International Military Discussion

[PratikDas]

Just for the record, wires connecting towers at a launch pad are not exactly something unique to ISRO's way of working.

This from SpaceX https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/27028105566/:

[brar_w]

[brar_w]

Blue Origin Picked To Fly NASA Suborbital Experiments

Origin
BROOMFIELD, Colorado—The Blue Origin New Shepard reusable suborbital launch system has joined NASA’s stable of rides to space and near-space for experiments under its Flight Opportunities Program (FOP), marking another step toward a return on owner Jeff Bezos’ substantial investment in the commercial spaceflight company.
Blue Origin is now able to compete for FOP missions under the agency’s $45 million indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity effort to provide access to space for experiments that meet the needs of NASA and other government agencies, including scientific experiments and spaceflight demonstrations designed to raise the readiness levels of new technologies. Five other companies are in the FOP catalog.
“Adding additional flight providers enables NASA and the broader aerospace community to demonstrate and transition space technologies, developing new capabilities faster and, potentially, at lower cost,” said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which funds the program.
[CHARTBEAT:3]
Ericka Wagner, Blue Origin’s business development manager, outlined the flight services the company is offering on New Shepard for an audience of potential customers at the Next-Generational Suborbital Researchers Conference here. For prices ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 for a single standardized payload locker, the company will help researchers prepare their experiments for flight and send them above the 100-km (62-mi.) Karman line denoting the edge of space for a little less than four minutes of microgravity. Recovery will follow via parachute and a retro-thruster near the vehicle’s launch pad in West Texas.
The company plans to fly FOP payloads, and others, as it works through a series of unmanned test flights that it hopes will lead to crewed flight tests next year, and commercial flights with as many as six paying passenger on board in 2018. In addition to planning for human flights by tourists or researchers, Blue Origin is offering a 60-page payload user’s guide containing information on interfaces, flight loads and the government paperwork that must be completed before an experiment can fly.
In its most recent flight tests—all reusing the same vertical takeoff and landing propulsion module and BE-3 cryogenic engine—the company has flown some simple pathfinder payloads for outside researchers who flew for free. That will change under NASA’s FOP and other new business as the once-secretive company continues to open its doors to paying customers, adding services as it learns more about how the vehicle operates.
The next flight test, also with the same booster, is like to come “soon,” according to Brett Alexander, Blue Origin’s director of strategy and business development. It will push the envelope in tilting the booster to fly back to its landing site, and may wind up destroying the vehicle, he said. Any payloads flying in the capsule should be recovered intact, since it separates and continues to coast upward while the booster begins to descend.
NanoRacks, which provides payload accommodation on the International Space Station and designed the payload accommodation for Virgin Galactic’s suborbital SpaceShipTwo, has developed a standardized locker for the New Shepard under contract to Blue Origin. The hardware can hold 12 2U CubeSat-equivalent experiments, and can also work on the ISS for experiments that get a trial run on the suborbital vehicle before moving on to the orbital outpost, according to Carl Carruthers Jr., NanoRacks chief scientist.
Blue Origin joins Virgin Galactic, Masten Space Systems, UP Aerospace, Near Space Corporation and World View Enterprises in NASA’s FOP catalog. The first three companies provide rocket flights to suborbital space, while the last two offer high-altitude balloon missions to the stratosphere for experiments designed for that environment.

[Austin]

ILS PROTON SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES THE INTELSAT 31 SATELLITE

Peter B. de Selding @pbdes 12:31 AM - 9 Jun 2016

Today's Proton launch is 1st for the vehicle's Phase 4 upgraded version, which adds 150 kg to Proton's performance to GTO.

Peter B. de Selding @pbdes 12:33 AM - 9 Jun 2016

ILS VP John Palme: Proton Phase 4 upgrade = lighter-weight, high-strength metallic structures & high-precision tooling for optimized design.

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes 12:37 AM - 9 Jun 2016

Why upgrade Proton w/ new-generation Angara family waiting in wings? Because Proton rocket'll remain active for another decade, ILS says.

[brar_w]

NASA Deal Gives Dream Chaser A Shot In The Arm

Sierra Nevada Corp. is using its multibillion-dollar NASA contract to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) as a marketing starting gun aimed at selling its Dream Chaser lifting-body vehicle for missions throughout the emerging low-Earth-orbit economy and beyond.With its selection as a third cargo carrier in NASA’s $14 billion, second-round Commercial Resupply Services competition, the privately held aerospace company is pushing Dream Chaser into the international marketplace and mapping its route into the future.

“There’s an existing market, which is the ISS,” says John Olson, vice president for exploration systems in the company’s Space Systems unit. “There’s an emerging market, which is near-term. With kits or no changes, we can capture those markets. Likewise, looking at the growth market and extending out with crewed and on-orbit servicing, and a litany of others, that’s really the big paradigm that we’re driving at.”

And it is a big paradigm indeed. In a presentation at the fifth Next-generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) near the company’s office-park space-hardware factory in Louisville, Colorado, Olson reiterated the advantages of Dream Chaser and gave a taste of what it can do for space researchers who later came over from the NSRC for a tour.“The killer app is coming back at a G and a half in its reentry profile,” he explained of the loads that experiments will experience when Dream Chaser glides to a runway touchdown pretty much anywhere a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320 can land.

That appeals to scientists and engineers who do not want delicate samples created in microgravity to be scrambled on landing by the higher G loads on the commercial capsules. Also attractive to researchers is the free-flying module for pressurized and unpressurized cargo that will ride behind the Dream Chaser lifting body like a utility trailer (see illustration).The cargo module will be left behind when the lifting body reenters to land and is designed to burn up in the atmosphere with as much as 3,250 kg (7,165 lb.) of space station trash inside and another 1,500 kg of unpressurized junk attached to the outside with standard ISS flight-releasable attachment mechanisms usually called “Frams.”

NASA is finding uses for cargo vehicles bound for destruction after they leave the ISS, such as the series of potentially dangerous flame-propagation experiments set for the Orbital ATK Cygnus vehicle. The 15-ft.-long Dream Chaser cargo module has its own solar arrays and can use the power they generate to serve the same extended-mission function, according to John Roth, vice president for business development.

“I can certainly use that,” said one NASA space-science manager on the factory tour, citing the difficulty of finding accommodation and crew time on the space station for experiments that do not meet the agency’s commercialization and exploration-technology priorities.

Olson calls the NASA contract a “stamp of approval” that opens the door for expanded marketing. Dream Chaser is launch-vehicle agnostic, designed to fly on the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V but also compatible with the ULA Delta IV, Europe’s planned Ariane 6, Japan’s H-III upgrade scheduled for operations in 2020 and the SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

The NASA contract does not call for Dream Chaser cargo missions until 2019 at the earliest, so the vehicle also will be compatible with ULA’s planned Vulcan launcher along with either the Blue Origin BE-4 or Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-1 main-stage engines now in competition for the job, according to Olson.

“NASA being the anchor tenant [indicates] a minimum of six missions, and as we build a minimum of two vehicles that have a design life of 15 times over 10 years, that means there’s 30 flights in those two vehicles alone,” Olson says. “And if NASA uses a minimum of six of those, that’s 24 flights where we own the vehicle and aim to fly it quite regularly in that time.”

Originally, Dream Chaser was developed as the Sierra Nevada entry in NASA’s commercial-crew competition, losing out to the capsules proposed by Boeing and SpaceX. The atmospheric test vehicle set for more drop-testing at Edwards AFB, California, later this year still has windows (and the pair of fuzzy dice hanging in them that flew on the first drop test), but the cargo version will eliminate the heavy glass to save weight for launch.

Olson says there is extensive commonality between the crewed and uncrewed variants, and the company plans to complete development of the human-rated version when the business case warrants. On March 28, Sierra Nevada held an airport workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, the site of one of the six facilities the company may contract for landing both variants. The others are Houston Ellington Spaceport, Midland (Texas) Spaceport, Jacksonville (Florida) Cecil Spaceport, Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and Prestwick Airport in Scotland.

Launching Dream Chaser on an expendable rocket will require the same air-traffic safety constraints as any other liftoff from Cape Canaveral or elsewhere, but the company believes the return to Earth will be a different scenario that adds further flexibility to its system.

“When we interface with the National Aerospace System, we’re a very quick entry and pass through,” says Olson, noting the Dream Chaser will go from 100,000 ft. to wheels-stop in less than 3.5 min.

[brar_w]

JAGM Whacks Truck In First Drone Test

WASHINGTON: The US military successfully targeted and destroyed a moving truck from a drone using the missile designed to replace the venerable Hellfire.

The Joint Air To Ground Missile (JAGM) was fired May 25 at a truck traveling at 20 mph from a Grey Eagle drone at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The truck was hit and destroyed. Col. James Romero, with the Army’s Missiles and Space Program Executive Office, said the missile flew a bit farther than 8 kilometers at a “nominal altitude.”

This was the missile’s seventh test but the first time it was fired from a drone. It’s already been tried on Army Apaches and the Marine Corps Cobra helicopters.

JAGM was originally developed to replace the Maverick on the Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, as well as the Hellfire and missiles on the Army’s AH-64D Apache attack helicopter, the Army’s Extended Range Multi-Purpose Sky Warrior drone (which became the Grey Eagle), the Marine’s AH-1Z Super Cobra attack helicopter, and the Navy’s MH-60R Seahawk.

It’s now meant only to replace the Hellfire and some TOW missiles, so the program’s value, which industry sources had pegged at somewhere around $5 billion, may be lower — though it’s hard to tell.

The Army will test JAGM for safety and lethality starting in August. Romero said they’ll be aiming to get air worthiness certificates so they can be deployed on the helicopters.

Lockheed won, unopposed, the $66 million JAGM missile Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract last summer.

[brar_w]

Boeing confident of extending Super Hornet and Growler production

Boeing anticipates an extension of its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler production lines as a result of an increased operational tempo by the US Navy (USN) and strong international interest in procuring the platform, company officials told reporters on 10 June.Speaking at Boeing's Global Sustainment and Support (GS&S) site at Cecil Field in northern Florida, Dan Gillian, Vice President of the F/A-18 and EA-18G programmes, said that, with the USN burning through airframe hours at a far higher rate than originally intended and with additional exports expected in the near term, the company is confident of extending production from the current mid-2018 cut-off point through into the next decade.

"I believe that we will continue to build new Hornets and Growlers. We have slowed production down to two aircraft per month, and we will keep it at that level through to mid-2018. There is strong domestic and international demand that we see sustaining production through to the mid-2020s," Gillian said.

The US Navy's current programme of record is for 568 Super Hornets and 160 Growlers. As Gillian noted, however, the service has identified a 'Super Hornet shortfall' that will materialise in the 2030s/2040s as aircraft prematurely reach the end of their 6,000 hour airframe lives owing to the high operational tempo being flown today. To try and mitigate this, additional aircraft have already been requested in the fiscal year defence budget, and Gillian expressed his confidence that these will be approved.

On the international front, Gillian noted that a deal with Kuwait is currently going through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process with the US government and should be finalised in the not-too-distant future. Current legacy Hornet operator Finland has issued a request for proposals (RfP) that Boeing is preparing its response to, as has Belgium. Spain, which also now flies the Hornet, is in the early stages of a fighter procurement project for which Boeing will bid the Super Hornet, while India and Canada are being offered the platform to fulfil their respective requirements also.

With the Super Hornet and Growler set to remain in US Navy service through to the 2040s at least, and with a development roadmap put in place by Boeing, Gillian said that prospective future customers should have no concerns about the long-term viability of the platforms.With the Super Hornet and Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) expected to serve alongside one another with the USN for several decades to come, the service plans to roll out a service-life extension plan (SLEP) for the former as part of wider plans to ensure that there are no capability gaps caused by a drop in aircraft numbers as older Super Hornets reach the end of their service lives and the delayed JSF begins entering fleet service.

As well as the SLEP, the Pentagon's fiscal year (FY) 2017 budget proposal will request up to 28 additional Super Hornets to try to offset any shortfall in the number of strike fighters available on the navy's aircraft carriers.

Coupled with this USN sustainment and support, Boeing has developed its Advanced Hornet roadmap that includes enhancements such as conformal fuel tanks, a large area display cockpit, more powerful engines, and an integrated infrared search and track (IRST) sensor.

Although all of these measures should go a long way to demonstrating both the navy's and Boeing's long-term commitment to the platform, the problem for the Super Hornet will really be in stemming the momentum of the F-35 with its fifth-generation capabilities. Boeing recently lost out to its competitor in Denmark, and the company is awaiting an explanation from the Danish government as to how it reached its decision. If Boeing is to maintain Super Hornet production out to the mid-2020s as it intends, it will have to hope that the Danish result was a blip rather than a trend.

[Lilo]

The broader Raptor concept "is a highly reusable methane staged-combustion engine that will power the next generation of SpaceX launch vehicles designed for the exploration and colonization of Mars"

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/spacex ... ustry.html

https://youtu.be/KZ1pVBnJEfA

[brar_w]

DARPA’s Short term Research into AI, autonomous system cooperation with other systems.



DARPA Advances Collaborating Unmanned Aircraft Source AWIN

Recognizing that new, autonomous and survivable unmanned aircraft will not emerge soon, DARPA has selected Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to lead development of the ability to add autonomous behaviors to existing UAVs so they can collaborate in performing missions in contested environments.

The companies have been selected as system integrators for Phase 2 of the Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) program. This aims to enable legacy U.S. UAVs to engage mobile ground or maritime targets in contested electromagnetic airspace while reducing required communications bandwidth and operator workload.

“The concept is to create heterogeneous teams of unmanned aircraft,” says Jean-Charles Lede, DARPA program manager. “Instead of adding sensors, we compose new teams. If we want electronic warfare, we add a jamming bird. If it is strike, we add a weapons platform. CODE enables UAVs to be mixed to do missions we were not able to before.”

CODE’s main objective is to demonstrate collaborative autonomy, in which UAVs perform sophisticated tasks both individually and in teams under the supervision of a single human mission commander. CODE-equipped UAVs would share data, negotiate assignments, and synchronize actions and communications among team members and with the commander.

Phase 1 simulations demonstrated the potential value of collaborative autonomy at the tactical edge, says DARPA. “Between the two teams, we have selected about 20 autonomous behaviors that would greatly increase the mission capabilities of our legacy UAVs and enable them to perform complex missions in denied or contested environments in which communications, navigation, and other critical elements of the targeting chain are compromised,” says Lede.

CODE’s main objective is to demonstrate collaborative autonomy, in which UAVs perform sophisticated tasks both individually and in teams under the supervision of a single human mission commander. CODE-equipped UAVs would share data, negotiate assignments, and synchronize actions and communications among team members and with the commander.

Phase 1 simulations demonstrated the potential value of collaborative autonomy at the tactical edge, says DARPA. “Between the two teams, we have selected about 20 autonomous behaviors that would greatly increase the mission capabilities of our legacy UAVs and enable them to perform complex missions in denied or contested environments in which communications, navigation, and other critical elements of the targeting chain are compromised,” says Lede.

The focus is on Group 3 tactical UAVs and above, operating in jamming environments. “All collaborative algorithms focus on a set of assumptions including guaranteed communications and infinite bandwidth. We are breaking those assumptions,” he says. “The algorithms have to work with 50 kbps. That is very, very low compared with full-motion video.”

The program has four technology pillars, says Lede, with sufficient single-vehicle autonomy as the starting point. This includes autonomous management of platform subsystems. “Instead of sending all the data, we want to send only relevant data, such as ‘I am here and my health is good’ or ‘I have found a target, here is an image chip,’” he says.

Next is a human-system interface enabling supervisory control of a large group of unmanned aircraft. “It is about how to enable the human to provide objectives in a complex environment, set the rules of engagement, and review the mission plan in temporal, logical and spacial terms, in real time,” Lede says. “We need the smarts of a human.”

The third pillar is team-level collaborative autonomy. This involves developing algorithms that permit the fusing of data from multiple sources to create a common operating picture and enable common decision-making among the UAVs, allowing them to compose subteams to achieve mission objectives. “Attrition is a complicating factor,” he says. “How do we accommodate going from six to four aircraft?”

In the example given by DARPA, the mission commander circles a group of UAVs on a display to create a team and assign it to search an area. The software then divides the search task up among the aircraft and, if assets are lost, redistributes the original tasks among the remaining aircraft. The goal is to simplify command and control of large groups of UAVs.

The fourth pillar is open-architecture systems. “Autonomy is different to other Defense Department technologies, like stealth or warheads, in which few are able to be involved. It is an activity anyone can contribute to. Two guys in an office can come up with something,” says Lede. “We want to enable a rich community to collaborate.”

Phase 1 involved three system integrators (Leidos did not make it through to Phase 2) and seven software developers, and took CODE to a preliminary design review. Phase 2 will take the technology to a critical design review and early single-vehicle flight demonstration by mid-2017 using a surrogate platform. Six software developers from Phase 1 will provide supporting technologies to the system integrators.

Following a down-select scheduled at the end of the yearlong second phase, the planned Phase 3 will complete software development and culminate in a full live-virtual-constructive mission demonstration using six or more real vehicles and others that are simulation. CODE is scheduled to be completed by the end of fiscal 2018.







Phase 1 simulations show CODE in action. 1: commander groups UAS into mission teams. Credit: DARPA









2: CODE-enabled UAS collaborate via low-bandwidth communications to perform assigned mission. Credit: DARPA











3: UAS use network communications for relative navigation in a GPS-denied environment. Credit: DARPA











4: Individual UAS perform and share feature-based navigation in GPS-denied environment. Credit DARPA

[brar_w]

The Pentagon Will Test-Fire its New Larger SM-3IIA Interceptor Missile in Space

The SM-3 is a kinetic energy warhead able to travel more than 600 miles per hour; it carries no explosive but instead relies on the sheer force of impact and collision to destroy an enemy target.

The new SM-3IIA missile builds upon a smaller existing operational variant of the missile called the SM-3IB, Raytheon officials said.

“This is an extended capability of what we have for the SM-3 1B. Because of the larger missile this is a 21-inch air frame. we have a larger area of defended area coverage. we've also brought in some capability advancements into our kinetic warhead so now we have a higher sensitivity - so that is just better seeker,” Amy Cohen, Raytheon SM-3 Director, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

The SM-3IIA is still finishing up development and is slated for flight test in the second half of this year. The MDA and Raytheon test will assess the kinetic warhead and missile seeker in a space environment, Cohen explained.

An improved seeker can better see approaching targets from longer distances compared to the SM-3 1B, she added.

Some of these improvements engineered into the missile are described as “sensitivity increases” which use a larger focal plane array for detection and more computer processing power.

The SM-3 Block IIA has completed two very successful fly-out tests—with no target missile launched, Missile Defense Agency officials said.

“The first intercept flight test is planned for second half of this year. We will be engaging against a medium range ballistic missile - the next flight test we have will get us to the point where we have the trajectory very solid that we are there to support EPAA phase III in Poland,” Cohen added.

Non Intercept SM3 IIA Launch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJhKkiTvtxg

[NRao]

Machine Learning Key To Automatic Target Recognition

Paid site. Interesting article (in print).

Artificial intelligence (AI), or at least algorithmic capabilities that come under that heading, are coming to the cockpit to help combat pilots assimilate the growing flow of information from sensors onboard and offboard their aircraft. DARPA’s Target Recognition and Adaption in Contested Environments (TRACE) program is using recent advances in machine learning to automatically locate and identify targets in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) images. The goal is to identify targets more ...

[brar_w]

Dynetics Awarded USSOCOM Small Glide Munition Contract

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., June 14, 2016 – Dynetics has been awarded an $11.65 million contract to conduct work on its Small Glide Munition (SGM) for US Special Operations Command.

The SGM is an enhanced capability, 60 lb. class, Stand-Off Precision Guided Munition (SOPGM) that can be carried on AC-130 Gunships or Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The contract will support ongoing integration, qualification and test activities.

“Dynetics is proud to work with SOCOM to rapidly provide an enhanced precision guided munition to our warfighters,” said David King, Dynetics CEO. “This contract marks a significant milestone for Dynetics in development of the SGM and builds on our previous munitions and aerospace systems work.”

Developed with company internal research and development resources, the SGM features a modular design allowing multiple common variants and considerable design flexibility. By mounting the seeker nose section, tail kit and wing assembly directly to the warhead case, the SGM allows different seekers, warheads and other subsystems to be readily incorporated.

The SGM is integrated into a Common Launch Tube and is compatible with the Battle Management System. The baseline SGM design incorporates a 36-lb. blast-fragmentation warhead that can be detonated either on impact or using a variable height of burst sensor. The munition offers an all-azimuth launch capability, while its deployable wing provides significant stand-off range resulting in a large weapon footprint and a corresponding increase in armed over-watch area.

The munition includes a Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module GPS receiver, a BAE Systems Distributed Aperture Semi-Active Laser Seeker (DASALS) adapted from the WGU-59/B Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System for terminal guidance, and other advanced features. It also uses lattice control fins for aerodynamic stability and control, similar to Dynetics-developed designs used on the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast and the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

Dynetics initiated development of the Small Glide Munition in 2013 in conjunction with a Collaborative Research and Development Agreement with the USSOCOM Program Executive Office – Fixed Wing. Multiple SGM flight demonstrations against both fixed and moving targets were successfully conducted under the agreement in 2014.Additional flight tests performed earlier this year demonstrated expanded system capabilities.

[TSJones]

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/06 ... -progress/

As construction on the second CST-100 Starliner for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Transportation initiative continues in the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Boeing has outlined its progress to date as well as future milestones in the coming two years as the company deepens construction of the first four Starliner modules that will help NASA restore domestic crew space transportation services.

[brar_w]

Dutch F-35s Return to U.S. After Europe Deployment
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report Jun 14, 2016 , p. 4

LONDON—The Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) has redeployed its two F-35A Joint Strike Fighters back to the U.S. after the international debut of the aircraft at the air force’s Open Dagen air show.
Both aircraft—AN-1 and AN-2—took part in a dramatic air power demonstration as part of the show at Leeuwarden AB on June 10-11.

That ended a three-week deployment that also included noise perception trials at the two airbases—Leeuwarden and Volkel—that will go on to house Dutch F-35s from 2019 onward. The aircraft also performed a series of trials to see if they are compatible with Dutch hardened aircraft shelters from which the jets will eventually be operated.

Tests showed there were no issues with exhaust emissions inside the shelter or noise vibrations that could potentially damage the aircraft. The RNLAF has also been testing the F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System, the first time it has been used to support an overseas deployment.

Data collected as part of the noise trials show that people living near the airbases found little difference in the noise levels generated by the F-35 and F-16, based on standard training loadouts. The RNLAF performed a series of 28 passes, 14 with the F-35 and 14 with the F-16. Seven passes were made in the morning and seven in the evening, with and without reheat. Residents were then asked to answer a series of online questions about how they perceived the noise.

The F-35 was initially due to be on static display at the air show. But a push was made to get the fighters into the demonstration, which also included RNLAF F-16s, C-130s, and battlefield helicopters. The show was attended by 280,000 people over two days.

During the visit, the F-35s performed 20 local sorties that generated 32 flying hours. Among these flights was a sightseeing tour of major cities that allowed Dutch citizens to see the aircraft.

The two aircraft departed the Netherlands for Edwards AFB, California, on June 14. They were supported by the RNLAF’s two Douglas KDC-10 aerial refueling aircraft, reversing the route they transited to Europe, flying again via Patuxent River, Maryland.

As part of the visit, the Netherlands government confirmed the financing of a new engine maintenance facility at the RNLAF’s Logistics Center at Woensdrecht. The €88 million ($99 million) price tag will be funded in part by the Dutch defense ministry (50%) and the Netherlands department for economic affairs (25%). The remainder will be funded by the Province of Noord Brabant, the regional government for the Woensdrecht site.

Economic Minister Henk Kamp said the new facility would generate “at least 3,400 man-years of work and around $800 million in revenues” during the life of the program. Maintenance of the first F-135 engine is expected from 2019. Engine maintenance for Italian aircraft will also be carried out there.

The Netherlands currently has four pilots and 27 maintainers, and the number is set to grow substantially over the next three years as the country prepares for 37 aircraft to be based at Leeuwarden from 2019 and then at Volkel from 2021. Of the 37, 29 will be assembled at the European Final Assembly and Check-Out facility in Cameri, Italy.

Once back at Edwards, the two aircraft will continue to support the joint Operational Test & Evaluation program.

[brar_w]

2 Articles on Propulsion :

Pratt ‘Builds Confidence’ In F-35 Engine Upgrade Plan

EAST HARTFORD, Connecticut—As Pratt & Whitney nears completion of the extensive F135 system development and demonstration (SDD) engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the company is revealing new details of a proposed upgrade plan that could cut fuel burn by as much as 7% on aircraft entering service by the early 2020s.

The upgrade package builds on a fuel burn reduction technology effort driven by the U.S. Navy and an improved compressor developed by Pratt. Initial test results have been positive and are “building a lot of confidence,” that the combination could be introduced as a relatively straightforward “drop-in” upgrade package, says Jimmy Kenyon, senior director of advanced programs & technology at Pratt & Whitney.
However, Pratt stresses the potential upgrade, which would offer extended range and engine life to all variants, will have to be sold to the program before it becomes a reality. “This is not part of the JSF program and not part of the F-35 program. It is a Navy technology demonstration,” Kenyon says. “But right now we are talking to the Joint Program Office, the services and the partners and we are looking at how we would take that technology and transition it into some sort of modernization program that would follow on from SDD. So there’s a long way to go.”

The fuel burn reduction program, initially demonstrated on the modified F135 test engine XTE68/LF beginning in 2013, “has made a lot of progress,” Kenyon says. “The Navy is trying to demonstrate on the test stand a 5% improvement in fuel burn, and when we transition it to the final product there are some other things [with the compressor and turbine] we can do to integrate it into the aircraft that will give you somewhere between 5 and 7% projected fuel burn improvement.”

Working with the Navy, Pratt is taking the turbine cooling technology tested on XTE68/LF “and maturing that design. Instead of pushing the temperature we are buying margin and that’s allowing us to improve the efficiency of that part of the cycle,” Kenyon adds.
The improved design is focused on changes to the aerodynamics of the six integrated bladed rotors (IBRs) that form the high-pressure compressor module, and “takes advantage of the advances in aero design capability that have happened since the start of the F135 program,” he says. The revised configuration was rig tested at AneCom AeroTest’s facility in Wildau, Germany, in 2015. “We got the performance we expected and which we need out of that compressor to enable the overall engine improvement. So that becomes a big risk reduction for the program and that compressor design now is going into the engine demonstrator,” says Kenyon, who adds the integrated test is expected to take place early in 2017.

The Navy, meanwhile, has “put hard constraints” on the extent of the changes with a view to simplifying eventual integration of the upgrades into the existing engine, Kenyon says. “We can’t mess with the diameter because it has to be retrofit-able and variant common. So whether it is increasing thrust, or fuel burn reduction, or if the Marine Corps needs additional powered lift [for the F135-600 powered F-35B short take-off and vertical landing variant] this gives you that capability.” Maintaining commonality with the existing footprint of today’s turbine and compressor sections “allows you to really improve the cost of cutting this into production without any major changes to the rest of engine. It reduces disruption, which is a big deal, and also allows you to do this at the first depot interval.”
The concept is designed for “downward compatibility,” F135 vice president Mark Buongiorno says. “By the time it cuts into production, if there are, say, 1,000 aircraft, then you get the opportunity to bring those 1,000 aircraft up to that current standard. That’s a significant number and it is therefore important to keep the support of the international partners, some of which will have majority of their aircraft delivered by then. That’s how the program will really continue to progress.”

Although initial runs of the combined engine upgrade package will begin as a technology demonstrator next year, Pratt remains realistic about the timeline for potential introduction. “You still have to qualify it on the airplane and so it becomes an issue of timing,” Kenyon says. “The sooner you start it the sooner it becomes available. As you look at opportunities to get that started you are probably looking at early to mid-2020s.”

In the nearer term, Pratt is positioning to improve the performance of the first stage of the F135 three-stage fan through a production change. The company is changing over to a new linear friction-stir weld manufacturing process that will see the current hollow design replaced with a solid blade. “It’s a more efficient design and thinner,” Buongiorno says. The newly installed machine, which is one of the largest of its type in the world, is undergoing commissioning in Pratt’s Compressor System Module Center in Middletown, Connecticut, and more than doubles Pratt’s capacity to do friction welding. After initial use for attaching blades onto the hub of the F135, the device will also be used for welding components of the commercial geared turbofan family.

The change will be cut into production early in 2017. “We are completing validation on the last two test engines today.,” Buongiorno says. “We are actually working to try and accelerate the incorporation as much as we can because it is not only a performance improvement but it is also a significant cost reduction. So we are keen to beat our schedule.”

Pratt has now delivered around 280 F135s and is continuing to accelerate assembly, having completed negotiations for the next production Lots 9 and 10 at end of 2015. Lot 9 already has been awarded and Lot 10, covering 103 engines, is expected to be awarded “imminently,” Buongiorno says. Talks over the following production lots 11 and 12, covering an estimated 130 and 170 engines, respectively, have begun.

Air Force eyeing advanced engine prototype awards this summer

HARTFORD, CT -- The Air Force is in the final stages of negotiations with engine-makers Pratt & Whitney and General Electric for a prototype program meant to mature advanced technologies that could be used to field higher-performing and more fuel-efficient engines and upgrades for key Air Force platforms.

The companies have been developing and maturing technologies through the service's Advanced Engine Technology Demonstration program since 2011 and are on pace to conduct hardware demonstrations early next year. At the same time, the Air Force is preparing to launch the next phase of work, the Advanced Engine Transition Program, which will support the two companies as they develop a full prototype engine.

Jimmy Kenyon, Pratt's senior director of advanced programs and technology, told Inside the Air Force this week the service expects to award contracts for AETP this summer and is eyeing a demonstration in the early 2020s.

"We're looking at ways we can try to accelerate that some if we can," Kenyon told ITAF in a June 7 interview at the company's facility in Hartford, CT. "We'd really like to do that if we can but 2020 is probably a good target."

The company flew reporters to Hartford for a tour of its military and commercial engine production facilities.

Although AETD and now AETP are geared toward developing capabilities that could be incorporated on a number of platforms -- whether they be future fighter aircraft or follow-ons to the legacy fleet -- both companies have been designing their hardware enhancements and prototype engines to fit an F-35.

Kenyon said the company's work is focused on an F-35 application, but noted that Pratt is continuing to look at how that might have implications for other platforms. The company, which makes the engines for the Air Force's top three priority programs -- F-35, KC-46 tanker and now the B-21 bomber -- is in a good position to be exploring those other applications, Kenyon said, particularly as the F-35 programs looks to incorporate and compete new capabilities.

He noted that even though AETD and AETP are not billed as F135 follow-on engine programs, the exercise keeps the company "very mindful" of future competition on the program.

"Look, we feel competition every day. Even AETD in its own right keeps us mindful of our position with the F135," Kenyon said. "It's a way to keep us honest on the products that we have. Looking into the future, obviously if the DOD decides that there's a business case that makes sense there and they put it out there, that's what they're going to do. In the future, the door is always open."

The F-35 program does not currently have a requirement for enhanced engine capabilities; however, the company is working with the Navy through its Fuel Burn Reduction program to mature technologies that could be fielded as an upgrade down the road. Kenyon said the company is in discussion with the F-35 joint program office about how to incorporate those upgrades into its follow-on modernization program.

Where the Navy's program would address what Kenyon called "low-hanging fruit" in developing a near-term upgrade plan, AETD and AETP could have longer-term application.

"Looking beyond that, we are looking at ways we can use AETD technologies and insert them into the F135," Kenyon said. "And then of course because we are developing that engine for future applications, it could become a longer-term upgrade as well. So really what we're doing here is we're laying out an option space."

He continued: "It really becomes a continuous upgrade path for the F-35 that's going to keep that airplane flying ahead of its peers well into the future."

[brar_w]

[Singha]

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/06/07/9547/

predators due to be retired in 2018 and reapers are suffering high accident rates.

[brar_w]

We had discussed the WaPO article earlier. One has to note the significantly different utilization pattern of combat drones (both armed and unarmed) in that unlike their manned counterparts, they fly an overwhelming majority of their missions in combat theater as opposed to training. There are also no established accident rate patterns for them that take everything into account. We simply don't know what a good number is to aim for given the US deployment patterns and COCOM wide demand. Then there is the demand that creates situations where barring emergency, mission critical improvements (such as the engine issues that WAPO had brought up that were addressed for the fleet) there really isn't time or money to make long term fleet improvements to drive statistics to the green over the long term. As far as these systems and their supporting enterprise are concerned, they have been in perpetual war for more than a decade. It will take a generation or two to get drones to be as reliable as manned aircraft and that would depend upon whether they really want to chase those targets (it has cost implications down range on supporting systems as well).

Here's a picture on their utilization :

Additionally, GA-ASI announced that its Predator/Gray Eagle®-series aircraft family set a company record and historic industry feat in 2014: over 500,000 flight hours flown, which is the equivalent of flying 1,370 hours around-the-clock every day.

"GA-ASI works diligently to deliver solutions to meet our customers' requirements and these two achievements wouldn't be possible without the dedication and commitment of our employees," said Frank W. Pace, president, Aircraft Systems, GA-ASI. "These records are a testament to the reliability and durability, as well as the remarkable operational flexibility, of GA-ASI's RPA family."

Predator B achieved this record on February 20 after flying 78,606 sorties. Its first flight occurred at GA-ASI's Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. on February 2, 2001. Predator B flight hours now account for approximately one-third of GA-ASI's 3.2 million total flight hours and are increasing at an average rate of over 22,000 hours a month.

Predator B aircraft are currently logging over 700 hours a day supporting the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Italian Air Force, the Royal Air Force, the French Air Force, and other customers. Missions include direct support to warfighters in world hot spots; assisting border agents in monitoring the nation's borders; aiding first responders in the wake of natural disasters; and supporting scientists in performing Earth science missions. GA-ASI has delivered more than 230 Predator B aircraft to date and is currently building three aircraft per month, with the capacity to more than double production if needed.

GA-ASI RPA flight hours continue to increase exponentially each year. The aircraft family logged one million flight hours between 1994 and 2010. It later accrued an additional two million flight hours between 2010 and 2014, bringing the total to over three million hours flown.

http://www.ga-asi.com/predator-b-achiev ... ight-hours

[brar_w]

One aspect that did impress me is their tie up with Boeing on the T-X clean sheet design..with all its experience in aviation, Boeing execs are on record as stating that Saab brought in some very niche design capabilities..

Boeing partnered with SAAB for many reasons. Some were:


- SAAB designs small to medium single engine fighters. Boeing, as thing stands really only builds medium to heavy fighters (F-18 and F-15). The last fighter they designed that actually won a competition was many many decades ago, since both the Hornet and the Eagle family were inherited by them. They have since then bought innovation. They are good at integration, and are also very good at solving large problems thanks to the resources they can pull from the commercial world.
- DATA: SAAB has worked on small, single engined fighters with the Gripen for a long time. They have the data that boeing that has really worked on the Super Hornet, X-32 (medium sized fighter), and the F-22 in the past in various capacities.
- Risk mitigation on a clean sheet design - Not only do they fund the entire program out of pocket, they eventually have to take this thing international if they win. Having someone else helps.

Saab is pushing hard, with some very visible marketing, for both the Gripen, consultancy on Tejas Mk1A, possibly the Mk2 and a JV on the AMCA as well..

Everyone's marketing. No one really stopped after the Rafale was declared the winner. SAAB has a way of offering pie in the sky ideas knowing full well that it may take decades to implement. I had pointed out their GaN EW " First in the WORLD" claim way back, when the timelines they actually put " GaN in EW" would put them at best third and at worst among their competition. But the marketing folks lapped it up and went with it anyway

Saab has offered to transfer its gallium nitride (GaN) AESA radar technology to India.“Yes, we are in talks with HAL,” says Jan Widerstrom, chairman of Saab India. “We have the latest avionics, best active electronically scanned array radar and technology in the Gripen which we would be happy to share with HAL for its Tejas program.” Widerstrom says GaN AESA radars are 70% more effective than older AESA radar technology.

Perhaps the reporter should have asked as to why the "BEST AESA" technology isn't going into their own Gripen E/F's, or those being sold to Brazil. It takes a long time to design, develop, integrate, Test and finally operationalize a radar and its associated mission systems. Case in point, the current GaAs AESA they are getting won't go into a fully operational (all originally advertised capability) Gripen NG till 2026. The GaN AESA is something for the late 2020's and early 2030's and I wouldnt be surprised if pretty much everyone else in their competitors had that at or before then. Thats the same stunt they tried pulling with the EW suite.

Maybe like imported engine from US, they're also importing from somewhere and just want to pass screwdriver tech to us?

SAAB has the ability to make sensors in house. Their best course of action given the way their company is setup is to be agile so that they can source the best components from the various suppliers for those. For years their radar system was procuring RF components from Cree, because the volumes meant a very good price. These were ITAR free but some were government approved as well. However with GaAs and GaN Europe is going towards a shared foundry system where eventually pretty much all are going to source from a common pool made up of collective OEM's and universities. This is different from the US where the big two have the capability to make many RF components in house and won't give that up since they cross over to commercial. Raytheon is still healthy compared to a CREE or a QORVO and the will stay that way because they have huge business in military ( AMDR quadrupled the S band GaN component demand when it was awarded). Cree and Qorvo are obviously the giants but Raytheon can make very precise investments years out since it also makes the sensors. SAAB is more like a Lockheed in that it looks to source from the competitive marketplace and focus on a few niche areas of radars. In case of a Lockheed, this has meant that they have pretty much beaten everyone else in supplying long range GaN surveillance radars to export customers. SAAB has the potential of something similar but that makes them different, not necessarily better since you can at best keep pace with the industry rather than leading it as you would have had you maintained the capability to pull ahead and deliver products ahead of the rest of the base.

[brar_w]

Not bad for something that hasn't yet been cleared for a full 9G display (that comes in 2017)..



Has a lot to learn from papa raptor..

[brar_w]

Paul Allen’s giant plane takes shape in the desert, but its market is unclear

MOJAVE, Calif. — In the high Mojave Desert, the airframe of Paul Allen’s giant, mysterious plane for carrying rockets into space is approaching completion.

It has twin fuselages, 95 feet apart, that are joined across the top by a massive wing, 385 feet from tip to tip — longer than a football field including the end zones.

With a larger wingspan than any aircraft ever built, the six-engined plane — officially called Stratolaunch — has been nicknamed the Roc, after a mythical Middle Eastern bird so big it could carry an elephant in its claws.

Ahead of a major space- industry conference that starts Tuesday in Seattle, Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace last week opened up the secretive assembly plant to a small group of journalists, among other things letting them walk across that massive wing.

The visit suggests that the challenge for Allen’s ambitious project is not whether his plane will fly, but whether his business plan will.

Vulcan’s concept is that this airplane will carry a rocket weighing up to 275 tons slung beneath the central part of the wing — between the two fuselages — and release it at 35,000 feet. The rocket will then launch into space and deliver satellites into orbit.

Unlike today’s massive Atlas and Delta rockets that launch vertically from Earth, the Roc will be able to land, load up and take off again, making space access easier and cheaper. It’s supposed to be more like a routine airport operation than a big Cape Canaveral-style deal.

“When such access to space is routine, innovation will accelerate in ways beyond what we can currently imagine,” Allen said in an emailed statement.

Yet this first close-up look at the great beast elicited not so much a wow response, more a “what the heck?” The plane is awesomely big but also tremendously odd-looking.

Mythic hybrid beast
Strange enough is the basic twin-fuselage, single-wing concept, which gives it the overall look of a pair of insects conjoined at the wing and enlarged to the size of a dinosaur.

Stranger still is the shape of the fuselages, each individually looking like a mythical hybrid beast that morphs from boxy at one end to sleek at the other.

This is the fanciful work of Scaled Composites, the innovative experimental aircraft firm founded by Burt Rutan that has designed and built the airplane and will fly it for Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace.

Any jet airliner you’ve ever flown in has a round fuselage, eschewing corners that could become points of excess pressure. But because the Roc’s aft fuselages are largely empty and unpressurized, the engineers of Scaled Composites went with a simpler-to-build boxy body at the back, rectangular in cross-section.

In the middle of the airplane, its body thickens considerably where it’s topped by the wing, to create clearance for the rocket slung under the wing’s center span.

The forward end of each fuselage is round, because it’s pressurized, and a long drooping neck tapers to a Boeing 747 cockpit, so that it resembles a dinosaur dipping to feed.

The three-person crew — pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer — will sit in a cockpit in the right-hand fuselage, maneuvering the plane from far to the right of the centerline.

The left-hand fuselage has what looks from outside like a cockpit with windows, but it’s empty and unpressurized.

[JayS]

Not bad for something that hasn't yet been cleared for a full 9G display (that comes in 2017)..

Impressive. Power of high excess available thrust.

[brar_w]

Yup. With 50% gas and a couple of missiles the F-22A has about 20% better T2W than the F-35A with a similar load and fuel state. The P&W F135 has since (from early days) shifted to 43,000lb maximum thrust and UTC has a defined path for up to 15% increase in thrust from existing engines (new compressor). The F-22 will obviously still be dominant across the envelope in terms of acceleration and handling. One look at the size of its control surfaces (vs F-35 or even the teens) shows the stark difference in requirements. Plus there is TVC which is over and above that.

In the AIAA book on the F-22, the PEO writes that Lockheed went conservative with TV and did not feel that the institutional (USAF) confidence in it was sufficient enough for them to design a fighter that required TV to reach the performance requirements. As a result the YF22 was designed to meet the ATF performance requirements without TVC.

The F-22 paid a high cost for all this performance that they are unlikely to pay in the future. It gives up on design weight, design cost, payload flexibility, subsonic range, signature to name a few in order to match the ATF supersonic cruise, and supersonic maneuverability requirements. Moreover, they still required a multiple of its predecessors AOA performance. What eventually replaces is likely to have range, range/payload, loiter and signature optimization given the nature of the threat in the Pacific compared to the F-22, a platform largely designed around the F-15A/C’s European theater requirements.

[Austin]

I wonder how much G the Pilot must be pulling for the quick short burst acceleration ?

[JayS]

^^ Going by the gut feeling I would say about 7-8G for a sec or so. Then the near vertical flight powered by the engine takes over which would be lesser G load. I can see tail used only for short duration - less than a second - unless I have gone blind. That period actually would have highest G - load and toughest too. In the near-vertical flight the pilot would be relatively comfortable - one - lower G-load and second - he is being pushed backwards - easier to deal with G-loads in this posture.

Does the F-35 has slanted seats a la F-16??

[brar_w]

First Israeli F-35 ADIR rolled out. The first two aircraft will be in Israel by the year end.

[darshhan]

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/06/07/9547/

predators due to be retired in 2018 and reapers are suffering high accident rates.

Singha ji, USAF has turned its back on UAVs and UCAVs(probably due to the fighter pilot cabal in control). They will pay extremely heavy in future for this folly.

[brar_w]

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/06/07/9547/

predators due to be retired in 2018 and reapers are suffering high accident rates.

Singha ji, USAF has turned its back on UAVs and UCAVs(probably due to the fighter pilot cabal in control). They will pay extremely heavy in future for this folly.

Turned their back? Do look at the RPA fleet over the last 10-15 years, its utilization rates, the amount of R&D and acquisition $’s that have gone Into it and the current RPA workforce. Perhaps you’d be surprised to know that the largest pilot community in the USAF is the RPA pilot community, followed by the C-17 enterprise. Fighter jocks follow them. Also the USAF will be getting its first chief that has flown RPAs



The USAF was extremely nimble in getting the predator (and offshoots) and the Global hawk fleets into operational service and progressively building upon their capability. From ISR to strike, to acting as battle nodes these aircrafts perform each mission spectrum, and do so significantly better than they did when they were first introduced. They haven’t stopped at that. For contested environments, the USAF has continued to invest in more survivable capabailities that can be put into any UAV’s. These are more robust networks, and navigation in GPS denied environments. The bandwidth to control these crafts from afar, and localized capability to set up LAN’s has also come up in a big way since the first UAV was used in Afghanistan. We are talking about tactical use of full motion video, at call, practically 24x7 for the current theater deployed forces in the CENTCOM AOR.



On top of this, they continued to invest in more survivable unmanned aircrafts such as the RQ180 that is assumed to be in Low Rate Production and is an ACAT1 program (its existence and status were confirmed by the USAF’s RPA fleet boss in 2014 and AvWeek’s sources confirmed LRIP in 2015). Furthermore, the process to port over U-2 Payloads to the RPA fleet continues (see report that I linked earlier) and there is strong inclination to fund an unmanned U-2 replacement. If that wasn’t enough, the USAF has been quite open about creating an unmanned capability for the B-21 as it matures over its lifetime (making it optionally manned).



The notion that the USAF has ‘turned its back on UAV’s and UCAV’s’ is detached from reality since the RPA footprint is likely to grow at a non-linear pace. The focus now is to take the infrastructure and capability built up over the 15-16 years and make it capable of executing at the same level of efficiency and lethality in non-permissive environments where everything from networks, to access is contested. You may not see shiny new batwings coming out besides the RQ180 but the real RMA will be happening in networks, data links, navigation, guidance and multi-spectral and hyperspectral imaging and targeting. In fact, its already happening if you follow developments closely.

BTW, between 2012 and 2021 the USAF would have received 277 Reapers. The Reaper fleet was 200 strong as of March 2015. This on top of numerous predators and close to 50 global Hawks built over that program life. Beyond the Reaper they will no doubt look at a more survivable aircraft..Do keep in mind that the US Army, the Navy and the Marine Corps all have their own UAV fleet across the UAV category (Triton, MQ8's, Gray Eagles, and a host of other smaller UAV's). ISR, Electronic Warfare/Electronic Attack, Penetrating ISR, High Altitude surveillance, long range strike, broad area maritime surveillance, battlefield airborne communications, are just some of the missions that are extensively performed by the Joint RPA fleet...and performed so at a global scale across the COCOM's and their AOR's.

The last of the currently planned USAF Reapers get delivered in 2021. Beyond that, they will likely buy more to cover those lost. In the long term however there is likely to be a strong push to get better vehicle systems capacity, signature reduction, while maintiang the current bandwidth footprint, endurance and payload capacity of the predator B/Reaper. As a low risk option, the Predator C has been flying for close to 7 years now (iirc). It could be a nice interim fix before they go for a more survivable platform if one is required at all in that endurance, weight, size and payload category.

It is utter ignorance to claim that a service that flies 60 UAV/UCAV CAP's, every single day (all around the world) is turning its back on the capability, even as its new Cheif of Staff, a former commander of the Predator fleet in OEF and OIF takes charge.

[Khalsa]

First Israeli F-35 ADIR rolled out. The first two aircraft will be in Israel by the year end.

but but .... thats wrong how can be a Squadron be formed with less than 18 aircraft....
they must deliver all 18 aircraft in one go...

LOL

Sorry Brar... just taking a dig at the folks reporting that a Tejas Squadron will be formed with 4 aircrafts and how thats such a big no no

[brar_w]

I get the joke but these two will be part of training since all f35 pilot flight training for the IDF will be at home. They'll also use these to install their own data links and EW gear and test them out. Journalists and babus have a long history of telling the experts how to run their show..armchair generals are generally more self confident than actual ones...

More F-35 orders remain on horizon for Israel

The Israeli Air Force’s chief of staff has recommended the purchase of an additional 17 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, but that decision is pending authorisation from the Israeli government.

Wednesday marked the roll-out of the first Lockheed Martin F-35I Adir, a slightly modified F-35A which will be delivered to Israel’s Nevatim Air Base in December. The U.S. has approved the sale of up to 75 F-35s to Israel and the country has signed contracts for 33 F-35s, the last of which will arrive around 2021, Israeli air force chief of staff Brigadier Gen. Tal Kelman told reporters Tuesday.

Israel has not made a decision on whether it will purchase the additional 17 F-35A-model fighters or when they would be delivered, Kelman says.

“Once we have a decision, we’ll know the timeline,” he says.

While Israel is committed to its order of A variant fighters, its air force is also mulling over a future purchase of the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B. Israel would start purchasing F-35Bs if the country’s order exceeded 50 aircraft, Kelman says.

The F-35B's STOVL capability could offer significant advantages during an attack on an air base, Kelman says. But he also noted the aircraft’s drawbacks, including its smaller payload and fuel capacity than the conventional F-35A.

Kelman also reasons that regional conflicts would push Israel to complete aircraft maintenance within the country.

“Israel is in the middle of the Middle East and we’re in a daily conflict,” he says. “That is why we don’t want aircraft to leave, we cannot afford having a fighter aircraft go for three months [for] maintenance somewhere.”

While Israel will be able to complete normal aircraft maintenance, heavy maintenance would require significant investment and infrastructure, F-35 programme executive Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan says Wednesday. The US and Israel are forging tailored maintenance solution for Israel, but it won’t happen overnight, Bogdan says.

“There’s some policy issues in the US that we have to work on, there’s some investment by the Israeli government,” he said. “The good news is, when you deliver a new plane like this, you’re not going to need heavy maintenance for quite a long time so there is time to work the policy, infrastructure, tooling and training side to get Israel where they want to be.”

Israel’s push to complete maintenance at home would likely set them apart from other F-35 operators, who could leverage economies of scale with programme's larger, global maintenance infrastructure.

“Israel would like to be able to tap into that economy of scale, but their geo-political situation is such that they may have to do things on their own,” Bogdan says.

Israel's delivery and squadron formation plans are :

~ 2016 - 2 x F-35A's for training, and system integration & testing
~ 2017 - 7 x F-35A
~ 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 - 6 x F-35A each of those years

They are contracted for 33 in total and are considering 17 more as per the recent reports for a total 50. If those 17 are ordered, they'll be delivered between 2021 and 2024. IOC will be declared by them sometime between 2017 and 2018, possibly with the full 3F software, but much like the USAF, they are prepared to declare IOC with Block 3I in the interim (USAF's Block 3I IOC plans have held steady since 2011).

[brar_w]

More:

The First “Adir” to be Revealed Today

IAF Chief of Air Staff: "We want to reach 75 jets"


The Minister of Defense, Avigdor Lieberman, who will lead the Israeli delegation to the rollout ceremony, said that Israel's intention is to equip itself with at least 17 additional F-35 jets that will join the 33 jets whose purchase has already been agreed upon. In the last few months, the Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot approved the IAF's recommendation to raise the number of Israeli F-35 jets to 50.
"Every opinion I have heard says that this is the best jet in existence today, and we will do what it takes to buy the additional jets", said Lieberman. "Advancing toward a new deal depends of course on the American aid deal which is being discussed currently, but my stance is clearly in favor of purchasing the jets".

The Head of the IAF Chief of Air Staff, Brig. Gen. Tal Kelman, who will also participate in the rollout ceremony today, sees the first 50 jets as an intermediate station. "We want to reach 75 jets", said Brig. Gen. Kelman. "The Israeli F-35 is the first fifth generation fighter to arrive in the Middle East, and it will allow us to open a significant gap in our abilities when facing all of the elements in the area".

According to the Chief of Air Staff, the IAF is already examining the F-35B model equipped with the ability to take off from very short runways and land vertically. "We want the first 50 jets to be A models, but beyond this, we are examining the options. The F-35B may be limited relatively to the A model regarding the amount of munitions it can carry, but has other advantages that may aid us in different scenarios".

[Austin]

North Korea test-fired missiles Musudan

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1976526.html

[brar_w]

Here's a table courtesy Jeff lewis...



While these ranges don't really effect South Korea as they do Japan and the US, politically, this practically ensures that SOKO will get THAAD and probably accelerates that timeline. This could also mean that they seriously consider the 9th and final THAAD battery (its not yet funded), for permanent positioning in Japan (which at the moment is only scheduled to have radars for SA).

[brar_w]

A few months ago, I had mentioned that plans were being finalized to bring the F-35 into USN's current and future construct - NIFC-CA. Below is more detail on the F-35 and SM6 integration and testing :

Navy Expanding NIFC-CA To Include Anti-Surface Weapons, F-35 Sensors

Navy engineers are working to bring new aircraft sensors and new weapons into the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) architecture, with near-term goals of bringing in the F-35’s radio frequency (RF) sensor and the anti-surface variant of the Standard Missile-6.

In a January test, the Navy proved that the new SM-6 Block I anti-surface missile worked, but it also proved that NIFC-CA – which, as its name implies, was engineered to go after fast-moving air threats – could be adjusted to counter surface threats too.

Whereas a normal NIFC-CA anti-air engagement might use an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye as the sensor that finds a target and then use the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) as the link to bring targeting data to the ship that ultimately fires a weapon, the anti-surface technology demonstration required some modifications. A different sensor was needed to identify surface targets, and that sensor could not use CEC, meaning the whole engagement relied instead on Link-16, Anant Patel, major program manager for future combat systems in the Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems, told USNI News in an interview this month.

Patel did not name the sensor used in the demonstration, but the Navy’s P-8A Poseidon, which is equipped with Link-16, or eventually the unmanned MQ-4C Triton would be ideally suited for the job. Patel said NIFC-CA is sensor-agnostic, as long as the sensor meets quality of service standards. But finding weapons that can hit large but slow-moving targets has its challenges.

“When things go slower, it’s easier” to track them, he said.
“But it has its own complexity also. Some of our weapons are not designed to look for slow targets, so we have to do some analysis and make sure we capture that. Also, if you look at SM-6, it’s more an anti-air weapon, so the capability’s designed to counter fast-moving targets, and then to go against this slow-moving target we had to make sure we can meet that requirement.”

Some minor modifications were made to the Aegis Combat System Baseline 9 to accept the data from the new sensor, but Patel said the culmination of this work – a test in January at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii – was a successful hit against a surface target, the decommissioned frigate Reuben James (FFG-57). This success is an early step in fielding a bigger All Domain Offensive Surface Warfare Capability.Another challenge in bringing new weapons into NIFC-CA is that now Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and PEO IWS will have to coordinate with Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and its PEO for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons – NAVSEA owns NIFC-CA and SM-6 but NAVAIR owns the rest of the anti-surface weapons in the inventory.

Patel said NAVSEA and NAVAIR have been in talks for about two months on how to work together.

“From our perspective, they just have the aircraft but we have the entire combat systems, Aegis and SSDS (Ship Self-Defense System), so how do we integrate all that into overall Navy?” he said.
“And then you look at what threat sets you’re going after, they have different requirements and we have separate requirements, so basically understanding each other, what are the requirements, what the capabilities are, where are we today, what are our plans for the future, and then how do we consolidate?”

Essentially, NAVAIR has its own kill chain for employing anti-surface weapons and NAVSEA has its own kill chain for employing anti-air weapons, and the two are trying to merge into a single kill web that shares common sensors, links and weapons.

Patel said that by this fall the two organizations should have a path forward for how to collaborate in engineering, testing and fielding this kill web idea. As new weapons are developed in the future, it should be easier to design them with this collaborative kill web in mind.

Patel said the Navy is also expanding NIFC-CA by introducing more sensors, specifically the F-35. NIFC-CA today primarily relies on the E-2D, which are limited in number. The F-35 will be fielded in great numbers by countries around the world, so the Navy is eager to prove out the NIFC-CA/F-35 combo.

The Navy will conduct a live-fire test in September at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where an F-35 will detect an over-the-horizon threat with its RF sensor and send data back to the USS Desert Ship (LLS-1) land-based ship simulator, which will then launch an SM-6 to intercept the threat.

“It’s no different than E-2D,” Patel said – except that the sensor will be new to NIFC-CA, as will the Mid Air Data Link (MADL) that was developed for F-35s to communicate with one another. The test will assess the Navy’s ability to take unrelated technologies and successfully close the fire control loop.

Patel added that the F-35 brings significant capability to the fleet, but his office is only funded to look at the RF sensor for now. Many of its other sensors could be integrated into NIFC-CA if additional funds were appropriated.

[brar_w]

Since we were discussing the seat on the F-35, and the light weight pilot (60 kg) restriction that was strapped last year.


Exclusive: USAF Weighing Replacement F-35 Ejection Seat

As I had explained earlier, this was a USAF issue, being dealt with by them appropriately. As the earlier links have shown, there are a total of 11 tests to be performed between march of 2016 and November 2016, and only after these would the 136 pound weight restrictions be lifted. As if those 11 tests (planned before Gilmore’s rant) weren’t enough, the USAF is now actively introducing an alternative into the mix in case the fixes Martin Baker has designed for the seat do not work out or incase Martin Baker is unable to go back, and re-design changes in order to meet the 136 pound pilot requirement. Keep in mind however that the safety boards do not find the risk above the weight restriction to be significant enough to warrant any restrictions, that still stands even with the standard seat and would obviously still stand even if the three fixes identified do not work exactly as planned.

To recap some points from the previous discussions and background –

- During testing the ITT found unacceptable risk for neck injury during the escape process for pilots weighing below 136 pounds (60kg).

-The risk of injury to pilots above 136 pounds was found to be acceptable by the ari worthiness authorities – Keep in mind that with the heavier helmets there is always a HIGHER risk compared to non HMS escape scenarios – USAF’s own expereince with ACESII and the F-16 proves that, including fatalities. Therefore, there is elevated risk of neck injury even on the upgraded f16s with the JHMCS compared to pre-upgraded f-16Cs.

- At the moment the F-35A (USAF) is restricted to pilots weighing 61.7 kg to 111.1 kg

-The current ACES II ejection seat, along with the current standard HMS (JHMCS) has 60 kg as its lower limit when it comes to pilot weights when the heavier HMS’s are involved

-The USN’s NACES has a pilot nude weight range of 61.7kg to 96.6 kg so they are not affected by the restrictions


-The US16E seat on the F-35 was/is EXPECTED to sustain the widest range ever asked for in an ejection seat + HMS scenario by a US service - between 46.7 kg and 111.1 kg

-Despite having this wide range, apart from the USAF, the other two services were to continue to maintain their existing weight ranges (61.7 kg to 96.6 kg for the USN and USMC)

- It is unclear what the international customers are planning, but its quite likely that they will keep their institutional status-quo (mostly built around the F-16+ACESII+JHMCS combo)

- The USAF is still STICKING to its weight range, and EXPECTS Martin Baker to fulfill its contractual agreement to fix the seat using its own money

- There are three fixes planned to open up the 46.7 kg to 60 kg envelope. All three of these fixes have begun testing and 11 tests through the differnet weight classes are to be pefromed till november to confirm that the fixes are suffiecient to open up the envelpoe, and reduce overall risk fo death or serious injury during escale.

There are three primary solutions, he says. The first is to add a “heavy/light” switch to the seat that will delay deployment of the main parachute for lightweight pilots. “We plan to begin modifying seats by the end of the year,” Babione says.

The second fix is to reduce the weight of the Gen 3 helmet-mounted display, developed by Rockwell Collins ESA Vision Systems. The third is to add a fabric mesh between the parachute risers to capture the pilot’s head during ejection

To compare weights of helmets. The original JHMCS I was a 4.5+ pound setup. The JHMCS II is a 4.3 pound system, while the Gen III HMD for the F-35 weighs 5.2 pounds. The re-designed, lightweight helmet weighs in between 4.6-4.8 pounds so is fairly close to the JHMCS I which is the most widely used HMS between the USAF and USN (JHMCS II hasn’t yet been adopted by a US customer, only Saudi’s).

The USAF is sticking to its guns, and Martin Baker is being asked to act, act fast or face the chance of loosing out on what is likely to be the company’s largest ejection seat contract for the forceeable future.

[Austin]

Lockheed Martin: Israel F-35 Rollout Celebration 22/6/16 P.7 ET 11:00 AM

[Austin]

Proton-Light proposed



Proton "light" concept

In 2016, Russian space officials announced plans to develop a smaller version of the nation's venerable Proton launch vehicle. The head of Roskosmos Igor Komarov, speaking to the radio station Ekho Moskvy on June 18 said that the Proton-Light variant would be narrowly aimed at particular demands of the commercial market. According to Komarov, an extra variant would make the Proton family more effective and reduce per-kilogram cost of payload delivered into orbit.

Komarov stressed that the Proton would remain in operation for at least seven or nine years, before being replaced with the Angara family.

On June 23, the head of GKNPTs Khrunichev Andrei Kalinovsky announced that the company had been preparing a new addition to the Proton family for a different type of commercial spacecraft, allowing various Proton variants to have their own individual price offers on the market. Kalinovsky did not provide technical details on the new Proton variant, but mentioned that it would not be a drastically new vehicle.

Around the same time, various industry sources revealed the most likely architecture of the Proton-Light rocket. The key change included the removal of the second stage from the standard Proton-M rocket. Instead, the traditional third stage of the Proton-M would be "stretched" to accommodate more propellant and used as the second stage on the Proton-Light. According to some reports, the propulsion system on the second stage could be modified to re-start its engine and boost its payload from an initial parking orbit to a geostationary transfer orbit, GTO. Some estimates showed that under such a scenario, the vehicle could deliver up to five tons of cargo to the GTO after launch from Baikonur.

Another configuration could use a Briz-M space tug as the third stage of the rocket.

In its new configuration, Proton-Light could fill the gap in the payload range left by the Zenit rocket, which itself fell victim to Russia's conflict with Ukraine. The new Proton variant would also be well positioned on the international market, which saw more competition with the arrival of the American Falcon-9 rocket.

However given the extended length of time required for even less radical upgrades of Proton and the official Russian strategy to phase out the vehicle in favor of Angara-5, it is unclear whether it would be possible to justify the Proton-Light development effort. A number of previous proposals to change the shape and size of the Proton-M rocket were deemed too expensive more than a decade earlier in the rocket's operational career.

[brar_w]

Japan Issues Request For Information On Fighter Options

Japan’s defense ministry is requesting information for its next fighter program, taking an early step toward an acquisition that will shape the country’s air force in the middle of the century and perhaps result in a domestic development effort.

The ministry is seeking information on three alternatives: creating a new fighter type, modifying an existing one or importing. The aim is to replace the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) F-2.

There are strong reasons to suspect that the ministry would only be satisfied with a new type, since no fighter now in production comes close to concept designs of the past few years that likely show what it really wants: a large, twin-engine aircraft with long endurance and internal carriage of six big air-to-air missiles.

That does not necessarily mean foreign companies will be wasting their time by responding, however. Even a domestic program led by MHI and engine builder IHI Corp., if affordable, would benefit from foreign guidance and technology.

For new designs, the ministry’s acquisition, technology and logistics agency has requested information on respondents’ capabilities and latest technology. For upgrades and straight imports, it wants to know about the current aircraft. In seeking the data, it is not using the conventional term “request for information,” but that is clearly what the exercise amounts to. Responses are due by July 5.

Four categories of companies have been invited to respond: those that have built airframes or engines, those that can show they have knowledge of developing and building them, trading companies and consultancies. The first group, manufacturers, most obviously includes MHI and IHI—and maybe such suppliers as Boeing, BAE Systems, Dassault and Saab, if they are not expected to go through trading companies. The second category appears to create an opening for such companies as Israel Aerospace Industries, which have not built fighters of entirely their own design but know a thing or two about the technology.The trading companies have been invited because they are a routine and peculiar element of Japanese defense equipment importation, acting as local intermediaries. In the F-X program that Lockheed Martin secured in 2011 with the F-35 Lightning, for example, the winning bid’s Japanese trading company was Mitsubishi Corp., while Itochu represented Boeing and the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Sumitomo Corp. represented Eurofighter and the Typhoon.

The Japanese government is due to decide by the fiscal year beginning April 2018 how to replace the F-2. A new type’s entry into service around 2030 has been expected, so the chosen type will serve well into the second half of the century.

MHI, IHI and other Japanese companies have been working on laying the technical foundation for a domestic type that would closely fit the ministry’s requirements. That or a gross modification of a foreign aircraft would be called the F-3.

The government would have to vastly increase its defense research and development budget to create an all-new F-3. In no year since 1988 has the country spent more than ¥173 billion ($1.64 billion at today’s exchange rates) on military R&D (see chart). Peak annual spending on F-2 development was about ¥100 billion. The F-3’s expected development cost is unknown, but the U.S. spent $30.4 billion on developing the Lockheed Martin F-22, which is quite comparable to concept designs of the F-3 published by the ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI). On the other hand, the F-2, based on—but larger than—the Lockheed Martin F-16, cost only ¥360 billion to develop more than two decades ago.

The F-2 is a strike fighter, but Japan clearly does not want to buy another. TRDI’s concept designs unambiguously emphasize the counterair role. The institute calculates that fighters with long endurance and therefore greater numbers on station would be more useful than those with better flight performance in battle. They would engage targets at great range with internally stowed missiles that, low-resolution drawings suggest, would be ramjet-powered.

TRDI’s concepts also include stealthy airframes.

Among the politically and technically acceptable aircraft that could conceivably be updated or imported unchanged to replace the F-2, the Boeing F-15 has been in Japanese service since the 1980s. It may offer the endurance Japan wants, but it lacks weapon bays and the most demanding stealth features. So does the F/A-18E/F, though limited internal missile capacity in pods has been proposed for both types. The Typhoon, Dassault Rafale and Saab Gripen E/F have similar limitations and probably fall short of Japan’s endurance requirement. The stealthy F-35 has only limited internal weapon stowage and is probably also too short-legged.

No foreign development program has a concrete schedule that would supply Japan with an acceptable aircraft, though the U.S. Navy and Air Force have requirements that may approximately match Tokyo’s targeted timing and performance.

Major dilemma :

- F-15SE falls short on missile load in its internal bay, plus lacks comprehensive LO features. Has the range in counter air
- F-18E/F Adv. - falls short on missile load, and lacks very long range in counter air
- F-22 - Not in production, but even if it were lacks the range
- F-35 - Only fighter that packs LO, and has been designed for 6 x internal missiles (Block 4.3) but is not twin engined, and probably they want even longer range
- Typhoon, good counter air, but no weapons bay, LO and probably short on range minus bags

Their only options are to either go for a very highly modified F-35 (new wing) or follow through on the Shin Shin and develop something from scratch. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The advantage being, revival of their own aerospace defense sector, the disadvantage being cost. They could probably field all F-35ADV's with the money required to design and develop the Shin Shin follow on. The F-35 currently has a 1100 or so km combat radius with internal load (For the A its calculated with 2 JDAM's and 2 missiles so it could be more with just internal missiles) so to go even farther they would require essentially a new wing or conformal tanks. They are willing to trade away performance for sheer TOS and range so could possibly explore this as an AOA.

In the medium term (10-12 years) the F-135 engine upgrade path will probably get them between 5-10% improvements in fuel consumption. More if additional VAATE technology is incorporated into it so thats an option as well.

[Philip]

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/ ... [quote]How capable are N. Korea’s subs, missiles?

2:13 pm, September 08, 2016
The Yomiuri Shimbun
North Korea has been repeatedly test-firing submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs (see below). On Aug. 24, an SLBM launched off Sinpo, a city in northeast North Korea, flew for about 500 kilometers. If fully deployed, these missiles pose a serious security threat to Japan, the United States and South Korea. The Yomiuri Shimbun interviewed experts on North Korea’s SLBMs.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 28, 2016)

===

Concerns over nuclear umbrella’s credibility

Toshiyuki Ito / Former Commandant of Maritime Self-Defense Force’s Kure District

North Korea’s SLBM program is steadily progressing. Looking at footage released by North Korea, a missile ignited the moment it cleared the water and flew smoothly. This was the most difficult part, and probably relied on technology provided by the former Soviet Union. North Korea is now able to reproduce that technology.

The SLBM may be the same type as a Musudan medium-range ballistic missile. The Musudan is widely believed to be a variant of the R-27 SLBM purchased from Russia that has been modified for land-based launches. A series of launches have been carried out since spring, and a missile reached an altitude of 1,000 kilometers for the first time in June.

North Korea’s SLBM was launched from a Sinpo-class submarine. Although it was modeled on a Golf-class submarine made in the Soviet Union, the crucial launch equipment was removed prior to purchase. According to U.S. reports, North Korea later purchased missile launch equipment and modified the submarine so that equipment could be installed, creating the Sinpo class.

The submarine’s hull is roughly six meters in diameter, and the bridge is about six meters high. As the Musudan is about 12 meters long, it can be installed vertically. Therefore, the recently launched SLBM was also likely fired from a Sinpo-class submarine.

Submarine construction is not easy. One of the most important factors is resistance to water pressure. In order to make the hull withstand extreme water pressure, steel plates must be molded into a true circle and welded to avoid leaving any gaps. Only a few countries, including Japan, are capable of building submarines on their own.

The Sinpo class is most likely a battery-powered submarine of about 2,000 tons. It can only dive to shallow depths and operate in coastal waters. I believe it is incapable of venturing far into the Sea of Japan, let alone the Pacific.

Technically speaking, it is virtually impossible for North Korea to send its submarines into the Pacific and approach the U.S. mainland in the near future.

What North Korea wants most is to develop the KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile, which uses improved technologies from its advanced Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile and is capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. If it can do this, North Korea believes it will be on an equal footing with the United States in terms of nuclear deterrence.

With Musudans and SLBMs, which are still in an experimental stage, the objective is to achieve a range of 4,000 kilometers. The intended target is not Japan or South Korea, but rather Guam, a strategic base for the U.S. military. It will be sufficient if SLBMs launched off the coast of Sinpo — like the most recent launch — could reach Guam.

In terms of nuclear deterrence, the significance of SLBMs lies in their second-strike capability. In other words, even if a country’s ground-based nuclear capabilities are destroyed in a first nuclear strike, nuclear weapons at sea can be used in a second strike against the enemy. Theoretically, this is how they work as a mutual nuclear deterrent.

If North Korea’s SLBMs were to achieve full combat capability, the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella could be undermined. This is because it could lead to such doubts as, “Will the United States really carry out a nuclear strike against North Korea in order to defend Japan?” or “Will the United States hesitate to carry out a nuclear strike against North Korea out of fear that Guam will be hit by a second strike?”

For Japan, the prospect of the nuclear umbrella being disregarded can be considered a threat.

(Taken from an interview conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Writer Tatsuya Fukumoto)

■ Ito’s profile

After serving as captain of the MSDF submarine Hayashio, Toshiyuki Ito retired as a vice admiral and commandant of the MSDF Kure District in August 2015. He is now a professor at the K.I.T. Toranomon Graduate School and a visiting research fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies. He is 58.

Keep focus on submarine developments　

Yang Uk / South Korean commentator on military affairs

To determine whether the recent SLBM launched by North Korea was a “success,” the weapons system and the missile launch need to be evaluated separately.

Regarding the missile launch, great obstacles have been overcome and it can be said with near certainty to have been a “success.” However, its success as a weapons system is another matter.

Three criteria must be met in order to have SLBMs. These are (1) the missile launch, (2) the nuclear warheads, and (3) the submarines from which to launch the missiles. Currently, it is fair to conclude North Korea has succeeded in completing (1) and could probably be said to have successfully met the criteria for (2), with four nuclear tests.

Although the SLBM launches in April and July are widely regarded as “failures,” this is not necessarily the case. It is possible that the April and July launches were experiments in which the missiles were intentionally exploded at certain altitudes, as was done with Scud and Rodong launches.

The problem for North Korea now is (3), submarines. In order for SLBMs to work as a deterrent, submarines need to be capable of remaining submerged for long periods of time.

Although North Korea possesses a large number of submersibles and submarines for landing and launching anti-ship torpedoes, when it comes to submarines capable of launching missiles it only has one outdated submarine that can remain at sea for only two to three days. It will, therefore, likely be some time before they are capable of building a successful weapons system.

Be that as it may, North Korea first introduced submarines in the 1960s and has produced all of them at its Sinpo submarine base. Over the years, they have accumulated a considerable amount of production technology. The submarine currently installed with missile launch tubes is based on a Golf-class submarine purchased from Russia in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

For SLBM-equipped submarines to be useful in actual combat, they require at least two missile launch tubes and an air-independent propulsion (AIP) system, which enables submarines to continually navigate underwater without surfacing.

It is believed that North Korea is currently constructing a 3,000-ton class submarine equipped with such features. Satellite images show construction of some sort is being carried out at Sinpo’s shipyards.

North Korea has continued to launch land-based missiles and apply those technologies to SLBMs, judging by the fact that the Musudan and SLBM are almost identical in appearance.

The nuclear powers of the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia all possess SLBMs. By completing its own SLBM, North Korea is seeking global recognition as a nuclear power.

If North Korea’s submarines become capable of venturing out into the open seas, constant monitoring patrols will be needed.

Japan has the best patrol capability in Northeast Asia. As South Korea lacks such capabilities, patrols may become the starting point for security cooperation between the two countries.

(Taken from an interview conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun Seoul Correspondent Kentaro Nakajima)

■ Uk’s profile

Yang Uk graduated from Seoul National University and gained a master’s degree from the Korea National Defense University’s Graduate School of Defense Management. Among other positions, he serves as a senior researcher at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, and as a policy advisory committee member of the National Defense Ministry. He has authored a number of books, including on national security and weapons. He is 41.

■ SLBM

Ballistic missiles that can be launched from submerged submarines. They are difficult to detect because they can be launched from below the ocean surface. Speech[/quote]

[Philip]

NoKo has just tested its 5th N-device.Along with its successful SLBM test ,NoKo is demonstrating a huge surge in its N-capability that is sending Japan and SoKo the jitters.

Meanwhile,O'Bomber's mil largesse to the Soothi Barbarians. Much of this weaponry would've gotten into the hands of ISIS as well.

Obama administration offered $115b​n in weapons to Saudi Arabia: report
According to a new report, offers over eight years totalled more than any previous administration and were intended to replenish arsenal after war in Yemen
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... bia-report

Saudi Arabia weapons
Members of the activist group CodePink hold a rally to protest US weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in Washington DC on Wednesday. Photograph: UPI /
Julian Borger Washington
Thursday 8 September 2016 18.10 BST Last modified on Friday 9 September 2016 00.55 BST

The Obama administration has offered to sell $115bn worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia over its eight years in office, more than any previous US administration, according to a new report.

The surge in sales is in part to reassure the Saudi monarchy of US backing in the wake of last year’s nuclear deal with Tehran, which raised fears in the Gulf that Washington would tilt more towards Tehran in its foreign policy.

The report’s author, William Hartung of the Centre for International Policy, said another factor was a drive by US arms manufacturers to boost sales to compensate declining procurement by the Pentagon. However, the most recent deals – such as the offer to sell more than 150 M1A2 Abrams battle tanks for an estimated $1.15bn – were principally intended to replenish the Saudi arsenal, depleted in the war in Yemen.

“I think that though the Obama administration is not thrilled about the Yemen episode; it feels it can’t stay out of it, because of the need to reassure the Saudis,” Hartung said.

His report found that since taking office in January 2009, the Obama administration has offered to sell $115bn in weapons to Saudi Arabia, half of which are accounted for by deals that are still in the pipeline.

“There are $57bn in sales in formal agreements so far, which is also head and shoulders above other administrations,” Hartung said.

The report comes as concerns about the UK’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia and their implication in potential war crimes in Yemen have split MPs on parliament’s arms control committee.

Arms sales over the eight years of the Obama administration have also included combat aircraft, attack helicopters, bombs, air-to-ground missiles, warships and military training. A division of Northrop Grumman is involved in a $4bn train-and-equip programme for the Saudi Arabian national guard, which has reportedly played a key role in the Yemen intervention.

The latest tank deal has drawn resistance from congressional Democrats, who have called for a freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, because of its bombing of civilian targets in Yemen. UN officials have estimated that airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition are responsible for most of the 3,000 civilian casualties in the war so far, twice as many as those caused by Houthi insurgents and other forces in the conflict put together.

Ted Lieu, a Democratic congresman from California, took a leading role in a letter by 64 members of Congress calling for the tank deal to be delayed, given the coalition’s campaign’s “deeply troubling impact on civilians”.

“I do not oppose assisting the country of Saudi Arabia, which has been a longstanding ally of the United States,” Lieu told the Guardian in a written statement. “What I do fundamentally oppose is continuing to sell arms to a military coalition that has repeatedly committed war crimes. The Saudi-led coalition has killed children, patients, doctors and newlyweds. A significant number of the killings of civilians by the Saudi coalition were nowhere near military targets. I will continue to do all that I can to see that the United States offers no support to Saudi Arabia’s operations in Yemen. The letter that 64 Members of the House sent last week shows that there is a growing chorus in Congress that shares these concerns.”

Tom Porteous, deputy programme director for Human Rights Watch, said: “As Human Rights Watch has documented in frequent field missions to bombing sites, US weapons are being used in coalition attacks that violate the laws of war and in some cases may constitute war crimes … To continue to sell arms is to fuel the flames and enable further violations.”

'Why do they target us?' Yemeni civilians pay the price of escalating crisis

The US has made appeals to Riyadh to do more to limit civilian casualties, and pointed to Riyadh’s creation of a committee to investigate incidents like the bombing of hospitals as progress in that direction. But the committee has shared information with the UN but not made its findings public. Hartung argued that such messages are least likely to be taken seriously while arms sales are booming.

“I think the US is such a significant supplier of bombs, ammunition, artillery and tanks and playing such an important role in the prosecution of the war in Yemen that there is signficant leverage,” he said. “If the US were to signal that part of that assistance would be frozen or withdrawn if they don’t show they are implementing measures to limit civilian casualties, that would send an effective message. I haven’t seen evidence that they have really made a convincing threat or statement on the consequences for the Saudis if they don’t stop. And any such message would be more powerful if other suppliers like the UK made similar statements.”