At a briefing in Lemours, France Thales raised the possibility of further integration of the European defence industry through its radar business. Speaking to reporters, the managing director of the company’s surface radar business, Jean-Loic Galle, said that the radar market in Europe was currently too crowded and that consolidation would serve the interests of business and the customer.

There are currently some eight companies in Europe specialising in radar development while in the equivalent US market there are only three major radar houses - Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Galle said that given the costs of developing new radar systems it would potentially be beneficial to look at consolidating activities in the area. He added that this view had also been expressed in informal conversation by his counterparts at BAE Systems and EADS.

Similarly, Michel Mathieu, chief executive officer of Thales Raytheon Systems (TRS) - the Franco-US radar and air defence joint venture - said that the costs of developing future radar systems were a major force in bringing Thales and Raytheon together. Mathieu said that there was a lot of investment and research and development (R&D) costs in the business.

Any tie-ups in Europe may take time to materialise and in the meantime Thales is working hard to secure its radar business for the future. Currently, the company reinvests 16% of the revenues of the business back in to R&D.

Galle said that the company was taking concrete steps to ensure the future of its surface radar business through a number of steps. Key to this is the SR3D platform that ensures that the company is developing a high-level of modularity and platform agnosticism in to its future radar family for both ground and maritime applications.

Patrick Berniolles, vice president Platform, who has been the architect of the SR3D told Digital Battlespace that a lot of effort has been taken to ensure commonality across the company’s future radar products such as its future ground and naval surface radars. He said that it was important in engineering terms to prevent the company from continuing to develop solutions that were incompatible between systems.

SR3D has been at the heart of the development of the company’s scaleable Ground Master family of radars and the technology is also being leveraged by the business unit’s Dutch component in its development of the Integrated Mast concept for naval ships.

Currently, Thales, through TRS, is under contract  to supply the Ground Master radar to three countries - France, Slovakia and Malaysia. TRS is also bullish about its prospects on a fourth contract which is currently under competition in a small South East Asian state and for which TRS is offering the mobile Ground Master 400.

A decision on a winner in the competition is expected in December. The contract is believed to be for two radars with a potential follow on order for a further four radars. The radars will be used by the state to enhance the capability of its recently procured Spyder mobile air defence system.

In an impressive virtual demonstration here at MILCOM, Wind River, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Collins and Raytheon co-operated in four airborne missions that all required tactical information to be shared in real time between multiple assets with different security clearance levels, a capability that warfighters don’t yet have but desperately need.

These companies, along with the US DoD, are members of the Open Group, which is described as ‘a vendor- and technology-neutral consortium focused on open standards and global interoperability within and between enterprises’. They have been working to develop Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS), an emerging high-assurance and high-robustness security architecture and this demonstration marks a milestone in MILS development.

The demonstration included a Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD/DEAD) mission, an Offensive Counter Air (OCA) mission, a Time Sensitive Targeting (TST) mission and a Combat Search And Rescue (CSAR) mission.

In the first, a Global Hawk, an F/A-18 Hornet, a UCAV and a Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) worked together to destroy an enemy SAM site. The sequence of events went something like this: the SAM radar illuminated the Global Hawk and in the process was detected, identified and located by an RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft that passed the information to the CAOC. The CAOC then tasked the Global Hawk to gather high resolution video of the site and link it back to the CAOC for confirmation. With the SAM site confirmed as a legitimate target, the CAOC then tasked the Hornet to destroy it, a job which it delegated to the loitering UCAV, which, like the other assets involved transmitted WILCO and HAVECO messages back to the CAOC as appropriate, either directly or using team members as relays. On receiving the UCAV’s HAVECO via the Hornet, the CAOC then tasked the Global Hawk to get battle damage assessment imagery to confirm destruction of the SAM site.

In subsequent missions an F-22 Raptor worked with an E-3 Sentry AWACS and the CAOC to down a pair of threatening MiG fighters, a SOF unit on the ground located a SCUD Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) and reported it to the CAOC, which tasked a Hornet to destroy it. Again, the Hornet delegated the task to the UCAV. In the final example, the CAOC received distress call from a downed allied pilot and initiated a CSAR mission. The CAOC tasked the Hornet to fly a protective combat air patrol over the downed pilot, tasked the Global Hawk to establish visual contact and launched an HH-60 helicopter to go and pick the aviator up.

The MILS approach to information assurance (IA) uses off-the-shelf products evaluated against common criteria as a base to achieve secure information sharing in the battlespace, says the Open Group. ‘The MILS architecture partitions application programs, data, and communications in distributed systems and enables development of systems where multiple levels of security domains exist on a single processor, making it possible to replace several traditional, federated computers. By using the MILS architecture, high assurance systems development, certification, accreditation, purchase, deployment, and operation is more efficient, more affordable, and lower risk’, says the organisation.

General Dynamics’ Handheld, Manpack and Small Form Fit (HMS) radios will enable communication between tactical vehicles while they are on-the-move. The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Wideband Networking Waveform and 802.16 wireless networking technologies are bringing the added capability. The software makes the radios suitable for communicating large amounts of information and for on-line collaboration between moving vehicles.

General Dynamics C4 Systems, currently under contract to deliver the HMS radios to the U.S. Department of Defense, is demonstrating the radios’ vehicle-borne communications capability at the MILCOM 2008 military communication forum. Recognized for attracting key decision-makers and innovators, MILCOM continues today in San Diego, Calif. The demonstration shows HMS radios meeting battlefield networking requirements by:

embedding waveforms, like the Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) and IEEE 802.16 or “WiMAX’ wide-area networking, to provide the needed bandwidth and spectrum range to facilitate communication between tactical vehicles while they are moving;

rapidly increasing the radios’ mission scope by enabling communication between vehicles and soldiers on the ground.

“Demonstrating WNW and 802.16 for advanced, high-speed networking places HMS in a class by itself for performance and efficiency,” said Chris Brady, vice president of Assured Communications Systems for General Dynamics C4 Systems. 

HMS radios are designed to meet all JTRS waveform-compliance, interoperability and security standards.  The first HMS radios will be in warfighters’ hands in early 2010.

Other HMS radios are currently in user tests to prove their effectiveness in close-combat tactical communication, including the Rifleman radio in use by the U.S. Army’s Evaluation Task Force at Fort Bliss. The Rifleman radio mirrors the Small Form Fit- C (SFF-C) Version 1 of HMS with additional radio controls and its own power supply.
General Dynamics C4 Systems is a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE:  GD). General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., employs approximately 85,600 people worldwide. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies. More information about the company is available on the Internet at www.generaldynamics.com.

The Honourable Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, told the audience at the MILCOM conference and exhibition here in San Diego, California, that despite recent successes in Iraq, Al Quaida remains the greatest threat to the United States and that the potential for wider conflict over the next 10 to 15 years is going up, not down.

Coalition and Iraqi forces are defeating Al Quaida in Iraq, McConnell said, pointing to a 65 to 80% reduction in the movement’s capability in the country since January 2007, a success for which he credited high levels of cooperation between the various US intelligence services and those of their allies. He said that the level of cooperation in collection, integration, sharing and support is unprecedented. The result, In Sadr City, for example, is an extremely effective combination of 24/7 surveillance, signals intelligence, human intelligence and special operations forces. 

Persuading the US intelligence services to cooperate with one another is an achievement in itself, as, historically, they have consistently been criticised by Congress for being bad at it. There have been 41 reviews since the Second World War and they all say the same thing; that the intelligence services ought to be better at sharing information. McConnell has finally managed to give those recommendations some teeth. ‘Now if you are going to be a senior leader you have to have left your parent command and served in a joint assignment. It took us two years, but we have that in place now.’

The bad news is that many Al Quaida operatives are walking away and going to North Africa, East Africa and Afghanistan. McConnell is worrying about Yemen, Algeria, Lebanon and Somalia. The senior leadership, he said, is still in the Afghan/Pakistan border area, but they are more focused on their own survival than on attacking the US.

‘We have had great success’, he said, ‘but the issue now is how can we sustain it? How can we keep the trend going that loses them members?’ He cited what he called voices of moderation in Islam who are increasingly pointing out that most of Al Quaida’s victims have been Muslims.

In another domain altogether, preparation for a cyber attack ought to be high on the community’s to do list, McConnell told the MILCOM audience. He said that the US is the most vulnerable nation on earth to cyber attack because the US is most dependent on the net. For example, military C2, banking, transport, power and finance all depend on the internet. Top secret C2 and banking go over the same infrastructure as grandma’s fruitcake recipe.

The most serious kind of cyber attack, he said, is not hacking but data destruction. ‘That is much more of a threat than theft of information or denial of service attacks – data is the soft underbelly.’ The community is currently focused on attack, he said, but that ‘pales in comparison with the responsibility for defence. In either case we have to be able to exploit the other side. We need to know their signatures, and then we can prepare for defence.

What of the future? There is a report due for release next week that will say that the potential for conflict in the next 10-15 years is going up, not down. The drivers are centred on competition for resources. Over that period, around 1.4 billion people will be added to the Earth’s population, which is the same number that today don’t have reliable access to water. The cost of food will go up by 50%, energy supply will shift focus from oil to coal and gas. Nations, non-governmental organisations, corporations and terrorist groups will compete for resources.

McConnell is often in the Oval office from 4AM, he says, where he is greeted ‘as a bad news guy in a bad news world.’

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has successfully conducted the first demonstration flight of the company’s newest Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) fighter sensor, the Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR). SABR is being developed as a significant avionics enhancement for the existing fleet of F-16s and other fighter aircraft worldwide.

“This first flight marks a major milestone in our effort to develop an AESA radar designed specifically to meet current F-16 power, cooling, and interface requirements,” said Arlene Camp, director of Advanced F-16 Radar Programs at Northrop Grumman. “Although designed specifically for the F-16, SABR is scalable and adaptable to other platforms and missions.”

SABR completed its first flight ahead of schedule on November 16, successfully detecting and displaying numerous aerial targets, and exceeding first flight predictions, Camp noted.

“This demonstration flight is the first in a series scheduled over the next few weeks as we transition SABR from a laboratory environment to an operational flight environment,” said Camp. “The Sabreliner testbed aircraft has an actual F-16 radome and avionics. We’ve used the Sabreliner for more than 20 years for developing and
testing F-16 mechanically scanned radar hardware and software. It’s as close as you’re going to get to a real F-16 flight demonstration.”

“SABR is Northrop Grumman’s investment toward enhancing and sustaining the F-16’s combat capability for decades to come,” added Camp. “We plan to demonstrate SABR on an F-16 next year.”

Compared to the mechanically-scanned array radars it is designed to replace, SABR will provide the increased performance, multi-functionality, and greater reliability inherent in AESA radars. The improved situational awareness, greater detection, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar, and interleaved air-to-air and air-to-surface mode operations will provide pilots true all-environment precision strike capability.

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] [has] announced it is changing the name of its Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) business in Australia to Boeing Defence Australia. John Duddy is appointed vice president and managing director of Boeing Defence Australia effective Dec. 8, 2008.

The new name and leadership appointment build on a recent reorganization as the company seeks to further strengthen relationships with Australian military customers and position itself for future growth in Australia.

“Australia is an important customer to Boeing. We very much value both our armed services customer and the team that we have in place there,” said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing IDS. “These changes bring our Australia operations and Boeing’s global IDS businesses into closer alignment, allowing us to more effectively provide support and solutions to our customers.”

Duddy will be responsible for positioning Boeing Defence Australia for continued success in global defense markets. His career with Boeing spans 26 years. Prior to this appointment, he was program director of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) Programs for IDS Space and Intelligence Systems in Seal Beach, Calif. In that role, he was responsible for executing U.S. government contracts to develop and deploy GPS satellites, as well as sustainment contracts for U.S. legacy satellite systems.

Duddy is a Georgia Institute of Technology industrial engineering graduate and currently serves on the institute’s Industry Advisory Board for the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Boeing Defence Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company and a business unit of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, is a leading Australian aerospace enterprise. With a world-class team of more than 2,300 employees at 15 locations throughout Australia and three international sites, Boeing Defence Australia supports some of the largest and most complex defense projects in Australia.

Boeing [NYSE: BA] announced [on 17 November] that it will add improved capabilities to its technology for the U.S. Air Force’s Operational Control Segment (OCS) satellite ground-control system. The new technology will allow the system to operate the new Boeing-built Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF satellites in addition to the current on-orbit GPS fleet, and provide advanced encryption and data-protection capabilities. The first of 12 GPS IIF satellites is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2009.

“Boeing and the U.S. Air Force GPS Wing’s seamless deployment of the OCS in September 2007 introduced the beginning of a new era of GPS operational capabilities to support our warfighters and civilian users around the world,” said Air Force Col. David Madden. “This additional technology will help us enhance the performance of the new GPS IIF satellites and the current GPS constellation.”

The OCS system, also known as the Architecture Evolution Plan, is a distributed-server-based system designed to improve operations, increase efficiency and provide a foundation for new capabilities.

“This is the first step in enabling the advancements that the GPS IIF satellite brings to the GPS constellation,” said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems. “The flexible design of the OCS system enables it to accommodate technology improvements as they become available.”

Thales UK today announces that the Thales Team, consisting of Thales, BT and Fujitsu, has signed one of two Assessment Phase contracts with the Defence Cryptosecurity Authority (DCA) for the CIPHER programme.
 
The CIPHER programme will provide the capability for a security management infrastructure for all grades of devices necessary to meet the needs of UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and wider government. CIPHER addresses the provision of high-grade cryptographic devices for UK MoD to meet the communications confidentiality, availability, interoperability and integrity needs of the UK MoD for Defence Business and Operations. The CIPHER programme will enable the delivery of a pan-Government security management infrastructure.
 
The Thales Team utilises their Information Assurance (IA) domain expertise and under­standing of the MoD business in an operational context. The team has a track record in the delivery of complex, secure information services, and will use their experience in service based outsourcing and business change for the benefit of the MoD and government CIPHER clients.
 
The Thales Team recognises the compelling drivers for CIPHER and has spent the three months prior to contract award mobilising the team to ensure a fast start to an initial 26-month phase. This phase is to enable a successful procurement of the CIPHER programme. The team will work collaboratively with the MoD to develop a single statement of require­ments. This assess­ment phase will provide a comprehensive evaluation of the technologies, processes and methodologies to establish how best to deliver the CIPHER programme in
the future.
 
Maintaining a vibrant UK market for the manufacture and supply of information assurance capabilities will be critical to CIPHER’s success. On 13 November The Thales Team hosted an industry day for nearly 50 companies at the Defence Capability Centre in Shrivenham, Wilt­shire. At this event, held to ensure inclusion, facilitate innovation and enable agnostic supply from the UK industrial base, Jacqui Chard, Head of Capability, Cabinet Office Central Sponsor for Information Assurance said: “Cipher is an opportunity for Government to maximise the contribution that information makes to its business. Today we start the Assessment Phase”.
 
Sean Mallon, the CIPHER Programme Manager for the DCA says: “CIPHER is an ambitious programme that seeks to exploit the skills and experience of the UK sovereign industrial base to deliver Information Assurance Components and their management over the next decade and beyond. I am looking forward to a compelling competition over the next two years that will yield the best solution for defence and wider government as a whole.”
 
 Alex Dorrian, CEO Thales UK, says: “The CIPHER programme provides a robust analysis of current and future requirements for Information Assurance that will enable the most effective and affordable solution to be delivered. The outcome of the AP will result in a transformation in the way government provides Information Assurance services and tangible benefits to the CIPHER consumers.”

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has been awarded a contract by the 50th Space Wing supporting the Space Innovation and Development Center’s Aerospace Fusion Center (AFC) at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., for the Rapid Prototyping, Integration and Development (RaPID) program.

RaPID is a program that provides operations and maintenance (O&M) support to the AFC and research and development (R&D) in Overhead Non-imaging Infrared (ONIR) ground processing systems to support missile defense, battlespace awareness and space situational awareness missions. The contract is valued up to $72.5 million.

This contract continues Northrop Grumman’s relationship with the AFC for ONIR technology. The company received a contract for RaPID in 2005 for ONIR R&D and to provide ONIR data to multiple R&D users. The new follow-on contract covers funding for fiscal year (FY) 2009 with annual options through FY 2013.

Under the new contract, Northrop Grumman will provide the AFC with O&M and R&D for the Space Awareness and Global Exploitation (SAGE) system, which is a state-of-the-art multi-sensor, multi-mission fusion engine that provides information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to many R&D users. The company will also support the Static Infrared Emitter (SIRE) processor, SAGE client displays, and affiliated hardware, software, crypto and communication lines.

“This award will allow us to broaden our sensor exploitation system contributions to the AFC,” said Joseph J. Ensor, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s Space and ISR Systems Division. “As we continue the development of the SAGE system, we will meet the expanding ONIR data needs of a wide variety of end users.”

Requirements also include the utilization of SAGE analysis events in both real-time and playback mode, integration and tuning of advanced ONIR fusion algorithms in SAGE, providing operational performance assessment, incorporating mission performance improvements on SAGE, and system administration functions. The contract also allows for RaPID to be used by various organizations for their own R&D in such areas as missile defense, battlespace awareness and space situational awareness.

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has delivered the first production Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition (LJDAM) guidance kits to the U.S. Navy, addressing the service’s need to engage fast-moving land targets.

“The combined Navy/Boeing team has done an incredible job turning this urgent need around in record time to meet the warfighter’s requirement,” said Capt. Mathias Winter, U.S. Navy program manager for Precision Strike Weapons. “We look forward to watching Laser JDAM provide the tactical edge needed to successfully fight the fight and win.”
 
The initial delivery to the Navy follows the completion of an extensive LJDAM flight test program at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, Calif., including tests on the F/A-18C/D and AV-8B Harrier aircraft. During the tests, LJDAM successfully engaged both stationary and moving targets, including one traveling at 85 miles per hour. Additional flight tests and clearance activities on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet are expected to begin later this year.

“The successful test program has demonstrated Laser JDAM’s extreme accuracy and effectiveness in engaging fast-moving land targets,” said Dan Jaspering, Direct Attack program manager for Boeing. “We are proud that these deliveries support the Navy’s schedule for this urgently needed capability.”

LJDAM adds a Precision Laser Guidance Set to the standard JDAM guidance tail kit to acquire and track laser-targeted signals. The U.S. Air Force fielded LJDAM in May and has used it successfully in combat.