Russian Avangard Hypersonic Weapon may Have Carbon Fiber Supply Problems

Russia's plans to build a hypersonic weapon system that can travel at more than 20 times the speed of sound, and also evade US missile defenses, has predictably rattled the world. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that the Avangard weapons system would be ready by 2019. But some obstacles lie ahead that could impact production, CNBC reported. Specifically, the Kremlin needs to find another source of carbon fiber material to build the Avanguard hypersonic glide vehicles.

Russia's current supply of carbon fiber material is unable to withstand the extreme temperatures of hypersonic flight. According to a US intelligence report reviewed by CNBC, Russia is hunting for an alternative source of carbon fiber, but so far has had no luck. "It's expected that they will make no more than 60 of these hypersonic weapons because it's just proving to be too expensive to develop," an anonymous official told CNBC.

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Is the US Navy Serious About Buying the V-22s for Shipboard Logistics?

After years of hesitation, the Navy finally decided last year to buy 44 CMV-22B variant Ospreys to replace its C-2A Greyhound airplanes in Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) missions. But the way the Navy handled the V-22 in this year’s budget calls into question how firm its commitment to buying that many Ospreys really is. The Navy has so many competing, expensive and higher priorities that some Osprey partisans wonder if the money will be there for all those aircraft in the end even if, as expected, the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and Osprey makers Bell Helicopter and Boeing Co. negotiate a new multiyear contract – a bulk purchase at lower unit prices. In other words, the poverty penalty could come into play.

“The stress on the budget is real, it’s acute,” said one retired Marine general. “We don’t know right now how many airplanes the Department of the Navy is going to buy. If the multi-year falls apart, it could be less.”

Under an informal rule set by Congress, multiyear contracts are required to provide at least a 10 percent saving over annual contracts. Under the final year of the program’s second multiyear contract, the Marine Corps requested 16 Ospreys in fiscal 2017 at a “flyaway” price of $74.7 million apiece. Future projections released with this year’s budget show that price rising to $94.7 million per Osprey if they don’t get a new multiyear.

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US Navy Awards $151 Million Contract for V-22 Design Changes Needed to Supply Ships

Naval Air Systems Command awarded the Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office $151 million to begin engineering the Navy variant of the V-22 Osprey, which the service will use as a carrier onboard delivery plane.

The funding, adding onto an existing contract with Bell-Boeing, covers non-recurring engineering costs to add extended range, high frequency beyond line-of-sight radio and a public address system to the baseline MV-22 used by the Marine Corps. The Navy announced in February that its variant would be called the CMV-22B, a designation that combines the cargo-carrying nature of the Air Force’s CV-22 and the multimission and special forces-capable nature of the Marines’ MV-22.

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Israel Converting Merkava 2 Tanks to Command, Logistics and Ambulance Vehicles

Superseded in frontline service by both the Merkava Mk 3 and Mk 4 variants, the Mk 2s that were produced in the 1980s have been held in reserve for years, but the IDF says it will cease training personnel to operate the tanks in the coming months.

The IDF says the retired tanks will be converted into battlefield logistics carriers, casualty evacuation, and command post vehicles. The IDF has already produced one prototype for the logistics role and a second is currently being produced for casualty evacuation. The Armored Corps is looking at additional possible roles and has not completed its decision-making process. The IDF declined to say how many Merkavas will ultimately be converted.

The Merkava Mk 2 conversion programme "came from the understanding that we can and should convert the purpose of old platforms for other needs. This both serves the needs of soldiers and saves on expenses," it said.

The platform is the latest in a series of attempts by Israel's defence establishment to create better-protected APCs to replace its fleet of thousands of M113 vehicles, which have been in service since the 1970s.

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Lockheed ARES Drone to Start Test Flights in June

Lockheed Martin's Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) is preparing to enter the third phase of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) Transformer (TX) vehicle development programme next year. Three months of test flights are scheduled to begin in June 2016, Lockheed Martin officials said during a 13 October interview at the Association of the US Army's (AUSA's) annual conference in Washington, DC.

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British easyJet Airline Wants 200 lbs Payload UAV for Maintenance Logistics

UK low-cost carrier EasyJet is looking at using unmanned air vehicles to reduce the logistics burden in quickly supplying spares to grounded aircraft.

While the airline currently transports spares primarily by road, a vertical take-off and landing UAV could speed up the process and help to ensure aircraft are back flying as soon as possible.

The compensation that the carrier has to pay to customers if delays exceed 3h – as mandated by the EU – makes the speed of delivery of parts and the assessment of aircraft very appealing, EasyJet head of engineering Ian Davies told the AUVSI Unmanned Systems Europe conference in Brussels today.

"We need to be able to transport things using a 200kg [440lb] payload," says Davies, noting that UAVs are traceable and can fly encrypted missions.

Spares warehouses are typically situated near airports, so it would be a simple "A to B" flight, he adds.

A light-aircraft-sized tiltrotor with a larger payload could also carry out hub-to-hub flights across country or even to neighbouring countries, providing "instant availability for moving parts".

Although a 200kg payload would be ideal, aircraft with 50kg capacity could be more readily available and a shorter-term option, says Davies.

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US Navy Selects V-22 for Aircraft Carrier COD Provisioning

The Navy will buy V-22 Osprey tiltrotors to replace its aging C-2A Greyhound turboprop aircraft in flying carrier on board delivery (COD) missions. Breaking Defense obtained a Jan. 5 memo, signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford. It stipulates that the Navy will buy four V-22s each year from fiscal 2018 to 2020.

The MOU marks a major triumph for the Naval Air Systems Command V-22 program office, the Marine Corps and other Osprey advocates, who have argued for years that the Navy should replace its aging conventional take off C-2As with vertical take off and landing V-22s.

“The Navy is responsible for modifying these V-22s into an HV-22 configuration for the COD mission,” the MOU states. “The parties agree that subsequent documents will provide details on the concept of operations and milestones. A memorandum of agreement will detail reimbursable Marine Corps support for the Navy’s HV-22 transition, which includes training and potential deployment of Marine MV-22 aircraft and personnel to support COD requirements.”

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US Marines Embracing Logistics Robopocalypse: Testing Unmanned Convoy Technologies

It probably won’t look like Google’s self-driving Prius, but the Marine Corps will soon get a hybrid-electric unmanned prototype vehicle as driverless technology gets more tactical.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory will build that prototype in 2016, said David Dahn, project officer for the Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate, the lab’s driverless vehicle project. It’s one of many developments planned to increase Marines’ tactical advantage as autonomous vehicle technology gets smarter and more capable.

The diesel-electric hybrid requirement came after the Advanced Warfighting Experiment at Rim of the Pacific in Hawaii, where Marines got to test out the GUSS system on a Polaris off-road vehicle — a cross between a tactical golf cart and a four-wheeler — during various exercises.

“One of the complaints we got from the Marines all the time: it’s diesel engines, too loud,” Dahn said. “These are dismounted forces; they just want to be off in the jungle. They don’t want a lot of noise going on and when you’ve got a diesel vehicle within 100 yards of you, it makes it a little bit difficult to be stealthy.”

In the coming year, the lab will also work to refine the system’s towing and backing capabilities, possibly adding a third sensor to the rear of the vehicle to improve its “sight” when it hits reverse. In an upcoming limited technical assessment next year, Dahn said lab personnel will also work to improve how the system characterizes and classifies terrain through multispectral imagery.

Budget cuts mean fewer dollars to invest, but with a lighter footprint and planning for distributed missions, the Marine Corps could benefit from driverless vehicles, said John Bryant, senior vice president of Defense Programs at Oshkosh Defense. Oshkosh’s TerraMax unmanned ground vehicle technology has been in development for years and is now so sophisticated it’s impossible to tell there’s no driver behind the wheel, he said.

“You don’t need a convoy full of people to handle a logistics convoy,” Bryant said. “You could supply a remotely stationed outpost with nobody in the convoy. You could have remote units leave their vehicles somewhere, engaged in a fight and a raid or reconnaissance and then call the vehicles up to meet them. It allows so much flexibility for the warfighter.”

One of the greatest challenges with the technology, Bryant said, is convincing troops to trust that it works.

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OshKosh's TerraMax Technology has Been Made Into a Module for Any Modern Military Vehicle

The future of military robotics may not look much like a robot. It may just be a truck that drives itself. That’s the simple, pragmatic approach pursued by Oshkosh — a company better known for trucks than Terminators — with its TerraMax Unmanned Ground Vehicle. But after eight years of experiments for three different military agencies, TerraMax can only get somewhere in the real world by proving its technology can adapt to many missions and many types of vehicles.

Now the company has made a major step towards that goal. After years of experimenting exclusively with cargo vehicles, it’s installed TerraMax on the M-ATV armored truck and equipped it to clear mines. With roadside bombs (known in the military as IEDs) certain to remain a major threat in future conflicts, and the M-ATV to remain in service long after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, that’s a much more compelling combination of platform and mission. What’s more, Oshkosh is moving to a more open architecture for the TerraMax software to make it easier to adapt to different platforms in the future.

“You really do design these kits so they’re relatively easy to install on any vehicle, especially modern vehicles where you have a digital connection” to the engine and controls, said John Beck, who runs the TerraMax program. In this case, he told me, they’re “applying the TerraMax UGV kit to an M-ATV with a mine roller on the front [for] the route-clearance mission.” (Oshkohsh’s M-ATV is the lighter, nimbler, Afghanistan-optimized “all terrain vehicle” cousin of the lumbering MRAP machines — “Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected” — first made famous in Iraq). In the future, Oshkosh wants to add ground-penetrating radar to help detect buried IEDs.

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DARPA to Test Basing Military Supplies on the Sea Floor Bed

The Pentagon wants to set up a network of seafloor-bedded “nodes” that would include anything from supplies to weaponry to be called to the surface for military action when needed.

The Defense Department could begin field testing its “Upward Falling Payloads” anytime after October, according to the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency.

The system will be made up of a payload – a surveillance or communications system, for example – that goes into action once it reaches the surface in its “riser,” an ocean-resting pod and launch system, and the communications link that will trigger the “riser” to launch, according to DARPA.

During the first phase of the project, DARPA funded more than 10 study and design efforts, the agency’s program manager for UPF said on the DARPA’s science blog earlier this month. The first part also dealt with different kinds of mission payloads, Andy Coon said.

“We really learned about how the pieces come together, and built a community of developers to think differently about unmanned distributed solutions for the maritime domain,” he said.

The seafloor-based node – in which the UFP will live until summoned to the surface – has to survive at depths greater than 6 kilometers, according to the DARPA announcement. It also must last up to five years and operate within two hours after a command to launch.

They also have to be able to report on their “health status,” the DARPA announcement states, so that defense officials always know if they’re functioning normally.

Phase 2 testing is slated for the first half of fiscal year 2015 through the first quarter of 2016.

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US Navy now Able to Produce Jet Fuel From Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Sea Water

Navy researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Materials Science and Technology Division, demonstrated proof-of-concept of novel NRL technologies developed for the recovery of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) from seawater and conversion to a liquid hydrocarbon fuel.

Fueled by a liquid hydrocarbon – a component of NRL’s novel gas-to-liquid (GTL) process that uses CO2 and H2 as feedstock – the research team demonstrated sustained flight of a radio-controlled (RC) P-51 replica of the legendary Red Tail Squadron, powered by an off-the-shelf (OTS) and unmodified two-stroke internal combustion engine.

Using an innovative and proprietary NRL electrolytic cation exchange module (E-CEM), both dissolved and bound CO2 are removed from seawater at 92 percent efficiency by re-equilibrating carbonate and bicarbonate to CO2 and simultaneously producing H2. The gases are then converted to liquid hydrocarbons by a metal catalyst in a reactor system.

“In close collaboration with the Office of Naval Research P38 Naval Reserve program, NRL has developed a game-changing technology for extracting, simultaneously, CO2 and H2 from seawater,” said Dr. Heather Willauer, NRL research chemist. “This is the first time technology of this nature has been demonstrated with the potential for transition, from the laboratory, to full-scale commercial implementation.”

CO2 in the air and in seawater is an abundant carbon resource, but the concentration in the ocean (100 milligrams per liter [mg/L]) is about 140 times greater than that in air, and 1/3 the concentration of CO2 from a stack gas (296 mg/L). Two to three percent of the CO2 in seawater is dissolved CO2 gas in the form of carbonic acid, one percent is carbonate, and the remaining 96 to 97 percent is bound in bicarbonate.

NRL has made significant advances in the development of a gas-to-liquids (GTL) synthesis process to convert CO2 and H2 from seawater to a fuel-like fraction of C9-C16 molecules. In the first patented step, an iron-based catalyst has been developed that can achieve CO2 conversion levels up to 60 percent and decrease unwanted methane production in favor of longer-chain unsaturated hydrocarbons (olefins). These value-added hydrocarbons from this process serve as building blocks for the production of industrial chemicals and designer fuels.

In the second step these olefins can be converted to compounds of a higher molecular using controlled polymerization. The resulting liquid contains hydrocarbon molecules in the carbon range, C9-C16, suitable for use a possible renewable replacement for petroleum based jet fuel.

The predicted cost of jet fuel using these technologies is in the range of $3-$6 per gallon, and with sufficient funding and partnerships, this approach could be commercially viable within the next seven to ten years. Pursuing remote land-based options would be the first step towards a future sea-based solution.

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Lockheed AMAS Unmanned Logistics Vehicle Demo Impresses

Working closely with Lockheed Martin and a conglomeration of Army technology, acquisition and user community stakeholders, the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center successfully demonstrated an unmanned military convoy Jan. 14 at Fort Hood, Texas.

From a rooftop in the Fort Hood training area, military and industry VIPs saw firsthand how the Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System, or AMAS, enabled two driverless Palletized Loading System prime movers and an M915 tractor trailer truck to seamlessly interact with a manned Humvee gun truck escort. The convoy negotiated oncoming traffic, followed rules of the road, recognized and avoided pedestrians and various obstacles, and then used intelligence and decision-making abilities to re-route their direction through a maze of test areas to complete both complex urban and rural line haul missions.

As the ground systems expert within the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, TARDEC develops, integrates and sustains the right technology solutions to address ever-changing threats and shifts in strategic, technological and fiscal environments. Flexibility and adaptability are vital to future systems, and AMAS is designed to provide a wide range of military vehicle platforms with optionally-manned capabilities that will increase safety and provide the warfighter with additional flexibility.

“We’re not looking to replace Soldiers with robots. It’s about augmenting and increasing capability,” said Col. Chris Cross, chief of Science and Technology at the Army Capabilities Integration Center.

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Walmart's Concept Semi Truck of the Future

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US Army Looking to Replace Medium Trucks by mid 2020s

In the next few years, the Army may be ramping up new-start programs for a medium truck as well as a boat designed to transport supplies on inland waterways.

The currently unnamed medium truck, which would be created jointly with the Marine Corps, could be fielded in the mid-2020s, said Kevin Fahey, the Army’s program executive officer for combat support and combat service support.

“We're already working with the Sustainment Center of Excellence and the [research and development] centers, both Army and Marine Corps, because we need to right now start structuring a [medium truck] program like” the joint light tactical vehicle, he told reporters during a Feb. 19 media roundtable at the Association of the U.S. Army Winter Symposium and Exposition.

The new truck could take the place of the family of medium tactical vehicles, the palletized load system and the heavy expanded mobility tactical truck, he said.

A technology development phase could begin as early as 2018, he said.

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I sure hope they are going to make this optionally manned. The statement within the article they want to make it beefy like the JLTV and MRAP does not fill me with confidence.

DARPA's ARES Tilt Rotor Cargo Drone

Take the wing from a V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, mate it to the top of a septic tank and you’ll have something like the Pentagon’s proposed vertical-lift cargo drone.

The Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System—ARES, for short—could become the strap-it-on aircraft of choice for delivering cargo and lifting out wounded troops.

That is, if the fringe-science Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency can get it to work. Tiltrotors are notoriously finicky.

ARES, engineered by Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works lab, appears to consist of a flight module with a wing and two tilting ducted fans for lift and propulsion.

The wing would attach to a variety of cargo pods for hauling supplies, casualties and surveillance equipment. DARPA estimates the flight module could lift up to 3,000 pounds.

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The Race Between MilSpec Perpetual Pizza, the Singularity and Fusion is Coming to an End.

They call it the holy grail of ready-to-eat meals for soldiers: a pizza that can stay on the shelf for up to three years and still remain good to eat.

Soldiers have been asking for pizza since lightweight individual field rations — known as meals ready to eat, or MREs — replaced canned food in 1981 for soldiers in combat zones or areas where field kitchens cannot be set up.

Researchers at a U.S. military lab in Massachusetts are closing in on a recipe that doesn't require any refrigeration or freezing.

"You can basically take the pizza, leave it on the counter, packaged, for three years and it'd still be edible," said Michelle Richardson, a food scientist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center.

Scientists at the Natick labs also are responsible for developing equipment and clothing that improves soldiers' combat effectiveness and their survival, but the quest for good pizza has become known as the holy grail there.

Pizza is one of the most requested items when soldiers are asked every year what they'd like to see in their rations, said Richardson, who has spent nearly two years developing the recipe in a large kitchen full of commercial equipment.

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Lockheed, US Army Demo Driverless Convoy Technologies

U.S. Army convoys will soon be able to roll into even the roughest of unfriendly foreign urban areas and combat zones without the worry of loss of life, thanks to new technology that will make large vehicles fully autonomous.

In demonstrations earlier this month at Fort Hood, Texas, the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Lockheed Martin demonstrated the ability of the Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System (AMAS), which gives full autonomy to convoys to operate in urban environments. In tests, driverless tactical vehicles were able to navigate hazards and obstacles including pedestrians, oncoming traffic, road intersections, traffic circles and stalled and passing vehicles.

Under an initial $11 million contract in 2012, Lockheed Martin developed the multiplatform kit which integrates low-cost sensors and control systems with Army and Marine tactical vehicles to enable autonomous operation in convoys. According to Lockheed, AMAS also gives drivers an automated option to alert, stop and adjust, or take full control under user supervision.

“The AMAS CAD hardware and software performed exactly as designed, and dealt successfully with all of the real-world obstacles that a real-world convoy would encounter,” said David Simon, AMAS program manager for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, in a statement.

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Using 3d Printers to Revolutionize US Military Logistics?

Additive manufacturing, known to the public as 3D printing, may profoundly improve combat readiness and the defense industrial base far more than imagined by most proponents. But the Pentagon must account for the way different organizations measure performance, or it will be doomed to long delays and costly failure.

Additive manufacturing can be used to produce items that are impractical or impossible to make using traditional manufacturing methods because it builds them one layer at a time rather than machining, casting or cutting. Because it is computer controlled, complexity imposes few costs and designs can be quickly and easily altered, promising “mass customization” that is impossible using traditional mass manufacturing methods. Traditional manufacturing requires mass production to justify the costs of buying and building the tools to make an item. 3D printers can make items in much smaller facilities just about anywhere because the power, transportation, and vast floor space for tools and raw materials aren’t needed to make huge batches. Design files can be quickly shared electronically and produced anywhere.

Imagine a company or brigade able to produce repair parts on the battlefield. The Army alone spends billions of dollars buying parts every year. Every Army unit carries large parts stockpiles to keep rolling. This is costly and adds a huge burden to a unit as it deploys and in moving around the battlefield. A unit can’t carry everything, and it’s very difficult to predict what parts will be needed, so the Army uses various methodologies to figure out the most important ones on hand, balancing against cost and bulk. When a unit needs a part it doesn’t have, equipment can sit for weeks until a replacement part is shipped all the way from a depot or the manufacturer. Worse yet, sometimes the part isn’t available at all, triggering a potentially lengthy acquisition process. This problem has increasingly plagued the US military. Fewer manufacturers are interested in producing small batches of specialized military items for the fleets that have dwindled from their Cold War expanse. The explosion of unique, constantly evolving low-density equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan has exacerbated this issue.

This problem has forced the US military to “pure-fleet” designs and make them as multifunctional as possible. Having a single, common platform that shares most of the same repair parts allows maintainers to service their equipment with a smaller selection of parts on hand. But cramming diverse missions into the same platform involves compromises and doesn’t always work well — as exemplified by the F-35, which is slated to replace a diverse array of aircraft. Moreover, systemic flaws are eventually discovered in every design, often leading to usage restrictions or stand-downs until they are corrected.

Additive manufacturing could rescue the US military from the over-reliance on homogenous fleets prone to systemic flaws. Because 3D printers aren’t tied to mass production to meet economies of scale, they could support a diverse equipment fleet using different subsystems and components. Commanders could regain specialized equipment optimized for the job or quickly reconfigure equipment to optimize for the mission or conditions without the logistics and cost penalty. The acquisition system could avoid endless delays pursuing perfect designs for conflicting missions. Designs could start out with achievable, modest goals and continually evolve over their lifetime as conditions change or technology improves.

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