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Category: military – Page 192

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman was awarded a $253.5 million contract by the U.S. Space Force to develop a cyber-secure communications payload that could be deployed on a military or commercial satellite.

The U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center announced Feb. 12 that Northrop Grumman was the first vendor selected to build a prototype payload under the Protected Tactical Satellite Communications (PTS) program that the U.S. Air Force started in 2018.

As many as four prototype payloads will be funded under the PTS program. Two payloads will be selected to launch in 2024 for on-orbit demonstrations that will last three to five years.

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Take a look at this latest Israeli-developed counter-drone technology and watch the Drone Dome laser, dubbed Light Blade, take down a number of DJI Phantoms. The video that was uploaded to YouTube today shows a truck-mounted version of Drone Dome, a Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) weapon. The setup includes a search radar, drone-radio command detector, an electro-optical sensor, and a command-and-control system.

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Circa 2015

As weapons get more sophisticated, researchers are trying to build defence systems that can keep pace, and what’s better than a force field?

Aerospace and defence giant Boeing has been awarded a patent to develop a force field-like system that could protect military vehicles from shockwaves following explosions from missiles or improvised explosive devices.

Boeing’s proposed system involves using a combination of lasers, electricity and microwaves to rapidly heat up the air between the vehicle and a blast. This heat creates a plasma shield that’s denser than the surrounding air and able to deflect or absorb the energy from the incoming shockwave.

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The military-run spaceport at Cape Canaveral will soon be renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to reflect the facility’s transition from the U.S. Air Force to the newly-created Space Force, military officials said Friday.

Officials said Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, home operational launch pads leased by United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, and nearby Patrick Air Force Base south of Cocoa Beach, Florida, will both get new names.

Brig. Gen. Doug Schiess, commander of the 45th Space Wing which oversees Patrick Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, said Friday that the two installations on the Space Coast will be among the first military facilities in the country receiving new names after the creation of the Space Force in December.

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The Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) program has been killed by the US Air Force as the service looks to make budget cuts in the area of hypersonic prototyping in the coming year.

Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek revealed Monday that budget pressure, rather than performance, influenced the service’s decision to abandon its HCSW program and continue its development of the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) — its other hypersonic weapon program.

“We will continue to work collaboratively with our sister services to see how we can most effectively leverage each other’s capabilities, ensuring the most prudent use of taxpayer dollars,” she said in a statement emailed to Defense News on February 10.

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