CEC Concept
(click to enlarge)

Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) may well be the most revolutionary capability available to the modern US Navy. It’s far more than a mere data-sharing program, or even a sensor fusion effort. This DID FOCUS Article explains those mechanics and implications. It will also track ongoing research, updates, and contracts related to CEC capabilities from 2000 forward.

The concept behind CEC is a sensor netting system that allows many ships to pool their radar and sensor information together, creating a very powerful and detailed picture that’s much finer, more wide-ranging, and more consistent than any one ship could generate on its own. The data is then shared among all ships and participating systems in the air and on the ground, using secure frequencies. It’s a simple premise, but a difficult technical feat. With huge implications:

• Co-operative Engagement Capability: How It Works [updated]
• CEC: Contracts and Key Events, 2000 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
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SBX-1, Pearl Harbor

6-month extension for Boeing. (Dec 13/11)

As rogue state proliferation by the likes of North Korea made missile defense a growing priority for nations including the USA, Japan, and Israel, the USA began to look at the linchpin of any defense: powerful radars that could both track ballistic missiles, and guide interceptors. The USA has its BMEWS tracking system, but that would not serve. America’s Safeguard ABM system was dismantled long ago – though Russia still maintains its counterpart System A-135 network around Moscow. Something new would be needed.

Enter Raytheon’s new XBR radar, based on an SBX-1 platform that looks a lot like a mobile oil drilling rig. Basing the radar at sea offers numerous advantages. One is the obvious ability to move the radar as threats materialize, allowing much greater coverage with fewer radars. Another is the ability to protect allies, without having to invest in expensive systems whose regional capabilities and value to the USA could be put at risk by the decisions of a single foreign government. In exchange for this freedom from political interference, of course, the designers must contend with nature’s.

Boeing SBX system is linked to its land-based GMD (Ground-based Mid-course Defense) missile system but can also operate with other naval and land elements…

• The XBR Radar & SBX Platform
• Contracts & Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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In December 2010, the US Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors in Moorestown, NJ cost-plus-award-fee contract modification, with a total increased value of $184 million, “to allow for continued performance of future weapon system concept exploration” for the MDA.

The initial $20 million is HQ0276-10-C-0001 contract line item number 0025, for work through Dec 31/12. The remaining $164 million will be divided into 7 x $20 million option periods, and 1 $24 million option period. Work will be performed in Moorestown, NJ.

MEADS: air view

The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program aimed to replace Patriot missiles in the United States, the older Hawk system in Germany, and Italy’s even older Nike Hercules missiles. MEADS will be designed to kill enemy aircraft, cruise missiles and UAVs within its reach, while providing next-generation point defense capabilities against ballistic missiles. MBDA’s SAMP/T project would be its main competitor, but MEADS aims to offer improved mobility and wider compatibility with other air defense systems, in order to create a linchpin for its customers’ next-generation air defense arrays.

The German government finally gave their clearance in April 2005, and in June 2005 MEADS International (MI) formally signed a contract worth approximately $3.4 billion to design and develop the tri-national MEADS system. In February 2011, however, events began to signal the likely end of the program. This DID FOCUS Article covers that program, and has been converted into a free-to-view article:

• MEADS: The System
• MEADS: Mobility and Employment
• MEADS: The Program [updated]
• Contracts & Key Events, 2004 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• The USAF is restructuring its Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) from 12 centers to 5 is one of the major steps within broader changes in its civilian workforce which should amount to adding “5,900 positions in acquisition, the nuclear enterprise, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and other key areas while reducing approximately 9,000 positions in management, staff, and support areas.”

• The Russian Defense Ministry and United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) have sorted out their pricing disagreements on Yasen and Borey class nuclear-powered submarines. That’s their good news. Gaddafi’s fall on the other hand means billions of dollars of lost potential arms exports.

• In talks with the German government, EADS is reportedly ready to waive penalties triggered by reduced Eurofighter orders in exchange for Talarion UAV orders. Germany has been leasing IAI Herons for the last 2 years. [Nov. 7 update: Germany says no.]
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DSP-16 Deploys

Support contract. (Sept 23/11)

Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites have been monitoring the skies as America’s early-warning system for ballistic missile launches since their first launch in 1970. The current Satellite Early Warning System (SEWS) consists of 5 DSP satellites; 3 provide frontline operational service, with 2 available as backups should problems emerge with the primary satellites.

The program’s lifetime has seen the launch of 23 DSP satellites, and improvements to DSP via 5 upgrade sets have allowed those satellites to exceed their design lifespan. The USAF’s fact sheet lists the satellites’ unit cost at $400 million, though they do not mention what fiscal year baseline that figure is linked to. While the DSP satellites successfully detected Iraqi SCUD launches during Operation Desert Storm, testimony before Congress has noted that there are some classes of missiles the DSP constellation finds difficult to pick up. This entry will be updated to cover new developments, contracts, etc.

• The DSP Satellites [updated]
• Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

The Alaska Radar System’s 17 remote radar sites (primarily AN/FPS-117 SEEK IGLOO and AN/FPS-124 SEEK FROST radars), serve aviation needs, and also act as the North Warning System for the USA. Upgrades are underway for the FPS-117s, in order to keep them running until 2025; that is covered in a separate article.

Keeping them running is a job for ARCTEC, who also handles contracts related to the USA’s more advanced BMEWS and PAVE PAWS early warning radars, one of which is located at Clear Air Force Station, AK. This article covers maintenance contract orders from the contract’s beginning in 2004 to its final period…

• Debate regarding the shape of operations after Libya shifts from a NATO-centric perspective to budget concerns, as the case is made for cutting back on the Army and continued emphasis upon combined Special Operations-Air Power Teams.

• A senior official from India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation says the country will be able to deploy an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system in 2014. Meanwhile, an Indian perspective emerges on the reasons behind the fifth-generation T-50 fighter’s aborted take off at MAKS 2011 air show and prospects for further Indian-Russian cooperation.

• A dispute between Rafael and Israeli Military Industries (IMI) regarding Defense Ministry proposals to merge their respective Trophy and Iron Fist missile defense systems has resulted in the deployment of new Namer (Tiger) armored personnel carriers without either system.

• The Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, General Norton Schwartz, says there are no plans to follow-up on proposals made by a set of retired generals and merge the Air National Guard and Reserve.

• South Korean media speculates that North Korea’s Air Force Commander accompanied Kim Jong-il on his recent visit to Russia and China to seek help to modernize the country’s armed forces in general, and air force in particular.

• The M-90 Eurotorp lightweight torpedo buy remains on Australia’s Projects of Concern list, but recent media reports were misleading.

• Some interesting comparative data emerges on the operational cost per flight hour (CPFH) of several US military aircraft, including Lockheed Martin’s F-22, Bell Boeing CV-22 and WC-135 Constant Phoenix.

• Iran has reportedly inaugurated its first carbon fiber production line at the Defense Ministry’s aerospace department.

AEGIS-BMD: CG-70
launches SM-3

The AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense System seamlessly integrates the SPY-1 radar, the MK 41 Vertical Launching System for missiles, the SM-3 Standard missile, and the ship’s command and control system, in order to give ships the ability to defend against enemy ballistic missiles. Like its less-capable AEGIS counterpart, AEGIS BMD can also work with other radars on land and sea via Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), receiving cues from other platforms and providing information to them, in order to create a more detailed battle picture than any one radar could produce alone.

AEGIS has become a widely-deployed top-tier air defense system, with customers in the USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, and Spain. In a dawning age of rogue states and the spread of mass-destruction weapons, the US Navy is being pushed toward a “shield of the nation” role as the USA’s most flexible and and most numerous option for missile defense. AEGIS BMD modifications are the keystone of that effort – in the USA, and beyond:

• What Is AEGIS?
• AEGIS Missile Defense Capabilities
• AEGIS BMDS: The Program, 1995 – Present
• Contracts & Updates, FY 2007 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings
  Continue Reading… »

MQ-9 Reaper

Aug 5/11: The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announces a maximum $48.4 million indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to General Atomics Aeronautical in Poway, CA to develop and demonstrate “precision three-dimensional tracking of ballistic missiles from a long endurance, high-altitude unmanned air system.” This contract was competitively procured via a broad agency announcement, with “multiple white papers received in response,” and work will be performed in Poway, CA from August 2011 through August 2016. $11.8 million in FY 2011 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be used to incrementally fund the 1st task order (HQ0147-11-D-0013).