In a bid to “get out ahead of the threat”, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has released an industry-developed draft framework for civil aviation cybersecurity. The decision paper outlines a common approach to understanding threats and strengthening defenses for global aviation.
The U.S. Navy's Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (Uclass) effort has garnered lots of headlines for the innovations it represents, but the service is trying to use the program to prod the acquisition world into new thinking. And while seemingly bureaucratic, the new approach might just help the Navy land its desired Uclass fleet even as the military and intelligence sectors enter a long-term austere budget environment.
Leaks of classified information from former Booz Allen Hamilton and U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have given the NSA a world-class public-relations headache. Private citizens are reeling too, having not yet grasped the extent to which digital communications were potentially subject to state scrutiny. As the U.S. continues communications surveillance as a tool to fight terrorism, it faces both in-house and international data-privacy concerns. That struggle will also present new challenges for industry.
Speaking of austerity, the full effect of the 2011 Budget Control Act and its annual sequestration limits is likely to force the Pentagon to take a major near-term hit in its research, development and procurement accounts for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.
Finally, NASA is rolling out a new “strategic vision” for aeronautics that focuses civil aviation research on six themes. But with no new money, work that does not align with the main thrusts will be reduced. The strategy is based on understanding emerging global trends, including new competitors for U.S.
The Russian aerospace industry's ambitious strategic goal is to return to its Soviet-era position in domestic and international markets. But achieving that goal is not easy. The defense sector, which survived the 1990s and early 2000s thanks to export contracts, is consolidating its gains with the help of big orders from the Russian air force. The civil segment, backed by massive government subsidies, is trying desperately to win back a market lost to foreign manufacturers.
As a new phase of ship-borne testing of the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter gets underway on the amphibious assault vessel USS Wasp, British shipbuilders are assembling the ski-jump launch ramp on HMS Queen Elizabeth—the first of two new JSF-dedicated aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy.
For decades, cryptography has been the domain primarily of binary computing, and communications via an encryption-decryption cipher key. Conventional algorithms such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA), and Pretty Good Protection still provide a high degree of cybersecurity.
Rockwell Collins CEO Kelly Ortberg uses a telecommunications analogy to sum up the company's Aug. 11 purchase of communications provider Arinc: If Rockwell Collins is the iPhone, then Arinc is the cell phone network. Though simple, the metaphor is notionally correct—an iPhone is relatively useless without connectivity. The same is true of an information-enabled next-generation flight deck.
Meanwhile, the Transportation Department is working to designate permanent areas of the Arctic where small UAVs can operate 24/7 for research and commercial purposes, with the first approved operations coming this summer. The Arctic airspace comes on top of six congressionally mandated domestic test centers the FAA is racing to identify in a closely watched announcement expected by the end of this year. So far, 25 potential centers in 24 states have submitted proposals for the sites, Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari told the AUVSI conference.
Sooner or later, Russia's aerospace and defense industry will have to leave the post-Soviet era behind. It's not easy. Russia still has some enviable technology: combat aircraft flight control, missile systems and rotorcraft, to name three. But it takes more than technology to compete in markets around the world. The upcoming MAKS 2013 air show should yield a few answers to the questions raised in the following pages. How good is the T-50 fighter, and when will it be fully operational? Can Russia's industry become a player in the world's commercial markets?
As it winds down its role in Afghanistan, where strategic rivalry in another era was called “The Great Game,” the U.S. Defense Department has been suiting up for the next big round of conflict: cyberwarfare. The Pentagon has been racheting up the rhetoric gradually, with former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warning of a cyber-Pearl Harbor and more and more officials publicly acknowledging cyberwarfare.
It was a scientist's nightmare: an expensive test meant to study an exotic virus ruined by contamination because someone had forgotten to sterilize the equipment. And it didn't just happen once, but several times. Except the setting wasn't a medical laboratory, it was a military cyber range in Texas. And the tests weren't from leaving old samples of Ebola in the petri dish, but a failure to cleanse and reboot infected computers used in prior tests.
In what appears to be a major challenge to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, a recent Israeli-launched drone strike against suspected terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula breached Egyptian sovereignty for the first time since the 1979 accord. The strike occurred in the midst of a sensitive time for the Egyptian army; it is still clashing with supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood movement—more than a month after Egyptian top brass deposed the movement from power. The two nations have tried to deny that the Aug. 9 strike took place.
MOSCOW — Russian Helicopters has begun work on a high-speed testbed to prove technologies for its Rachel advanced, high-speed helicopter program. The testbed, which is being built at the holding company’s facilities in the Tomilino District of Moscow, is based on an Mil Mi-35 “Hind” attack helicopter. According to CEO Dmitry Petrov, the testbed will be used to evaluate configurations and technologies that will later be integrated into a Rachel prototype due to fly before 2020.
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Engineers at Rostvertol have developed an escape system to boost crew survivability on its Mi-28 attack helicopter. Like most helicopters in its class, the Mi-28’s two crewmembers, the pilot and the weapons operator, are given crashworthy seats, while the aircraft’s main landing gear has been designed with large, shock-absorbing oleos that have been designed to “break” and absorb energy in the event of a high-sink-rate landing, a likely scenario given that the aircraft has been designed for nap-of-the-Earth, low-level flying.
The RQ-21A Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) being developed for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps is still on track to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) with a Marine Expeditionary Unit on a Navy amphibious ship in mid-2014, the program manager said at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference this week.
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Russian helicopter manufacturing company Rostvertol is planning to transfer production to a new site by 2020. Managers at the company are studying options to begin the move later this year by first transferring flight test operations to a new location at Bataysk, about 20 km south of Rostov.
The U.S. Navy has issued $15 million contracts to four companies to conduct preliminary design reviews in advance of selecting a final design for a new unmanned combat air vehicle capable of operating on an aircraft carrier. Nearly $5 million of the award has been obligated to each of the companies competing for the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike aircraft program, based on the Pentagon’s Aug. 14 announcement. The contenders are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics.
