWC from an aircraft and accelerating to hypersonic speeds using the scramjet engine, the vehicle flew a trajectory that engineers designed to intentionally stress the weapon concept to explore its limits and further validate digital performance models. These models, grounded in real-world flight data, are being used to accurately predict and increase performance as the system matures.
“The second flight test is a big step toward scramjet technology being mission ready,” said Dan Olson, vice president and general manager of Weapon Systems for Northrop Grumman. “Nearly twenty years of scramjet propulsion research and development have come to fruition to significantly advance our nation’s weapon capabilities.”
Scramjet engines use high vehicle speed to forcibly compress incoming air before combustion to enable sustained flight at hypersonic speeds – Mach 5 or greater. The system was designed to use a widely available hydrocarbon fuel, and since it uses air for combustion, it does not have to carry the added weight of an onboard oxidizer. These key attributes allow for a safe, efficient, and tactically sized, long-range hypersonic weapon. By traveling at these speeds, hypersonic weapons like HAWC can reach their targets more quickly than traditional missiles, allowing them to potentially evade defense systems.
Raytheon Missiles and Defense and Northrop Grumman have been working together since 2019 to develop, produce and integrate Northrop Grumman’s scramjet engines onto Raytheon’s air-breathing hypersonic weapons. Their combined efforts enable both companies to produce air-breathing hypersonic weapons, the next generation of tactical missile systems.
17 Jul 22. USAF weighing future of key hypersonic program after two successful tests. The Air Force is encouraged by successful back-to-back tests of a key hypersonic weapons program, but hasn’t yet decided how to proceed once it moves beyond the middle tier acquisition phase, its top acquisition official said July 16. At a roundtable with reporters at the Royal International Air Tattoo here, Andrew Hunter said the Air Force is still trying to answer a key question as it develops hypersonic capabilities: What is the mix of weapons it needs for the threats the U.S. faces, particularly China, and how might a hypersonic such as the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, fit in?
“Obviously, you wouldn’t buy something that doesn’t work,” Hunter said. “But even if it does work, it’s got to be the right contribution to the overall weapons mix and the highest priority targets. That’s what’s driving [Air Force] decision making.”
Last week, the Air Force’s second successful test flight in a row of ARRW ended the program’s booster test phase and moved it into its next phase of all-up-round testing. That will begin later this year.
Hunter said the Air Force is considering what it will do after ARRW finishes the middle tier acquisition phase — but that it has shown much promise. The Defense Department uses the middle tier acquisition approach to quickly produce prototypes that demonstrate a capability works.
ARRW is already at a “significantly higher level of maturity” than previous hypersonic programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Hunter said.
And when the prototyping work on ARRW is done, he added, he wants the Air Force to be ready to move into production of a usable hypersonic weapon.
Hypersonic weapons can reach speeds of greater than Mach 5 and maneuver midflight, making them capable of penetrating enemy defenses and hard to track and shoot down. China and Russia have focused heavily on researching and developing hypersonics, and some lawmakers have blasted the Defense Department for not doing enough to match their hypersonic capabilities.
The Air Force’s ARRW program had a string of three testing failures last year, when the ARRW had problems during launch. The failures and other delays led Congress to cut almost $161 m in the fiscal 2022 budget that would have let the Air Force procure ARRWs; lawmakers moved half that money to the research, development, test and evaluation account for hypersonics.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who had repeatedly said the service needs to consider what role hypersonics should play in its arsenal, then said at a conference “ARRW still has to prove itself.”
But in May, the Air Force announced a successful test of ARRW from a B-52H Stratofortress. Lockheed Martin, which makes the ARRW, said after that test the program is expected to reach early operational capability next year.
Hunter said one of the biggest problems that typically shows up during the all-up-round testing phase are unexpected integration issues — “you know, the easy stuff,” he joked. (Source: Defense News)
18 Jul 22. New national enterprise approach for air platform protection.
The Ministry of Defence is partnering with UK industry in a collaborative approach to delivering next-generation air survivability solutions.
At Farnborough International Airshow, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD), Leonardo UK, Thales UK and Chemring Countermeasures are delighted to announce the formation of Team Pellonia.
A collaborative national enterprise approach to delivering UK next-generation air survivability (NGAS) solutions, the team will ensure that UK armed forces’ air platforms have access to the best possible protective equipment while maintaining strategic skills and capabilities onshore.
Named after the Roman goddess who was renowned for protecting people from their enemies, Team Pellonia will see the UK Ministry of Defence, led by the Royal Air Force (RAF), Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) working in a close relationship with a best-of-British industry team comprising:
- Leonardo UK: the UK’s onshore provider of integrated air platform protection capabilities, including advanced radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) sensors and effectors
- Thales in the UK: the UK’s producer of a world-class infra-red based threat warning system and intelligent countermeasures dispensing system
- Chemring Countermeasures: the UK-based global leader in design, development, testing and manufacture of RF and IR countermeasures, including active decoys and threat agnostic countermeasures
Together, the team represents UK onshore knowledge and capability in the field of air platform protection. Team Pellonia will develop integrated self-protection systems for UK armed forces’ platforms, with a mission to ensure that aircraft crews can respond to emerging threats with life-saving speed and agility.
Air Vice-Marshal Lincoln Taylor CB OBE, Chief of Staff – Capability, Royal Air Force said: “Survivability is at the heart of the UK’s operational independence. As part of Team Pellonia, the UK MOD will strive to ensure that UK NGAS capabilities are available to meet the UK’s air platform protection requirements. This will provide the best possible protection for our people and capabilities, ensuring that MOD and Industry investment is perfectly aligned as we develop the next-generation of capabilities.”
The announcement builds on the individual strategic partnering arrangements signed by the 3 companies with the MOD over the last 12 months, as well as on the team members’ rich history of collaboration on UK platform protection capabilities. Leonardo provides integrated defensive suites for RAF Typhoons and the majority of the UK’s helicopter fleet including the AW159 Wildcat, AW101 Merlin and Apache AH-64E. Many of these systems incorporate electronics from Thales, while Chemring countermeasures are widely employed across the UK’s fleets. Team Pellonia will act as a catalyst to deepen this cooperation further and deliver enterprise-wide innovation.
The team are already on contract to deliver protection systems for the RAF’s fleet of Shadow surveillance aircraft and the new Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft. Looking to the future, a number of UK air platforms will be reviewed in the coming years. Team Pellonia will drive to ensure that UK NGAS capabilities are available to meet defence’s needs.
Team Pellonia partners will work together to offer defence platform-level integrated self-protection systems based on Leonardo’s Modular Advanced Platform Protection System (MAPPS) architecture. Depending on the platform requirements, sensors and effectors could include Leonardo’s Miysis Directed Infrared Countermeasure (DIRCM), Thales’s Elix-IR® Threat Warning System (TWS), Thales’s Vicon XF Countermeasures Dispensing System (CMDS) and Chemring’s full suite of expendable countermeasures.
As the science inside UK defence and security, Dstl will act as technical partner to the team throughout the capability development, system integration and entry into service process, providing quality assurance throughout to ensure military advantage now and into the future.
As well as working together to provide the advanced capabilities of today, the Team Pellonia members will work together to agree a roadmap for investment that draws on the strengths of each team member in a collaborative enterprise-wide approach to the future survivability of air platforms. UK allies that share similar requirements will also be able to access self-protection systems from Team Pellonia. These systems will be compliant with the NATO Defensive Aids System (NDAS) standard and therefore have substantial export potential, bringing economic and social value back to the UK.
The close relationships forged through Team Pellonia will give UK defence and UK industry the confidence to invest in and develop cutting-edge new capabilities and maintain critical skills onshore, ensuring that the UK’s armed forces continue to have access to the latest protective technologies for years to come. (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
14 Jul 22. Indonesia conducts loading trials of 155 mm howitzers for rapid insertion operations. The Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) has conducted loading trials of the CAESAR 155 mm/52-calibre self-propelled howitzer system onboard one of its C-130H transport aircraft.
The trials pave the way for the first rapid artillery insertion drills involving the weapon type, which are scheduled to be held in August 2022, the Indonesian Army said in an 11 July statement. These drills will be conducted as part of Exercise ‘Garuda Shield’, an annual bilateral military activity held with the US Army in Indonesia, the service added.
The loading trials were conducted on 4 July at the Kertajati International Airport in West Java. It involved a C-130H airframe from the Indonesian Air Force’s Aviation Squadron 31 and a CAESAR 155 mm/52 calibre unit from the Indonesian Army Strategic Reserve Command’s Field Artillery Battalion 9.
The Indonesian Army operates 55 CAESAR 155 mm/52 calibre self-propelled artillery pieces, the first of which were ordered under a 2012 contract signed with French defence firm Nexter Systems. The weapon was first operationalised by the service in 2016. (Source: Janes)