Defense Market

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI), a defense contractor and manufacturer of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), tactical reconnaissance radars, and surveillance systems, has announced that its Predator®-series UAS has reached the one million flight hours mark. Predator-series UAVs are in constant daily operations supporting the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Italian Air Force, the U.K.’s Royal Air Force, and other customers. Over 400 aircraft have been produced since 1994, including Predator A, I-GNAT® ER/Sky Warrior® Alpha, Predator B/MQ-9 Reaper, Sky Warrior, and Predator C Avenger®, among others.

A recently released Market Research Media report “U.S. Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Market Forecast 2010-2015″ finds that the U.S. military UAV market will generate $ 62 Billion revenues over the period 2010 – 2015. The U.S. UAV market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10% between 2010 and 2015, says the report.

Predator-series flight hours have seen tremendous growth in recent years, with annual totals increasing from 80,000 hours in 2006, to 130,000 hours in 2007, 235,000 hours in 2008, and 295,000 hours in 2009. Predator-series aircraft are currently logging nearly 30,000 flight hours a month supporting U.S. coalition forces in combat and with homeland security requirements. Every second of every day, 40 aircraft are airborne worldwide providing persistent surveillance and precision strike support in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other world hot spots. These aircraft continue to maintain the highest operational availability rates not only in U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army aviation, but also in the U.K. inventory. GA-ASI is currently building eight Predator-series UAS and seven ground control stations (GCS) per month, with the capacity to double production if needed.

The first flight of the Global Hawk UAV on NASA Mission over the Pacific Ocean has been successfully completed. The flight is the first of five NASA planned missions to study atmospheric science over the Pacific and Arctic oceans.

NASA-sponsored UAV program is just a small part of a broad U.S. government initiatives to keep technological superiority in the global UAV arena. The U.S. UAV market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10% between 2010 and 2015, says “U.S. Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Market Forecast 2010-2015″, a new research report from Market Research Media. The report finds that the U.S. military UAV market will generate $ 62 Billion revenues over the period 2010 – 2015.

The Global Hawk is a jewel in DoD’s crown, an unmanned aircraft with enormous range and endurance capable to fly autonomously to altitudes above 60,000 feet (18.3 kilometers) – roughly twice as high as a commercial airliner – and as far as 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 kilometers) – half the circumference of Earth. NASA UAV operators pre-program a flight path, and then the plane flies itself for as long as 30 hours, staying in contact through satellite and line-of-site communications to the ground control station at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California’s Mojave Desert.

In the first NASA flight, the plane flew approximately 4,500 nautical miles (8,300 kilometers) along a flight path that took it from Dryden to the south of Alaska’s Kodiak Island. The flight lasted 14.1 hours and flew up to 60,900 feet (18.6 kilometers) in altitude. The UAV payload includes 11 instruments to sample the chemical composition of Earth’s two lowest atmospheric layers, to profile the dynamics and meteorology of both, and to observe the distribution of clouds and aerosol particles. NASA scientists expect to gather data between 45,000 and 65,000 feet.

The Global Hawk Operations Center (GHOC) at Dryden serves as the Ground Control Station (GCS), where ground-based flight computers and communications equipment play integral parts in the system.

The Defense Department is considering European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co.’s request for 90 days beyond the May 10 deadline to prepare its bid. The department is considering whether it will allow a “reasonable extension”. Extensions aren’t unusual for requests for proposals and are considered on a case-by-case basis.

EADS indicated that other issues could affect its decision to compete against Boeing Co. for the Air Force KC-135 modernization program contract, estimated to be worth $35 billion. EADS considers this new development as a positive sign that the DoD seeks competition, but expects DoD to address EADS’ underlying concerns that the RFP clearly favors a smaller, less capable aircraft, and that the additional combat capability offered by EADS may not be fully valued.

Just 10 days ago EADS announced that the Northrop Grumman/EADS team will not bid for the US Tanker. In another interesting new development the Russian state company United Aircraft Corp. has announced its intention to bid for the DoD aerial refuelling contract.

In another twist to the ongoing Iranian saga, Putin is throwing a whole lot of bargaining chips on the negotiating table:

Carrots

• Supporting sanctions against Iran
• Reaching agreement on nukes

Sticks

• Threatening to launch Bushehr, Iran’s first nuclear plant, in June 2010
• Stalling agreement on nukes

What does Putin want?

• Membership in WTO for Russia
• $35 billion contract to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers by the Russian tanker version of its Ilyushin Il-96
• Respect and superpower status

In the absence of US understanding the Kremlin will continue as usual – dragging feet on the Iranian issues and meddling wherever in the backyards of the U.S. interests.
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GE Intelligent Platforms today announced 6U OpenVPX NPN240 multi-processor, expanding its family of rugged GPGPU (general purpose computing on a graphics processing unit) solutions. The NPN240 features two NVIDIA® CUDA-capable GT240 96-core GPUs, enabling it to deliver up to 750 GFLOPS peak per card slot (depending on the application). Multiple NPN240s can be linked to single or multiple hosts to create multi-node CUDA GPU clusters capable of thousands of GFLOPS.

Providing a highly computationally-dense platform, the NPN240 is ideal for demanding applications that are constrained in terms of size, weight and power. Many military/aerospace companies and organizations are finding CUDA technology exciting, as its innovative technology shows significant opportunity for a sustainable competitive advantage: it has been demonstrated to be capable of delivering significant improvements, with one company experienced a 15x increase in throughput in a radar application. Beyond this, the relative ease of CUDA application development, together with the rapidly-growing infrastructure of software development environments and CUDA-knowledgeable programmers, promises to deliver considerable gains in productivity.

The rugged NPN240 is designed to deliver game-changing levels of performance in deployed applications that lend themselves to parallel processing such as radar, sonar, and signal and sensor processing as well as state-of-the-art image, video and graphics . Typical applications include stream processing of high resolution images for deployed airborne surveillance.

U.S. Navy awarded a $219 million prime contract to CACI International Inc to provide command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (C4ISR) and business IT software and maintenance services to the Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center Atlantic. The award is a Performance Based, Level of Effort Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract with a one year base period and the potential of four one year options. CACI will provide development and integration support of software systems collectively referred to as the Naval Tactical Command Support System (NTCSS). NTCSS is an information technology system which automates logistics, supply, financial, maintenance, and medical functions for ships, submarines, aviation squadrons, and intermediate maintenance activities, afloat and ashore. Examples of the NTCSS suite of programs include Relational Supply, used both afloat and ashore to provide logistics support to numerous Marine Corps and Navy units and the Shipboard Afloat Medical System used throughout the world to document military members medical health history.

Increasing global threats such as those to computer networks are prompting more NATO attention to cyber warfare operations, NATO’s top military officer said today. Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that the cybersecurity is among the greatest concerns that impacts both military and civilian realms. European Command, as well as other U.S. commands, trains for widespread computer network attacks, and NATO last year opened a center in Estonia to deal with cyber threats, Stavridis said.

According to a recently updated Market Research Media report “U.S. Federal Cybersecurity Market Forecast 2010-2015“, the U.S. government sector witnesses a blossoming of investments in cyber security technologies.

More information on Cyber Security:

• U.S. Federal Cybersecurity Market Forecast 2010-2015
• Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): U.S. Government Market Forecast 2010-2015
• Cyber Security Conferences
• The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative

EADS announced that the Northrop Grumman/EADS team will not bid for the US Air Force Tanker replacement programme. Five years ago EADS had partnered with Northrop Grumman, as prime contractor, to pursue the US Air Force KC-135 modernisation programme. In 2008, the team was selected and awarded the contract. Today, Northrop Grumman has decided not to submit a bid to the Department of Defense (DoD) for the KC-X programme. The team had expressed serious concerns to the DoD and the U.S. Air Force that the acquisition methodology outlined in the Request for Proposal (RFP) would heavily weigh the competition in favor of the smaller, less capable Boeing tanker. Northrop Grumman’s analysis of the RFP reaffirmed those concerns and prompted the decision not to bid.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that the recently released request for proposals for the Air Force’s next-generation tanker aircraft was fair. Gaits expressed disappointment that Northrop-Grumman has withdrawn from the competition for the $35 billion contract.

The newest of the Air Force’s current KC-135 tanker aircraft now in service were built in the 1960s. On 29 February 2008, the DoD announced their choice of the Northrop Grumman/EADS’s KC-30. In December 2007, it was announced that this aircraft will be designated the KC-45A regardless of which design wins the competition. The DoD anticipated that the KC-45A would start to enter service in 2013. On 11 March 2008, Boeing filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the award of the contract to the Northrop Grumman/EADS team. Boeing stated that there are certain aspects of the USAF evaluation process that have given it grounds to appeal. Their protest was upheld by the GAO on 18 June 2008, who recommended that the Air Force rebid the contract.

According to EADS, the Air Force’s source selection methodology signals a preference for a smaller aircraft manufactured by Boeing.

Specs

Aerial Refueling Primer:
Air Force Aerial Refueling Methods: Flying Boom versus Hose-and-Drogue
Air Force Aerial Refueling Backgrounder

Rolls-Royce has released a press release with forecast of the world demand for turbine helicopters for the period 2010 – 2019. We have organized Rolls Royce’s data into the following table (Engine deliveries in units – our estimate derived from Rolls Royce’s forecast):

Here is an excerpt from the Rolls-Royce’s press release:

“Rolls-Royce projects deliveries of more than 16,400 new turbine helicopters valued at $146 billion during the 2010-2019 forecast horizon. These helicopters will require approximately 26,000 new turbine engines valued at around $12 billion.

The civil market will experience modest unit growth, especially in new entry-level turbine helicopters. Rolls-Royce forecasts around 10,300 civil helicopters to be delivered during the ten year period with an overall airframe value estimated at $38 billion and associated engine value of $4.2 billion.

Military original equipment manufacturer (OEM) deliveries are predicted to total approximately 6,100 new military helicopters during the ten year period, with an airframe value of approximately $108 billion and an associated installed engine value of around $7.7 billion.”

The Directed Energy Weapons business line of Textron Defense Systems has successfully tested its Joint High-Power Solid State Laser (J-HPSSL) laboratory demonstration device at average power levels in excess of 100 kilowatts. The J-HPSSL program is funded by the Joint Technology Office under contract with the U.S. Army Space & Missile Defense Command.