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19 Dec 14. BlackBerry and Boeing Team Up to Offer Self-Destructing Spy Phone. Boeing Co. is teaming up with BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY) on a secretive, self-destructing smartphone developed for use by U.S. defense and homeland security employees and contractors. The partnership showcases a push by Boeing, the second-largest U.S. defense contractor, into software development as sales slow for its military hardware amid Pentagon budget cuts. BlackBerry gains a new way to hold on to its government base as commercial sales decline. “We’re pleased to announce that Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide a secure mobile solution for Android devices utilizing our BES12 platform,” John Chen, chairman and chief executive officer of Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry, said during an earnings call today. “That by the way is all they allow me to say.” The Chicago-based aerospace company has been testing its secure smartphone, known as the Boeing Black, with BlackBerry’s main business enterprise server product, known as BES, which provides software that allows large corporations and government departments to keep track of their employees’ devices. The server is compatible with Android and iPhone handsets. The companies are “pursuing a number of opportunities” that would pair the Boeing device with BlackBerry’s server, Andy Lee, a Boeing spokesman, said in a phone interview. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Bloomberg)
22 Dec 14. Skunk Works Continues Demos Of Open Architecture Tech. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is continuing work to mature and demonstrate its “open system architecture” (OSA) capabilities with flights of various sensors on the venerable U-2 test aircraft at the company’s facility in Palmdale, California. The company demonstrated three different electronic warfare sensors on the U-2, switching each out in significantly less time than required when not using the OSA approach, says John Clark, who oversaw the demonstrations for the company. “I’m very surprised at how well things went,” Clark tells Aviation Week. Typically, integration of a new sensor would require 6-10 weeks; using the OSA architecture (intended to allow for a more plug-and-play approach), each required about one day, he says. The tests included on-board contingency operations, planning for no-fly zones and insertion of unplanned threats and “no-image” zones. Operators also collected data against emitters and also executed dynamic retasking while in flight. The task requiring the most time was actually getting brackets fabricated to hold the sensors, not actual integration or checkout of the technology mating onto the high-flying intelligence aircraft, Clark said. The sorties occurred Nov. 13 and Nov. 19; the team then broke for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and resumed flights in early December. Lockheed Martin’s Enterprise OSA is its architecture designed to comply with Air Force open mission system payload standards. The Air Force hopes these standards will allow for sensors and platforms to be quickly mated so that a small intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance fleet can be used to its maximum potential with diminished down time among assets. The Pentagon has long chased a true open system approach that divorces hardware and software from contractors’ proprietary constraints. The company used the OSA during the Project Missouri tests during which company officials demonstrated the ability for fifth-generation aircraft to communicate with other aircraft using a unique waveform developed by L3 Communications. The flights were funded by Lockheed Martin and industry partners demonstrating their sensors. Clark says the next step in maturing the capability would be to integrate more complex payloads onto the aircraft. (Source: Google/AvWeek)
22 Dec 14. Astrodyne Corporation, a global developer and manufacturer