Rheinmetall Ammo. Germany’s Rheinmetall said on Feb. 17 it plans to open a new ammunition plant in Ukraine. Rheinmetall and an unnamed “Ukrainian partner company” have established a new joint venture to work on the “Ukrainian Competence Center for Ammunition,” which the German firm said will produce a “six-digit number of 155mm caliber bullets per year in the future.” Both companies will build and jointly operate the new facility, with Rheinmetall holding a 51 percent stake in the company and the Ukrainian partner holding the remaining 49 percent. The new partnership follows Rheinmetall’s announcement this past October it established the new Rheinmetall Ukrainian Defense Industry LLC joint venture with the Ukrainian state-owned Ukrainian Defense Industry JSC, which is currently focused on combat vehicle work.
Moultrie Stepping Down.
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie will step down from his position at the end of February, the Pentagon announced on Feb. 21. “Since his appointment almost three years ago, Under Secretary Moultrie has been a trusted counselor and a key member of the Department’s senior leadership team. He has shown a far-sighted approach to complex intelligence issues, built a rapport with domestic and international intelligence leaders, and established stewardship of our Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. Moultrie, an Air Force veteran, previously served as CEO of Oceanus Security Strategies and returned to public service as the Pentagon’s top intelligence official after earlier stints in senior NSA, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence roles.
Taiwan FMS. The State Department said on February 21 it has approved a potential $75 million foreign military sale with Taiwan for advanced tactical data link system upgrades. The new FMS case with Taiwan would specifically cover “cross-domain solutions, high assurance devices, GPS receivers, communications equipment, requirements analysis” and logistics and program support, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. “The proposed sale will improve the recipient’s ability to meet current and future threats by enhancing communications and network security, and providing infrastructure to allow the secure flow of tactical information,” the DSCA said in a statement. Contractors to support the program will be determined “through U.S. government competitive processes,” the DSCA noted.
Drones for Ukraine. Canada’s Department of National Defence is spending about $70 million to purchase more than 800 Teledyne FLIR SkyRanger R70 unmanned aircraft systems that in turn will be donated to Ukraine. The SkyRanger’s feature autonomous navigation, thermal and daytime sensors for long-range target detection and identification, and a payload capacity up to 7.7 pounds, including munitions. The SkyRangers are built by Teledyne FLIR in Waterloo, Ontario. The company already provides its Black Hornet nano-drones to Ukrainian forces.
Rocket Lab Financing. Trinity Capital is providing $120 million in equipment financing to space systems company Rocket Lab to support the expansion of its manufacturing capacity, testing equipment, and research and development. “This partnership enables us to build on the strong momentum as an established leading launch provider, and now also a satellite prime contractor, delivering reliable space services to a growing base of commercial and government customers,” Adam Spice, Rocket Lab’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. The Space Development Agency in January awarded Rocket Lab $515 million to supply 18 satellites for the Transport Layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
…New NRO Launch. Rocket Lab in March will launch a dedication mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from Launch Complex 2 in Wallops, Va., aboard an Electron rocket. Rocket Lab previously launched four missions for the NRO from its Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The launch window for the NROL-123 mission opens on March 20. The mission was awarded under NRO’s Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket contract. “The ability to reliably launch national security missions from pads in two countries is a unique one that offers a rare level of responsiveness and resiliency for small satellite launch, Peter Beck, CEO and founder of Rocket Lab, said in a statement.
DoD AI News. Scale AI last week said it is partnering with the Defense Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to create a test and evaluation framework for the responsible use of large language models in the department. Scale said its work, which involves benchmarking tests for DoD use cases, “will enable the DoD to mature its T&E policies to address generative AI by measuring and assessing quantitative data via benchmarking and assessing qualitative feedback from users.” The goal is to “help identify generative AI models that are ready to support military applications,” Scale AI said.
Maritime Awareness Sats. France’s Unseenlabs last week said its next two radio frequency satellites for maritime domain awareness will be launched soon as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-10 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. The company’s RF technology detects passive emissions from ship’s electronic systems to locate them even if they attempt to go dark by turning off their automatic identification system transponder. The upcoming launch, which will occur no earlier than March, will lift Unseenlabs’ 12th and 13th satellites into orbit. The company plans to expand its constellation to 25 satellites by 2025.
GPS-Denied Environments. Scientific Systems last week said it has demonstrated its non-GPS ImageNav image-based navigation solution for missiles, and manned and unmanned aircraft during flight operations between 200 and 25,000 feet. The edge-based ImageNav software fuses stereo terrain correlation, image-based feature matching, and feature-based velocity estimation to compute absolute and relative position updates. The Massachusetts-based company said it has multiple efforts ongoing to integrate its software into GPS-guided munitions and unmanned aircraft systems for operations in GPS-denied environments.
Maven Day. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will host a virtual industry day on March 14 for Maven, the agency’s artificial intelligence-based computer vision program for identifying targets from sensor imagery. Registration is open on the unclassified Acquisition Research Center website: https://acq.westfields.net.
Dividend Increase. L3Harris Technologies last Friday said its board has approved a two cents per share increase to the company’s quarterly dividend, which will rise to $1.16 for the first quarter of 2024, payable March 22. The increase is just shy of 2 percent and marks the 23rd straight year the company has boosted its dividend.
Navy Robotics Rating. The Navy officially announced it was establishing a new Robotics Warfare Specialist (RW) rating, according to a NAVADMIN announcement published Feb. 22. The announcement said RWs will be “subject matter experts for computer vision, mission autonomy, navigation autonomy, data systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning on our RAS platforms.” The service also said this is part of the Navy’s work to achieve a hybrid unmanned fleet and it expects the RW rating to accelerate development of expertise in autonomous technologies. The primary source ratings for RW conversions will be those now or previously assigned to billets in unmanned vehicle divisions and sailors with applicable Navy Enlisted Classification codes. The Navy said while all active duty ratings are open to convert to RWs, “it is important to note that this will initially be a small and highly selective rating.”
ESB-6. The Navy commissioned the USS John L. Canley (ESB-6) Lewis B. Puller-class expeditionary mobile base ship during a ceremony on Feb. 17 in Coronado, Calif. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro delivered the main address. The ship was built by General Dynamics NASSCO. It will support various missions like Special Operations Forces (SOF) and Airborne Mine Countermeasures (AMCM). This ship type has a four-spot flight deck, mission deck, hangar and is focused on aviation facilities, berthing, equipment staging support and command and control assets. The following ships, Robert E. Simanek (ESB-7) and Hector A. Cafferata Jr. (ESB-8), are under construction.
ESB-4. Separately, the USS Hershel “Woody” Williams (ESB-4) finished a period of routine maintenance at the Viktor Lenac Shipyard in Rijeka, Croatia on Feb. 8. This was a planned mid-term availability (MTA) depot-level maintenance period. The Navy said MTA-type periods are “critical to maintain safety and mission-essential equipment and ensure the ship will reach its planned service life.” The maintenance covered communication, fire safety, navigation and upgrades to decking and coatings to increase safety. Crew storage spaces were modernized while systems were upgraded to comply with updated pollution standards from the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). ESB-4 is assigned to the U.S. Africa Command area of responsibility with 6th Fleet, based out of Souda Bay, Greece.
T-ATS 13. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced the next Navajo-class Towing, Salvage and Rescue Ship (T-ATS 13) will be named the future USNS James D. Fairbanks. The naming occurred during a Feb. 21 ceremony at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. These fleet ocean tugs perform ocean-going salvage, towing, rescue, humanitarian assistance, oil spill response, and wide-area search and surveillance operations. Austal USA won a contract for T-ATS 13 in 2022 and plans to deliver it in fall 2025.
SSN-798 Launches. HII on Feb. 23 said it recently launched the future USS Massachusetts (SSN-798) Virginia-class submarine into the James River at its Newport News Shipbuilding facility. The boat was transferred from a construction facility to the floating dry dock where it was submerged and then moved by tugboats to a submarine pier for final outfitting testing and crew certification.
PEO Ships. Rear Adm. Tom Anderson relieved Tom Rivers, Senior Executive Service (SES), as Program Executive Officer (PEO) Ships on Feb. 21. Rivers assumed that role last August when Anderson was moved to become acting commander of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) from August 2023-January 2024, amid Sen. Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) then-blanket hold on military promotions. Vice Adm. James Downey completed his promotion and assignment as commander of NAVSEA in January. Rivers now returns to his original role as Executive Director for Amphibious, Auxiliary and Sealift programs within PEO Ships.
1 Million Autonomous Drones. While U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall last year introduced a planning figure of 1,000 Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the service to buy, other top service officials are urging a significantly upped number of autonomous drones. At a kick-off breakfast for the Unmanned Systems Exhibition (UMEX)/Simulation and Training Exhibition (SimTEX) in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 23, Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus “Grynch” Grynkewich, the head of Air Forces Central (AFCENT), said, “Thousands is nothing. Tens of thousands gets a little more interesting. What we need is hundreds of thousands up to a million autonomous intelligent drones, and that is where we are going.” Shield AI CEO Brandon Tseng, who said he attended the breakfast, posted the above comments by Grynkewich online, but U.S. Central Command and AFCENT have not provided further insight on Grynkewich’s comments, nor his estimate.
First Software-Defined Service. Of the military branches, the U.S. Space Force “is the first software-defined service,” says Charles Beames, the executive chairman of SpiderOak and the chairman of York Space Systems. The future of the Space Force “is less about rocket science and more about data science,” he says. While the U.S. Army has been about soldiers, the Navy ships, and the Air Force an amalgam of aircraft and rockets, Space Force will be more and more about data advancements, rather than commodity hardware, and Space Force–due to the existential importance of space–will one day usurp Air Force as the top dog in the Department of the Air Force, Beames predicts.
…Discontinuity in the Space Industry. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has an extended reach in the space industry– building Starlink communications satellites, Falcon 9 rockets for low-cost launches, and low Earth orbit satellites for the Space Development Agency. “We have a discontinuity in our industry right now, and it’s called SpaceX,” says Iridium CEO Matt Desch. “That’s fantastic for the industry but has an unusual, disruptive flow for all the business plans because it could put lots of people out of business. We can see it in the stock prices of lots of companies right now. There’s gonna be a lot of disruption.” While companies that survive may see a diminution in their stock prices, Desch advises that “you just gotta keep plugging away at things people can’t do as well as you.”