US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

isn't it fun to watch the Pentagon:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Jura said:

I'm guessing

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

The U.S. Air Force has started work on a data architecture for its Advanced Battle Management System, the family of platforms that will eventually replace the E-8C JSTARS surveillance planes.

But the “biblical” rule for the program, according to the service’s acquisition executive Will Roper, is that “we don’t start talking platforms until the end,” he told Defense News at the Paris Air Show in June.

“It is so easy to start talking about satellites and airplanes and forget what ABMS is going to have to uniquely champion, which is the data architecture that will connect them,” Roper explained.

“I’m actually glad we don’t have big money this year because we can’t go build a drone or a satellite, so we’ve got to focus on the part that’s less sexy, which is that data architecture,” he said. “We’re going to have to do software development at multiple levels of classification and do it securely. All of those are things that are hard to get people energized about, but they’re going to be the make-or-break [undertakings] for this program.”

Some initial work has begun on identifying the requirements for ABMS data architecture. The service in March named Preston Dunlap, a national security analysis executive at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, as the program’s “chief architect.” Dunlap will be responsible for developing the requirements for ABMS and ensuring they are met throughout the menu of systems that will comprise it.

The Air Force Warfighter Integration Center, or AFWIC — the service’s planning cell for future technologies and concepts of operation — provided feedback to Dunlap about how ABMS should work, Roper said.

The Air Force is still deliberating what ABMS will look like in its final form, although officials have said it will include a mix of traditional manned aircraft, drones, space-based technologies and data links.

The effort was devised as an alternative to a replacement for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System.

While the service first considered a traditional recapitalization program where it would buy new JSTARS aircraft equipped with more sophisticated radars, leaders ultimately backed the more ambitious ABMS proposal, believing it to be a more survivable capability.

But defense companies are hungry for more information about the platforms that will comprise ABMS, seeing the opportunity to develop new systems or upgrade legacy ones as a major potential moneymaker.

Once the service has defined an ABMS data architecture — which Roper believes will occur before the fiscal 2021 budget is released — it will need to form requirements for the data that will run through and populate it as well as the artificial intelligence that automatically sorts important information and passes it to users.

“Maybe one sensor needs to be able to fill a gap that others are creating,” he said. “We’re going to have to look at requirements at a systems level and tell satellites that you need to be able to provide this level of data at this refresh rate. UAVs, you need to be able to do this rate and so on and so forth. Once we do that, then we’ll be in the traditional part of the acquisition, which will be building those satellites, building those UAVs.”

The Air Force intends to conduct yearly demonstrations throughout this process, the first of which will involve “ad hoc mesh networking,” which will allow platforms to automatically begin working together and sharing information without human interference. By FY21, full-scale prototyping could start, he said.

In the commercial sector, where devices can be seamlessly linked and monitored over the internet, this concept is known as the internet of things. But that construct — where companies build technologies from the get-go with open software — is difficult to replicate in the defense world, where firms must meet strict security standards and are protective of sharing intellectual property that could give competitors an edge.

“Openness in the internet of things makes sense because you can monetize the data,” Roper said. “That’s not going to exist for us, so we’re going to have to have a contracting incentive that replicates it. The best theory we have right now is some kind of royalty scheme that the more open you are and the more adaptation we do on top of your system, the more you benefit from it.”

The service wants to hold a series of industry days to see whether such a construct would be appealing to defense companies, and how to structure it so that it will be fair and profitable. One unanswered is how to incentivize and compensate defense firms that build in new software capability.

“If you create the system that allows us to put 100 apps on top of it, you benefit differently than if we can only put one. But the details are going to be difficult because maybe that one app is super important,” Roper said.

“But if we can’t replicate profit and cash flow on which their quarterlies depend, then they’re going to have to go back to the old model of saying they are for open [architecture] but secretly giving you closed.”

Click to expand...

Jura said:

isn't it fun to watch the Pentagon:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I'm guessing

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Jura said:

I recalled posting about that thing ... Jan 29, 2016
was the last one:now
MDA: Even without sea-based radar, we still can detect missiles in the Pacific

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

A large missile defense radar mounted on a modified floating oil platform has returned to Hawaii.

The $2 billion Sea-Based X-Band Radar was back at Pearl Harbor for regular maintenance and installation of system upgrades, Missile Defense Agency spokeswoman Maria Njoku told the

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

.

Shore personnel will conduct inspections and surveys, and crew members will receive training, she said.

The

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

plans to keep the radar, which resembles a giant golf ball, at sea for more than 300 days in the next fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 to “address the continued missile test activity in North Korea.”

The agency plans to have the radar spend 330 days at sea each year between 2021 and 2024.

The military also plans to build a series of land-based sensors that will also track ballistic missiles. These include the $1 billion

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, which is expected to be operational in 2023.

“With the addition of the long-range discriminating radar in Alaska, the homeland defense radar in Hawaii and the future Pacific radar, we will have in place a diverse sensor architecture in the Pacific to provide an improved and persistent” missile-tracking capability, former Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

testified in April.

Click to expand...

Jura said:

I still recall discussions at Fox News (if to deploy to the border) from the time I had lived in the US, which was in 2001 and 02;

at first glance it sounded like an outrage to have "permeable" borders with Terrorists potentially coming,

but from what I figured, there wouldn't have been enough Illegals to for example pick up apples for less-than-minimal wage, so

LOL no big tasty apple for a quarter,

and of course enough Lobbyists to keep this going

(not sure if it's changed since then)

Click to expand...

Jura said:

Monday at 8:50 PM
haven't heard of the candidate from inside of
Navy secretary weighing 3-star selections for top Navy officer, sources say

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

LOL in fact had to check what's the 10th Fleet

I mean the plot thickens

Click to expand...

Jura said:

Yesterday at 9:46 AM
and

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Navy to nominate three-star for CNO

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

...

Click to expand...

A three-star surface warfare officer is set to be the Trump Administration’s nominee to lead the Navy, after the previous candidate unexpectedly asked to retire, USNI News has confirmed.

On Wednesday, the White House agreed to put forward Vice Adm. Mike Gilday to be the 32nd Chief of Naval Operations, reported

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

. USNI News has independently confirmed the facts in the story.

Gilday, currently the director of the Joint Staff, will replace Adm. Bill Moran as the nominee to replace outgoing CNO Adm. John Richardson, who is bound by law to step down from the position by Sept. 17.

By picking Gilday, the former commander of U.S. 10th Fleet and the Navy’s cyber arm, the administration is bypassing seven sitting four-star admirals in a move that is largely without recent precedent. The last time a three-star was nominated to lead the Navy was when then-Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt was nominated to be CNO in 1970.

A defense official knowledgeable with the selection process said Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer had considered nominating current U.S. Fleet Forces Command commander Adm. Christopher Grady as the CNO nominee but instead decided to pull a candidate from the three-star pool.

“There was a determination all of the four-stars needed to stay where they are right now,” a defense official told USNI News on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, the Navy said “all three- and four-star admirals are eligible to be recommended for service as the CNO. The Secretary of the Navy will make his recommendation based on who is the best and most fully qualified officer for the position.”

Moran stepped down from consideration for the CNO job amidst an investigation into an ongoing professional relationship he maintained via email with a now-former public affairs officer who had been accused of mistreating multiple women at a 2016 holiday party.

USNI News understands the content of the emails were not concerning, but the relationship was enough for Spencer to question Moran’s judgement. Moran requested to retire on Sunday.

Gilday is a career surface warfare officer and 1985 U.S. Naval Academy graduate.

At sea, Gilday commanded guided-missile destroyers USS Higgins (DDG-76) and USS Benfold (DDG-65), Destroyer Squadron 7, and Carrier Strike Group 8 aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69).

As a flag officer, Gilday served as director of operations for NATO’s Joint Force Command Lisbon; as chief of staff for Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO; director of operations for U.S. Cyber Command; and in his current role as director of operations for the Joint Staff. He also previously served as the executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a naval aide to the White House.

Click to expand...