Armed with Science

NRL’s MIGHTI Is A Go For Launch

jtozer — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:37:51 +0000

Space is about to get a little more…MIGHTI.

Conceptual design of NRL’s Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI), that is part of NASA’s ICON mission.
(Photo: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

A Naval Research Laboratory instrument designed to study the Earth’s thermosphere is part of a satellite mission that NASA has selected to move forward into development (Phase B), with launch expected in 2017.

The NRL Space Science Division (SSD) developed Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) satellite instrument is part of NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission.

The ICON mission, led by Dr. Thomas Immel at the University of California, Berkeley, will fly a suite of instruments designed to determine the conditions in space modified by weather on the planet, and to understand the way space weather events grow to envelop regions of our planet with dense ionospheric plasma.

Ionospheres act as a boundary between planetary atmospheres and space.

They contain weakly ionized plasmas that are strongly coupled to their neutral atmospheres, but also influenced by the conditions in the space environment. They experience a constant tug-of-war between these external and internal influences, and exhibit a remarkable set of non-linear behaviors, explains NRL’s Dr. Christoph Englert.

The unpredictable variability of the Earth’s ionosphere interferes with communications and geo-positioning signals and is a national concern. ICON makes a complete set of measurements of the state of the ionosphere and all of the critical drivers that affect it to understand this variability.

NRL’s MIGHTI instrument onboard the ICON satellite will contribute to reaching the mission goals by measuring the neutral winds and temperatures in the Earth’s low latitude thermosphere. The MIGHTI instrument uses the DASH (Doppler Asymmetric Spatial Heterodyne spectroscopy) technique, which was co-invented and pioneered by NRL.

The payload consists of two identical units that will observe the Earth’s thermosphere with perpendicular viewing directions. As ICON travels eastward and continuously images the thermosphere and ionosphere, MIGHTI will measure the vector components of the vertical wind profile.

NRL’s Dr. Christoph Englert leads the MIGHTI research.
(Photo: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

NRL’s MIGHTI is named for Albert Michelson, a physicist known for his research on the measurement of the speed of light using a related interferometer type. More directly, MIGHTI builds on technology previously used in NRL’s SHIMMER (Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals), a payload aboard STPSat-1. The NRL MIGHTI team is led by Dr. Christoph Englert, head of the Geospace Science and Technology Branch in NRL’s Space Science Division.

In addition to SSD leading the MIGHTI instrument, NRL scientists Dr. Joe Huba from the Plasma Physics Division and Dr. Andrew Stephan from the SSD will provide ICON scientific data analysis and interpretation.

ICON is part of NASA’s Heliophysics Explorer Program. The Explorer program, which has launched more than 90 missions since 1958, is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for the Science Mission Directorate.

Story and information provided by the Naval Research Laboratory

———-

Disclaimer: The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of this website or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities such as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.

Fostering STEM Interest With Robots

jtozer — Sun, 19 May 2013 11:49:17 +0000

Everything is more interesting with robots, don’t you think?

The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center hosted a Mathematics with Robotics seminar! The seminar presented by the National Center for the Advancement of STEM Education taught Cecil Country Maryland teachers how they can use robotics to make teaching math fun.

Video provided by RDECOM YouTube Channel

————

Saturday Space Sight: A Rose By Any Other Name

jtozer — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:36:33 +0000

The spinning vortex of Saturn’s north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Measurements have sized the eye at a staggering 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour (150 meters per second).

This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn’s north pole captured by Cassini’s imaging cameras. When the spacecraft arrived in the Saturnian system in 2004, it was northern winter and the north pole was in darkness. Saturn’s north pole was last imaged under sunlight by NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1981; however, the observation geometry did not allow for detailed views of the poles.

Consequently, it is not known how long this newly discovered north-polar hurricane has been active.

The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012, using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light. The images filtered at 890 nanometers are projected as blue. The images filtered at 728 nanometers are projected as green, and images filtered at 752 nanometers are projected as red. In this scheme, red indicates low clouds and green indicates high ones.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 261,000 miles (419,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 94 degrees. Image scale is 1 mile (2 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

———-

The Unmanned Way Of Warfare

jtozer — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:48:07 +0000

I think we need to come to terms with the fact that the age of AI is upon us.

From the indifferent-yet-dulcet tones of Siri, to the soda machine robot that lets you pick grape-cream-diet-vanilla-pepper, these so-called intelligent machines are taking a larger part in the way we live our lives.

The same can be said for modern warfare.

Imagine the noise – or lack thereof – that these things would make. (Graphic illustration from www.airpower.au.af.mil)

I’m talking about remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The use of these cool flying robots is nothing new per se, but the advancement of an unmanned fleet is becoming more and more of a reality.

So will we see legions of flying robots patrolling the skies?

So glad you asked…

Air Force Lt. Col. Peter Garretson is the Division Chief for Air Force Irregular Warfare Strategy, Plans and Policy (and previously the Chief of Future Science and Technology Exploration for Air Force Strategic Planning). Recently he published a paper titled A Range-Balanced Force, An Alternate Force Structure Adapted to New Defense Priorities. The topic on hand was, you guessed it, RPAs and UAVs.

More specifically, the important and growing role that they are playing in modern warfare.

According to Lt. Col. Garretson, the tides are changing in a big way when it comes to protecting that wild blue yonder. For the first time, the Air Force is buying more RPAs – the Air Force’s current term and method of operating remotely piloted / autonomous aerial systems – than fighters and training more RPA operators than fighter pilots.

According to the new (military regulation) guidance, “The U.S. military will invest as required to ensure its ability to operate effectively in anti-access and area denial environments. This will include implementing the Joint Operational Access Concept; developing a new stealth bomber, [and] improving missile defenses.”

However, it’s not as simple as just rolling out the roaming robots, as it were.

These expanding environments (changing strategic environments) feature significant ballistic and cruise missile threats, Lt. Col. Garretson writes, which put at risk close-in bases, carriers, tankers, and other high-value assets which underpin our fighter-heavy strike forces. In such environments, the Air Force must supply a “halt-hold” force at the highest end of the spectrum of warfare in theaters characterized by few air bases – all under missile threat.

To remain relevant, the service will also need a force structure that gives the United States a definite asymmetric advantage, Lt. Col. Garretson argues. Basically, they need the ability to function from a long range. RPAs and UAVs are a way to make that happen while also reducing the risk of causalities.

And mitigating risk is a major factor when considering any type of military strategy.

The dangers articulated in the new defense strategic guidance are not considered principally land threats, he writes. Essentially, the dangers we face don’t necessarily call for a large, mobilized army.

Lt. Col. Garretson makes the argument that the United States’ airpower and industrial base can supply the necessary speed of response and overmatch to deter threats; threaten escalation; and flexibly engage, disengage, and impose costs.

As noted by Peter Singer, author of Wired for War, “This robotics revolution is not just an American revolution.”

Moreover, the Government Accountability Office reported that “since 2005, the number of countries that acquired an unmanned aerial vehicle system nearly doubled from about 40 to more than 75. In addition, countries of proliferation concern developed and fielded increasingly more sophisticated systems.”

Lt. Col. Garretson writes that, given the conclusion of US combat operations in Iraq and the anticipated withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, the RPA community will naturally wish to adapt its technology and identity to high-end conflict. If not present already, a “critical mass” of RPA operators of ever-increasing rank will soon emerge within the Air Force, able to advocate internally for more investment in remotely piloted systems across the full spectrum of warfare.

Just like everything else in this uncertain world, the Air Force is evolving.

Each service will have to demonstrate how investment in its deterrent posture improves the US position in the larger international market space, and sustains the US economy by creating jobs at home. The latter is critical not only to maintaining our national aviation industrial-technical base but also to preserving congressional appropriations and support for Air Force modernization.

According to the report, currently the projected composition of the convergent force structure is approximately 2,300 total aircraft, overwhelmingly dominated by F-35s (a total buy of 1,763), with less than one-tenth (currently projected as 6 percent) long range and less than one-fifth capable of remotely piloted / autonomous operation.

Barring a crisis, the nation will operate on momentum. Assuming that we are not in a major war, America’s overall investment must be more or less right as long as procurement matches the stated priorities and objectives.

Now you might be wondering, is such a radically different force affordable?

A reasonable estimate suggests that it is. Assuming that aircraft cost scales with weight, a rough-order approximation derived by interpolating data suggests that the proposed force structure of 2,000 aircraft, composed of more platforms of larger size, admittedly increases costs by 15 percent over the projected force structure.

Inclusion of a less stealthy (but potentially quite survivable) blended-wing-body bombers (BWB-B) will measurably advance American aviation. The report suggests it would probably allow it to dominate commercial platforms for several decades.

NASA’s environmentally responsible aircraft concept. (Reprinted with permission from NASA)

Don’t think the Air Force isn’t considering the eco-friendly angle, by the way. The BWB-B could piggyback on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) environmentally responsible aircraft (ERA). The ERA seeks to build an optionally manned BWB cargo/airliner with double the range/fuel economy over current tube and wing designs at a size entirely consonant with a long-range bomber.

This project would advance the BWB airframe, structures, material, engine technology, and optionally manned technology as well as provide an indirect subsidy of our commercial airline business. The latter, in turn, will mean lower costs for the Air Force.

Saving time, money, lives and the environment. Sounds like a plan that may yield a lot more advantages than even Lt. Col. Garretson can consider.

The Air Force is also exploring the possibility of having pilots with both manned and remotely piloted experience. This could create substantial flexibility in rated management and better paths to leadership development.

Such a force provides an attractive option from a political perspective, Lt. Col. Garretson writes, by making the Air Force appear both responsive and visionary. The story is simple, with simple numbers: a combat aircraft fleet of 66 squadrons and 2,000 aircraft – two-thirds of them capable of long-range strike and two-thirds capable of remotely piloted operation – is something that any policy analyst or airpower advocate can explain quickly in simple terms.

This plan, he says, gives the Air Force both competitiveness and a visionary role in the nation’s industrial base. Moreover, it substitutes new projects and “spreads the wealth” across both defense contractors and congressional districts to the extent that it should allow scale-back of the F-35 overcommitment with the least pain.

Simply put: the unmanned way of warfare is the way of the future. And that’s not such a bad thing.

“If that is where the winds are blowing, let us not fight this jet stream of convergent forces but place ourselves in its tailwind. Pick the range-balanced force as the guiding star, and move confidently toward the future.” – Lt. Col. Garretson

Information for this article provided by Lt. Col. Garretson, USAF paper titled “A Range-balanced Force”

Jessica L. Tozer is a blogger for DoDLive and Armed With Science. She is an Army veteran and an avid science fiction fan, both of which contribute to her enthusiasm for technology in the military.

———-

Inside The NSA

jtozer — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:09:00 +0000

What do you think of when you hear the words “National Security Agency”?

Do you think of an enigmatic organization dedicated to keeping America’s secrets secure?

Do you think of a giant super computer, watching and processing everything that people digitally do?

How about a team of secret agents, scouring the country for those missing files that hold the key to unlocking the mystery of our forefathers?

Well contrary to what some entertainment outlets would have you believe, the NSA doesn’t just exist within the pages of books about conspiracy theories. It is not some crazy men-in-black organization designed to serve in the biggest of big brother capacities. No, it isn’t. Because I said so. Because I do.

Well, okay. Maybe they’re not that…entirely.

…Right?

So in my quest to discover the truth (in true X-Files fashion) I decided to get the inside scoop about the National Security Agency from this man:

I don’t know why, but I just feel compelled to trust this man. I bet he gets that a lot. (Photo courtesy of the National Security Agency)

His name is John C. Inglis, and he is the Deputy Director of the National Security Agency. I figure if anyone knows the ins and outs of the enigmatic organization, it would be the man who has dedicated nearly 30 years of his life to it.

And you know what? I was right.

So tell me a little about what the National Security Agency really is and what it does for the nation.

“Well, the National Security Agency, at the surface level, in terms of the literal mission, goes all the way back to World War II. We were formally created in 1952 to have a signals intelligence mission, which you might think of as breaking codes, and an information assurance mission, which you might think of as making codes. You might think of us, then, as creating intelligence by going after signals, communications of our adversaries, or insuring that they – our adversaries – can’t do the same to us.

But at a deeper level, what we do, as the National Security Agency, alongside our counterparts in the intelligence and security community, is we save lives.

We defend vital networks. We provide policy makers with information necessary to keep the nation safe, to steer the nation clear of threats or disasters, and ultimately, generate technical expertise in our particular field. We call it cryptology. That helps advance [to] science, technology and all those things that help keep the internet safe.”

What is the NSA’s role in the nation’s cybersecurity mission?

“We have a role, but not necessarily the role in cybersecurity.

First, we recognize that cybersecurity takes place in cyberspace. You might think of that as the internet‑plus, and that’s a shared venue.

There are all sorts of networks that are essentially cheek‑by‑jowl connected in cyberspace.

And so, as a part of that, we help understand what threats exist in that space. Some of those might simply be the threats that come from poorly designed hardware or software, some of those threats might come from foreign adversaries who are actively trying to actually do things in that place that might be not appropriate.

We figure that out and we provide that information to policymakers or operators so that they might help defend the things that are stored in cyberspace.

Our society and other societies store a literal wealth and treasure in that space.

It’s command and control that the military might be essentially trying to apply to forces in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. It might be dollars – literal dollars – that are stored as ones and zeros in that space. It might be diplomatic instructions that are conveyed by the President or the Secretary of State to our diplomats around the world. The only place where those things are stored increasingly is cyberspace. We need to defend it for all those reasons.”

How does the National Security Agency aid the military or help with military missions?

“Several ways.

NSA is the civilian component of what we know as NSA. The Central Security Service is the military component of what we know as NSA. So when I say NSA, I usually mean both. It’s about 60 percent civilian, 40 percent military, so, the military itself is participating in that activity to help support the military.

We provide information to decision makers. Sometimes in the Executive branch, sometimes in the other branches of government, but we provide information that helps them make thoughtful choices about the nation’s future.

In some cases, [this information] helps them understand when and where to commit the military to insure that that’s done in a way that is most appropriate to the military’s role.

We are not the policymakers, but we help inform the policymakers so that they can make the right commitments at the right time.

If and when we commit the military in harm’s way or other activities that are suited for the military, we provide operational information in real time to the military so that they might understand their opportunities, their challenges, their threats, and, again, succeed in their mission.

Finally, the NSA has an active role in training the military that comes to us that lives inside our organizations so that they might then be good at those roles that I’ve just described. They might then have future roles elsewhere in the military that benefit from the technical training they might have here.”

What do you think is the most impressive thing about the NSA and why?

“I think the most impressive thing about NSA, not unlike some other organizations, is its people. It’s the brain power that we bring to bear.”

How does the NSA help to save lives all across the globe?

“Several ways. The first is by helping decision makers…in a way that averts disaster or perhaps shortens wars that we might already be engaged in. I think the history of World War II – which is something we can talk at length about – is replete with examples of where that was, in fact, done.

The battle of Midway ultimately kind of depended upon those who stood in harm’s way, particularly the Navy, to win that battle.

Joseph Rochefort was an American Naval officer and cryptanalyst. His contributions and those of his team were pivotal to victory in the Pacific War. (Photo courtesy of the National Security Agency)

But beneath that was an intelligence breakthrough. The secret of Midway was that we knew that the Japanese were going to attack us at Midway, so a fellow by the name of Captain Rochefort went to Admiral Nimitz and said, “I’d like you to commit a vastly inferior force against a vastly superior force at a place called Midway“.

That’s a bit of a bet, but if the intelligence is right, then you can prevail in a way that shortens the war, saves lives. And we do that today in all of the places that you would imagine.

And the other way that we save lives is that we help provide information that might help our allies better understand the nature of the world and the threats that they’re under. This makes for stronger coalitions such that we can identify those areas where we have strong shared equities, and we, together, can build and sustain the kind of world that the United States would prefer.

Add all of those up, then we literally save lives by avoiding disaster as much as by winning a particular conflict that we might be in at this moment in time.

In a world where terrorism continues to be a very prevalent threat to just about all civilized nations, we work hard with others – domestic law enforcement, federal law enforcement, allies – to identify terrorist threats or the conditions that give rise to terrorist threats and try to preempt those terrorist threats using all the lawful means that you would expect. That’s a very important component of our job. We stand with a fairly diverse team in the United States and across our allies.”

So what about the misconceptions of the NSA? What can you say about all of those?

“I would just say that there are a lot of misconceptions, myths about the National Security Agency. If you were to have asked me what they are, I would give you the following: One, there’s a misconception that we get to, on a discretionary basis, choose what missions we have. Choose what techniques, capabilities we would bring to bear.

And, like any other federal entity, nothing could be further from the truth.

We’re more constrained than we are enabled by our charge, which is as it should be. That’s the nature of the Constitution. There are explicit authorities granted to an organization like NSA, and we work very hard to be mindful of them and to stay within that charge.

When we take the oath to the Constitution, it’s to the whole of it.

It’s not just to the national security side of the Constitution. It’s to the protection of civil liberties, privacy, the rights of U.S. persons. And, frankly, allies that we also respect in the world.

The second misconception might be that we’re more about stuff. It’s the computers. It’s all those devices that you’ll see on a CSI television show that make up NSA. To be sure, we’ve got some really interesting stuff, but the real core, the real competitive advantage that an NSA has is its people. We work really hard to recruit the best people we can find to sustain those people, and over time, get their intellectual capital, their brain power to be our core asset. As it turns out, that’s the nature of it.

Maybe the last misconception that people have about NSA is that NSA is a purely military organization. To be sure, we are a combat support organization, and we do a lot to support the military. Our roots are very strong and deep there, but we see a larger set of responsibilities for the benefit of the larger nation.”

So there’s no omniscient, mega computer in the basement of the NSA that controls everything?

[laughs] “No there isn’t, but there *are* some really smart people.”

So what would you say is the best part about working for the NSA?

“Ultimately, the NSA, for me, has been a great professional home for the last 28 years, and I look forward to others saying the same thing. It’s my charge to make that true, to make it possible for others to come to work here and to feel good about what they do, and to feel, at the end of the day, that they didn’t simply succeed individually, but they made a contribution to something that’s larger than the sum of its parts; the national security of the United States of America.”

Something that, I think we can all agree, is well appreciated. On behalf of all of us here on the other side of the fence, keep up the good work, NSA. Carry on.

Jessica L. Tozer is a blogger for DoDLive and Armed With Science. She is an Army veteran and an avid science fiction fan, both of which contribute to her enthusiasm for technology in the military.

———-

Behold! The Ultimate UAV Remote

jtozer — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:07:54 +0000

The holy grail of home entertainment systems always has been a master remote control for separate components of differing brands. Well guess what? The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has developed something similar for military ground, air and undersea unmanned systems that will work across the services, as outlined in a new video released May 1.

Behold the master of all remotes.

(screen shot provided by the Office of Naval Research)

This Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)-prescribed data model is a piece of software that enabled development of the Common Control System, which is comprised of many different common control services.

The Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Control Segment (UCS) software can be added to any unmanned system to make it able to communicate and work with any other.

It will run on any type of platform or hardware, and it can overlay existing systems running on propriety software to make them work with any others.

The groundbreaking UCS-2, or Universal Character Set, computer code-based software acts as a gateway that allows the warfighter to control an entire unmanned system, from the vehicle itself to its payload. The various services within the Common Control System are now available for download by all of the military services through an OSD-sponsored online “store.”

“Some day in the near future you’ll have a sailor controlling an Air Force unit’s unmanned system, or an airman sitting at a desk controlling a naval unmanned system or a Marine controlling an Army platform,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder. “That’s the kind of ability we will have with this new Common Control System — that’s our future.”

Historically, unmanned systems have been developed and fielded as individual items built by different vendors, which has led to increased spending, from $284 million in 2002 to more than $3 billion in fiscal year 2010.

They are all uniquely controlled by proprietary software created by numerous vendors, and the data they provide is sent out in unique formats, making it very difficult to control various systems with one master control or sift through all of the information being transmitted.

The common controller will change this and allow systems to work with one another. Getting rid of custom-built components and systems will simplify the systems themselves, as well as purchasing and training processes, thereby reducing costs.

“This opens the aperture for a much wider and more rapid generation of newer technologies and capabilities and for all vendors, including small businesses, to be able to compete for those capabilities,” said Dr. Bobby Junker, who heads ONR’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance department. “This is bringing back that entrepreneurial spirit that used to be there with unmanned systems.”

Video provided by the Office of Naval Research YouTube Channel

Additionally, all of the data captured by the systems will be saved in a cloud environment that is transparent across the military and easily accessible to and quickly navigable by all service members.

“This is all about transparency of data and services across all networks—making data available as transparently as possible to warfighters,” said Junker.

Making data available quickly is crucial for faster information gathering.

“In the future battle space, I think we’re going to see a lot of unmanned systems in all domains—air, ground, sea and undersea—being used to feed the intelligence community, provide information to the tactical warfighter and act as a virtual wingman,” Klunder said.

ONR is working with the OSD’s Office of Strategic and Tactical Systems, Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Program Executive Office (PEO) Integrated Warfare Systems and PEO Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons on this software.

Testing and experimentation were conducted in 2012. ONR validated that UCS can be used to develop common control services that provide total functionality for a particular Common Control System, the Bi-Directional Remote Video Terminal (BDRVT). As a result, ONR was able to provide OSD with a blueprint for all military services to be able to build a BDRVT using UCS-developed common control services.

By Katherine H. Crawford, Office of Naval Research
Video and information provided by the Office of Naval Research

———-

Space Situational Awareness

jtozer — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:33:38 +0000

A new agreement made between the United States and Australia represents the first in what U.S. Strategic Command’s commander hopes will be many that promote transparency in the space domain.

Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler signed the agreement on behalf of the United States, short-cutting the process for the Australian government to request data through Stratcom’s Space Situational Awareness Sharing Agreement Program.

The agreement represents another step in the November 2010 pact between the two countries to cooperate on space situational awareness activities.

It streamlines the process for the Australians to make specific requests about space data gathered by Stratcom’s Joint Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. This information, which includes locations of some 23,000 man-made objects in space, is critical in planning launches into the increasingly crowded space domain.

“Many nations share the space domain, and it is in our best interest to create an environment where the sharing of [space situational awareness] data facilitates transparency and improves flight safety,” Kehler said.

The new U.S.-Australian agreement paves the way for similar ones between the United States and its closest allies and partners, and is modeled on commercial agreements Stratcom has forged with commercial companies over the past three years.

Space situational awareness exchanges will assist partners with activities such as launch support, maneuver planning, support for on-orbit anomaly resolution, electromagnetic interference reporting and investigation, support for launch anomalies and de-commissioning activities, and on-orbit conjunction assessments, officials noted.

President Barack Obama’s National Space Policy and the National Security Space Strategy promoted this concept in 2010 and 2011, respectively, noted Air Force Col. Lina Cashin, Stratcom’s division chief for space, cyber and deterrence policy and security cooperation.

By Donna Miles, from www.defense.gov
American Forces Press Service

———-

DOD Officials Detail $1 Billion in Space Program Savings

jtozer — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:08:37 +0000

Senior Defense Department officials testified before Congress highlighting the activities the department has undertaken to save an estimated $1 billion and provide a balanced national security space program.

(Photo graphic by Jessica L. Tozer)

Gil I. Klinger, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space and intelligence, and Douglas L. Loverro, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces to review the department’s fiscal year 2014 budget request for national security space activities.

Klinger said the Defense Department is introducing competition as early as possible with a more efficient contracting strategy for acquiring space launch services and associated launch capabilities, resulting in significant savings.

“These actions resulted in an estimated savings of over $1 billion in the Future Year Defense Program, below the fiscal year 2013 President’s budget, without excessive and unacceptable risk,” he said.

Klinger said the department continues to consider potential alternative acquisition and procurement strategies across the national security space portfolio and remains committed to a disciplined cost approach.

“The undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and the service acquisition executives have established affordability targets for the majority of our large, critical space programs,” Klinger said.

The department also is assessing how to take better advantage of commercial opportunities, he said, and will continue to pursue more production-oriented processes and quantities as part of each overall mission architecture.

Klinger noted this approach may result in greater affordability and reduced time to fielding in the future.

“Your authorization in fiscal year 2012 to incrementally fund up to six years to procure two advanced extremely high frequency satellites and your fiscal year 2013 authorization to fund two space-based infrared system satellites are reflected in the fiscal year 2014 president’s budget,” he said.

DOD is committed to balancing the modernization of mission capability with the associated risks, Klinger told Congress, both in acquisition and operations.

“It is paramount that we deliver the capabilities the warfighter will need in the future, given the evolving threats,” he said. “The 2014 budget proposal increased investments over last year in the Space Modernization Initiative for missile warning to inform future acquisition decisions and anticipate evolving threats.”

And the Defense Department is implementing various Better Buying Power initiatives, Klinger said, to make GPS more affordable and to ensure it can sustain this “critical” global utility.

“In fiscal year 2014, the department’s budget proposal requests funding for an assessment to determine if we can accelerate the military GPS user equipment program,” he added.

Klinger said it would fund the development of the next-generation operational control system. “Both are required to enable a new military signal to further improve our GPS anti-jamming capability,” he said.

Klinger also noted he was “pleased” to report the completion of studies to help the department frame potential decision points for follow-on capabilities.

“In fiscal year 2012, we completed the architecture studies for resilient-based satellite communications, space control, and overhead persistent infrared capabilities,” he said.

Loverro emphasized the “basic reality” that space defense remains vital to national security during his testimony before the HASC subcommittee.

“[This] evolving strategic environment increasingly challenges U.S. space advantages, advantages that both our warfighters and our adversaries have come to appreciate,” he said. “As space becomes more congested, competitive, and contested, the department must formulate programs and policies that will secure those advantages in the years to come.”

This reality, Loverro said, is juxtaposed with the fact that as a nation, the U.S. provides these capabilities in an environment that is increasingly cost-constrained. And, growing budgeting challenges coupled to increasing external threats compel the department to think and act differently, he said.

“While these two realities present a clear challenge, I do not by any means view them with a sense of ‘doom and gloom,’” Loverro noted. “New entrepreneurial suppliers alongside our legacy suppliers are creating an ever-burgeoning commercial space market that can provide a significant advantage to the DOD if we formulate the policies and strategies to encourage their growth and use.”

Similarly, he said, there’s been growth worldwide in allied space investments in capability, which provide the Defense Department with “significant” opportunities to help build resilience into its space capabilities.

These policies and strategies will begin to address challenges and opportunities, but they are just the initial steps in an area that will continue to demand attention and action, Loverro said.

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
American Forces Press Service, www.defense.gov

———-

Investing In Science To Focus On Innovation

jtozer — Sun, 12 May 2013 11:14:16 +0000

The acting assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering said that to meet the Defense Department’s 21st century security objectives, its science and technology funding will focus on innovation and industry.

In remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association’s 14th annual science and engineering technology conference, Alan Shaffer said mitigation, affordability and surprise technology lay the foundation for the DOD’s science and technology commitments.

Shaffer noted a rise in the commons known as technology enablers that include space, cyberspace and the oceans. “These are the places that no one owns and yet enable all our operational systems,” he said.

In electronic warfare, Shaffer explained, the United States has enjoyed pre-eminent electronic detection systems with its allies, but now must maintain balance in the electromagnetic spectrum for its systems to operate.

“Increasingly, a space communications layer is vulnerable to being jammed,” he said. “Space is contested. Space is no longer assured — nobody owns cyber, but it certainly will [affect] how we’re thinking about the world.”

In cyberspace, research and resilience of data are key, Shaffer said. “We need robustness and … the ability to operate through any type of cyberattack,” he added.

Considering cyberspace as a science is critical, he said.

“I can go out and measure warheads,” Shaffer said. “How do you measure cyber as to whether or not you’re improving?” DOD also must continue countering weapons of mass destruction through sensors, network analytics, data integration and predictive tools, he told the audience.

Developing new tools and more prototyping within DOD and throughout industry are important to affordability, Shaffer said.

“Right now, it [takes] roughly 20 years to field a new weapon system,” he noted. “The requirement cycle cannot envision where you’re going to be in that period of time.” The services are using a program called Engineered Resilient Systems, which develops predictive tools to execute an open system design and perform thousands of system trades with larger, more complex systems within a computer, Shaffer said.

Typically, he explained, technology investment involves money and a lot of time in early basic research before encountering a concept, then learning about a capability that grows rapidly before flattening out.

“I don’t want to continue to have to invest in older, mature technologies where we flattened out some,” Shaffer said.

“I want to create surprise for other folks. That means the DOD must continue to invest in a lot of concepts in basic research, look for the maturation, and then put some big bets behind things to hit the high part of the growth curve.”

DOD science and technology also will encompass human systems, he said, from realistic and immersive training to better man-machine interface.

Analysts will further research how humans can better interface with platforms, and how DOD can reduce time for a human to better operate a system, he added.

By Amaani Lyle, www.defense.gov
American Forces Press Service

———–

Saturday Space Sight: Hubble Sees a Horsehead of a Different Color

jtozer — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:20:37 +0000

Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory’s launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.

Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery more than a century ago. The nebula is a favorite target for amateur and professional astronomers. It is shadowy in optical light. It appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that easily are visible in infrared light.

Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades.

During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from space shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that took the new portrait of the Horsehead.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

———–