"The Army may be critically without sufficient replacement Black Hawks to transition away from the grounded Taipans," shadow Defense Minister Andrew Hastie said. That could, he said, mean the Australian Defense Force would "not have enough helicopters to perform missions, including training and exercises with international partners."
Canberra has emphasized the need for more production in Australia not just for the financial benefits, but for the strategic reality that supply lines off the island nation would likely be the first target in a conflict.
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
"We're talking about a shipping container that includes everything: the power supply, the generator, the batteries, all of the computers, all of the antennas that will fit inside," CEO James Palmer said. "You can put it into an area where you wish to get some coverage, deploy the aperture out, and within half-a-day you're up and running and observing stuff in Low Earth Orbit completely covertly."
"The services today are working more what I call 'service all domain command and control' — and don't blame me for the acronym, it sounds like SADC2," said Scott Stapp, CTO of Northrop Grumman Corp.
DIU is seeking companies with the "capability for bulk storage of liquid (>5,000 kg) and gaseous propellants on orbit," including hydrazine, liquid oxygen and others.
"We know that the way of warfare has changed, and we're going to be having difficulties with jamming, and having difficulties getting our position navigation and timing signals to our warfighters," said AFRL Director Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle.
Why edge and endpoint security can’t be an afterthought.
Defense giant hopes other firms will adopt the open-source interface system allowing plug-and-play in orbit.
The F-35 "demonstrated its ability to pass data over various networks from aircraft that took off from Fort Worth, Texas, to other aircraft and bounced information through Hawaii to Australia to provide data to the exercise in Australia," Lockheed's Gary North noted.
BAE has been working to convince its own suppliers to enter into performance-based logistics to cut costs and increase availability of its EW system for the Joint Strike Fighter, said Betsy Warren, BAE's director of sustainment for Electronic Combat Solutions.
"Switzerland has no industrial or program stake in the program, and Swiss procurement, like the country, is largely neutral, so this reflects very well on the F 35’s overall technical appeal," aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group says.
The GPS network continues to prove its unmatched reliability, and it’s only getting stronger.
The Defense Department is shaping the joint all-domain environment by tying sensors to shooters in exercises like Northern Edge 21 and Project Convergence.
"There's a perception out there that Lockheed's going to take everything, and nobody's gonna be able to get in to support of the F-35," said Mike Miles of Lockheed Martin's F-35 logistics unit about the firm's PBL proposal. "That's not the case."
The new SBIRS satellite, called SBIRS GEO 5, will be "the most advanced missile warning satellite" on orbit, said Lt. Col. Ryan Laughton, SMC's program manager.
In this Q&A with Stephanie C. Hill, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president for Rotary and Mission Systems, we discuss how AI/ML, open systems, and edge computing enable JADO.