Skunk Works will hand of ARRW production to missiles and fire control. (Air Force Magazine) Skunk Works itself has the capacity to produce 8-12 per year, and when ARRW gets full-rate production it will get handed over. “The company is employing a “best of the best” philosophy, using expertise from different divisions to bring ARRW to service. The space division has “that extra [knowledge] in high-speed aerodynamics [and] heat transfer,” while Skunk Works has “that best-in-class aerodynamics,” and Missiles and Fire Control has “state-of-the-art” expertise with the booster.”
Space Force awards $32 million in contracts to startups and small businesses. (Space News) “At a virtual pitch event Aug. 19, the U.S. Space Force selected 19 companies that each will receive $1.7 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase 2 contracts. The ‘Space Force Pitch Day’ marked the launch of SpaceWERX.” 24 companies gave pitches over a two day period. Space Force to kick off new program to attract small businesses and startups. (Space News) “We’re particularly excited about Space Prime,” said Lt. Col. Walter McMillan, SpaceWERX director.
New US Air Force secretary to shake up Advanced Battle Management Program. (Defense News) “The new U.S. Air Force secretary says he’s skeptical about current plans to build the service’s Advanced Battle Management System, signaling the program could be heading for an overhaul. “I want to focus it more on specific operational return on investment… I want to emphasize fielded, meaningful military capability, not just a demonstration that you show what cool thing you could do, but real capability in the hands of operators.”
China forecasts beginning of shipbuilding boom. (Maritime Executive) “CANSI reported that the country’s shipbuilders received orders for 28.39 million dwt so far in 2021, which amounted to more than 40 percent of the total orders placed during the period. They said Chinese yards delivered 23.18 million dwt in the first half of 2021 both for domestic and international shipowners, which was more than 47 percent of the total ships delivered in 2021…. Steel, which accounts for more than 20 percent of total shipbuilding costs, is the costliest component in the construction process, they said, citing a 50 percent increase in cost in 2021.”
What is federated learning? (Venture Beat) “The main idea behind federated learning is to train a machine learning model on user data without the need to transfer that data to cloud servers… Federated learning starts with a base machine learning model in the cloud server. This model is either trained on public data (e.g., Wikipedia articles or the ImageNet dataset) or has not been trained at all… Then they train the model on the device’s local data. After training, they return the trained model to the server… Once the server receives the [models] from user devices, it updates the base model with the aggregate parameter values of user-trained models.
Chaos continues at Boeing. (Motley Fool) “The next-generation 777X was supposed to revive demand for large passenger jets. However, while the first delivery was originally scheduled for 2020, it was delayed to late 2023 earlier this year. Even hitting that target may be impossible… Meanwhile, the 787 Dreamliner has experienced a series of production miscues. Boeing has periodically identified new manufacturing flaws over the past year, forcing it to halt deliveries again and again. It delivered just two 787s in the first quarter.” Don’t forget the KC46-A, SLS, or Starliner capsule fiascos.
ALIS is dying; Long live F-35’s ODIN. (Breaking Defense) “Between April and May, Pax River testers evaluated the most recent software release for the F-35, designed for the original ALIS Standard Operating Units (SOUs) and the [ODIN Base Kit] OBK. The OBK is 30% cheaper, 75% smaller and 90% lighter than the ALIS SOU, according to the Joint Program Office.” Also, it “cuts processing times by as much as 50%.” ODIN has been installed in two squadrons, with 12 additional deployments planned to be finished in 2022.
Federal Trade Commission chair appears skeptical of proposed Lockheed-Aerojet merger. (Space News) “Lina Khan expressed concerns about vertical mergers where a large corporation seeks to acquire a major supplier… Khan’s views on defense industry consolidation were laid out in an Aug. 6 letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who opposes the Lockheed-Aerojet merger and has been a longtime critic of defense industry consolidation. Raytheon Technologies, headquartered in Warren’s home state, said it would challenge the merger. Aerojet Rocketdyne’s engines are used by both Raytheon and Lockheed Martin in tactical and strategic missiles… Lockheed Martin said the merger should follow the same template as Northrop Grumman’s acquisition in 2018 of solid rocket motors manufacturer Orbital ATK.”
“Time to change our future”: Thurgood pledges Army acquisition speed, transparency. (Breaking Defense) Difficult to excerpt: “Being transparent. Moving fast. Letting soldiers instead of engineers guide a weapon’s development. Tackle a “wicked hard problem” — like completing a hypersonic system — and get it done and fielded in five years… One of the prime drivers behind these changes is Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood, the Army’s director for hypersonics, directed energy, space and rapid acquisition. His position was created to drive the Army forward in these key areas… [But] Will Congress and the Army give him “enough funding and managerial flexibility to pick winners at scale? Will he truly innovate like we did in the 1950s, which means delivering operational capability in the two to five years that this nation once routinely used to do?” I’m not sure why Thurgood thinks having contractors show him EVMS data is so transparent.
General Dynamics opens new unmanned underwater vehicle manufacturing center. (Defense News) $30M investment in Taunton, Mass. “In 2019, General Dynamics was awarded a low-rate initial production contract for Knifefish, which is based on the 21-inch diameter version of the Bluefin Robotics UUV [which has customers like Australia’s Navy]… General Dynamics bought Bluefin Robotics in 2016 after partnering with the company to use its Bluefin-21 as the base for Knifefish. Knifefish refers to the specific configuration with the Navy’s sensors for mine countermeasures. “
Mission not-so-impossible: why this hypersonic weapon will change warfare. (National Interest) Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) is now known as “Dark Eagle,” slated to be ready by 2023. ““Our all up round is a thirty-four-inch booster which will be common between the Army and the Navy,” Strider said. “We will shoot exactly the same thing the Navy shoots out of a sub or ship.” Transportable on board an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, the LRHW is intended to be road-mobile such that it can hold targets at risk from multiple changing locations to maximize surprise and speed of attack.”
US Navy investing $1.7 billion to improve Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. (Naval News) “The seven-year project, part of the Navy’s comprehensive Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), will construct an addition to Dry Dock 1 within the existing flood basin area, as well as new concrete floors, walls, pump systems, caissons, and other mechanical and electrical utilities, enhancing the 221-year-old shipyard’s ability to handle multiple Los Angeles-class and Virginia-class submarines.”
US Army wants a high-altitude jammer. (C4ISRNET) “HELIOS will be an attritable sensor mounted to a solar glide vehicle or a balloon, designed to operate at 60,000 feet or above… “Essentially our question is can we get the payload light enough to fly on this penetrating, high-altitude, attributable platform, get close enough to place our effects on target, likely with a special purpose electronic attack or RF-enabled cyber.”
Defense contractor, hour employees sentenced in $7 million procurement fraud scheme. (Wavy) “… the five defendants obtained government contracts that had certain set-aside preferences and source-of-good requirements. They were found to have then fraudulently imported goods into the U.S. that were made in China in violation of the terms of their contracts. After the goods were imported, they would falsely relabel them and pretend that they were made in the US… They were sentenced to a combined 151 months in prison.
Air Force leadership needs to ‘walk the walk’ in baking security into cyber, software boss says. (Air Force Magazine) “I realized pretty quickly, we’re very behind in cyber, to a point that it was very scary when it comes to critical infrastructure and the lack of security,” Chaillan said… “I’m actually very concerned with the Space Force starting to potentially drift away from the Air Force. It would really be a big mistake, compounding on the existing silos between the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and fourth estate,” Chaillan said. Even beyond the service level, Chaillan said, he’s noticed a tendency for wings and other units to develop workarounds and solutions for their own specific software problems. While this is useful on a small scale, it creates larger issues. “We do have to be careful because if you let everybody code in vacuums … who is going to maintain it—who’s going to sustain it once that person moves on?” Chaillan said. “Maybe I’m too blunt sometimes, but I tell people, you know, right now JADC2 has probably zero chance of success, period, full stop,” Chaillan said.
The Texas National Guard just unveiled the largest 3D printed structure in North America. (Defense One) “The recent unveiling of an entire barracks building 3D-printed with concrete showed off the latest example of the U.S. military putting additive manufacturing to work… So-called performance based requirements are a change from the much more rigid design requirements that can lock the military into designs that are obsolete by the time they are deployed… while the United States is ahead technologically on 3D printing, Russia and China are putting it to wider use, said Holmes, noting that those countries have facilities to 3D print key components in hypersonic rockets and missiles.”
Contracts advance Skyborg toward becoming a program of record on time. (Air Force Magazine) “Contracts worth a combined $20.2 million to Kratos and General Atomics for development [integration??] of the Autonomous Core System of the Skyborg unmanned aircraft control system will propel Skyborg toward becoming a program of record on time in 2023… “I won’t say [2023] is not achievable,” White told reporters in a press conference Aug. 12. “I will just say that it has to be balanced with all of the other requirements we have across the portfolio.”” Boeing won’t fly with the ACS until next year.
Get ready for the next generation of high-performance propulsion. (Air Force Magazine) “In partnership with the US Air Force, GE’s XA100, however, rewrites the book on aviation power. Turbofan technology can be optimized to do one of two things. Elongating the turbofan increases thrust, while broadening the engine’s aperture improves efficiency. The XA100 is able to reconfigure itself on demand, shifting from fuel efficiency for extended range and loiter times to high-thrust for air combat. “
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