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Category: military – Page 137

The Space Development Agency is considering buying its next 150 satellites from three different vendors.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency is considering buying its next 150 satellites from three different vendors, but that could change after the agency evaluates companies’ bids, SDA director Derek Tournear said April 14.

Speaking at the Washington Space Business Roundtable, Tournear said a request for proposals will be issued in August for the agency’s Transport Layer Tranche 1 — a network of hundreds of communications satellites in low Earth orbit projected to start launching in late 2024.

The request will be for 150 satellites but SDA has not yet decided how that order will be divvied up. “There is probably three awards for those 150 satellites, but we’re not wed to three,” Tournear said. “Three is not a magic number. I’m really interested in industry feedback when they see our acquisition strategy.”

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As well as Kronshtadt, many other Russian enterprises in the military-industrial complex are developing drones for deployment on the front lines. For example, aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi has teamed up with defense company Mikoyan to build the Okhotnik-B, which will have a top speed of 1000 km/h. Another aerospace company, called OKB Sokol, has developed a UAV named Altius, due to be delivered to the Russian Army this year.

A Russian company is building the country’s first-ever specialized factory solely for manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It plans to mass-produce military drones, like those deployed by the Russian Army in Syria.

The 45000-square-meter plant, under construction in the town of Dubna near Moscow, will cost at least four billion rubles ($52 million) and will create jobs for more than 1500 people. If all goes to plan, it will be built in record time, with the launch of production scheduled for November 2021.

The company, called ‘Kronshtadt Group,’ is the developer and manufacturer of the Inokhodets UAV, also known as the Orion. This medium-altitude drone, which is capable of flying for a whole day, can carry a payload of up to 200kg, and has already seen action in the Middle East.

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Spot was apparently being used for reconnaissance.

Pictures of the exercises were shared on Twitter by France’s foremost military school, the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr. It described the tests as “raising students’ awareness of the challenges of tomorrow,” which include the “robotization of the battlefield.”

A report by French newspaper Ouest-France offers more detail, saying that Spot was one of a number of robots being tested by students from France’s École Militaire Interarmes (Combined Arms School), with the intention of assessing the usefulness of robots on future battlefields.

Boston Dynamics’ vice president of business development Michael Perry told The Verge that the robot had been supplied by a European distributor, Shark Robotics, and that the US firm had not been notified about this particular use. “We’re learning about it as you are,” says Perry. “We’re not clear on the exact scope of this engagement.” The company says it was aware that its robots were being used with the French government, including the military.

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FLIR Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR) announced it has won a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to rapidly develop novel fabrics with embedded catalysts and chemistries that can fight and reduce chemical and biological threats upon contact.

The revolutionary fabrics will be incorporated into protective suits and other equipment such as boots, gloves, and eye protection that can be worn by troops on the battlefield, medical experts, healthcare workers, and more. FLIR received $11.2 million in initial funding for the potential five-year effort worth up to $20.5 million, including options.

The goal of DARPA’s Personalized Protective Biosystems (PPB) program is to reduce the substantial weight and physiological burden of current Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) so soldiers and other specialists can better perform their tasks. PPB will combine novel, lightweight protective materials with new prophylactic medical technologies that mitigate chemical and biological threats at vulnerable tissue barriers, notably the eyes, skin and lungs.

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