Mil-Tech

Lubbock contractor keeps USAF drones on course in Middle East

Parallel Solutions local computing company is having an effect on the way the U.S. military is pursuing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Parallel Solutions, an 18-month-old company, landed a contract in January to redesign servers that guide Air Force drone aircraft in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan to better handle the desert heat and dust.

“We have probably shipped about 100 so far,” said Benjamin Nelson, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

And the small company has an order in process for 200 more, Nelson said.

“An acquaintance came to us about the project,” he said, explaining that at the time, the servers — which are used to guide and observe the Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft on their missions — were experiencing a failure rate of about 40 percent.

“Dust was getting inside the cases, and they weren’t evacuating heat very well,” Nelson said, adding his company’s products were deployed overseas in mid-May. “We’ve had a zero failure rate.”

And that’s a big deal, because sending a drone on a mission requires deploying multiple servers along the path because of a relatively short communications range, Nelson said.

“I’m kind of a nerd,” he said. “Given the issues, I was really excited to jump on board and see if we could fix them.”

According to a statement posted on the Parallel Solutions website, the company has developed a server using 40 percent less power than the previous model, while increasing the calculation rate tenfold and selling the hardware at a lower per-unit cost.

It wasn’t your run-of-the-mill military contract, either.

Before Parallel Solutions received the contract, the design changes had to be approved by committees in both the U.S. House and Senate, he said.

“This probably is our blockbuster deal,” Nelson said.

Like many computing companies, there are plenty of things going on at Parallel Solutions, ranging from value-added hardware and software sales, to IT hosting and managed cloud computing.

Nelson and his mother, Louise, started the company 18 months ago, drawing in part on his interest in computing and his mother’s experience in management information systems.

Benjamin Nelson, whose degree from Texas Tech University is in biological chemistry, made the leap to computing while teaching chemistry at Odessa College.

“I became interested in Einstein’s Field Equations. They’re so big, you can’t fit them on a blackboard,” he said. “I tried to write software for working with them, but the computer was too slow. So I tried to build a computer.”

The field equations are a set of mathematical equations Albert Einstein developed to support his theory of relativity.

As a start-up, he said, one of the more difficult elements of operating Parallel Solutions is financing.

They can’t get it, and as a result, the much of the company’s cash flow is turned back to covering the costs of the next order coming through the door.

lubbockonline.com

$20M Order from NAVSEA Keeps iRobot Corp Thriving

Following better-than-expected results for the second quarter of 2010, leading robotics company iRobot Corp. continues its strong performance for this year, this time by winning a $20.3 million contract for battle-tested robots from the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). The order, a standalone contract, is for 125 PackBot Man Transportable Robotic System (MTRS) robots. The deal also includes spare parts and repair services if needed.

The PackBot MTRS robot’s predecessor, the highly-succesful iRobot 510 PackBot, is one of the most popular battlefield robots in the world today. They are deployed in war-ravaged areas including Iraq and Afghanistan, and are used in hazardous missions primarily to search for and neutralize hidden explosives. These robots have proven their reliability in deactivating car bombs, roadside bombs, and improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

Robots, said iRobot President for Government and Industrial Robots Division Joe Dryer, have long shown their worth on the battlefield. With roadside bombs and similar devices continuing to pose danger in Iraq and Afghanistan, he emphasizes the need for “outfitting our troops with tools to ensure they stay as safe as possible.”

“The iRobot PackBot is saving lives, and we are honored to be providing this technology to the military“, Dryer adds.

It can be recalled that just last month, iRobot also received an order for 94 units of Small Unmanned Ground Vehicles or SUGVs as part of a $14.6 million contract with the US Army.

To date, iRobot Corp has filled orders for more than 3,500 unmanned ground vehicles from both the military and public safety organizations.

R29m more for SA rocket killer

The SA Army has invested a further R28.9 million to develop “a local active protection system” hat can intercept rocket propelled grenades (RPG), missiles and even fin-stabilised long-rod penetrators rounds fired by tanks.

The R28 946 305.66 contact was handed Denel Dynamics last Wednesday. The company, SAAB SA and, Reutech Radar Systems (RRS), Rheinmetall Denel Munitions (RDM) have been working on the technology for about a decade. Denel Dynamics CE Jan Wessels in 2008 told the Engineering News active protection was a domain that had opened up from about 2003 “in peacekeeping and asymmetrical warfare situations around the world, with Iraq and Afghanistan being prime examples.”

In these operations, it is often impossible to distinguish between civilians and irregular combatants until the latter unveil their weapons. And by then they may be very close. Wessels noted that today almost every armed faction has RPGs and many groups have access to more sophisticated and powerful anti-armour missiles. “So they can attack and disable, even destroy, the most sophisticated and expensive vehicles,” he told Keith Campbell.

“We now have a product which we have named Mongoose, which is a small missile that gets fired at the incoming RPG or missile and actually destroys it before it hits the vehicle or other asset (like a command post) being protected by Mongoose. Now you can understand that this is a radically new type of technology, a new type of product. This is an example of a technology that is very beneficial in the current situation – for example, when our forces are deployed in peacekeeping operations in the future, this will be a very valuable lifesaver and equipment saver.”

Mongoose is currently the “hardkill” or “active” component in the SAAB Avitronics Land Electronic Defence System (LEDS). Wessels told defenceWeb earlier this year RRS provide the sensor, Denel Dynamics and RDM the Mongoose missile, and SAAB the overall system.

The system consists of a brain called an active defence controller (ADC), a set of sensors, a high-speed directed launcher (HSDL) and countermeasure options ranging from fast deploying multi-spectral smoke and decoys (soft-kill) to rockets (hard-kill munitions) to destroy incoming threats. “It is a unique system,” said Wilfred Moore, Saab Avitronics’ senior executive, marketing and sales in 2006. The control computer, which has a global positioning system capability, integrates with the vehicle intercom and its command and control system. It also draws data from the vehicle wind sensor.

The basic LEDS 50 warns the crew of a vehicle fitted with the system that they are in the beam of a laser. In the military environment, lasers are used to designate targets for artillery and antitank guided munitions, as well as for range finding. The system can deal with up to eight threats simultaneously, while providing analysis on the nature of the threat based on the spectral band used.

LEDS 100 adds jammers and decoys, while LEDS 150 adds the Mongoose counter-munition. LEDS 100 confuses enemy weapons operators and incoming rounds by deploying smoke in their line of sight or flight, hiding the target vehicle. The smoke and an optional infra-red jammer interfere with the acquisition and/or tracking, ranging, launching or guidance of a hostile weapon. The system provides automated warning to the vehicle’s occupants and “dynamically and intelligently screens the vehicle from attack in any direction (including above) in less than 700 milliseconds,” a SAAB official said at African Aerospace and Defence in September 2004. The screen obscures the attackers’ line of sight and gives the vehicle and its occupants to get behind cover. The screen is multispectral and cannot be penetrated by lasers or thermal imagers of the type used to guide weapons. Unlike some comparable systems abroad, one does not have to turn the vehicle or its turret to defeat the threat. “This is achieved by the use of a high-speed directed launcher. The launcher moves extremely fast and can turn to any position in the protected hemisphere in less than 100 milliseconds,” the official added.

LEDS 150 claims to destroy incoming RPG-7 rounds and antitank guided munitions with Mongoose at ranges as close as within 20 metres of the launch vehicle, allowing it to intercept rounds fired “from across the street”. Moore said this would be put to the test in late 2007 in what are called “full dynamic trials”, meaning LEDS would have to detect the rocket travelling at 300 metres per second and fire back within a bare fraction of a single second if the round is not to hit the vehicle. Moore said no other system in use has that ability, and tests prove it: On January 24, 2006, a Mongoose intercepted and destroyed a 105mm high explosive round fired from a tank at a muzzle velocity of 683 metres per second. In a previous test series, three Mongoose hit three fin-stabilised rods travelling at close to 1500 metres per second, breaking their fins and deflecting them from their flight path with concentrated blasts, forcing them to smash into the ground within 150m of the point they were to hit, Moore added. Mongoose should also be able to defeat rounds fired from anti-tank guns and even artillery shells, as well as anti-armour missiles. LEDS can also be used aboard ships and smaller vessels.

Indications are the Mongoose can also be delivered as a light precision guided missile from an unmanned aerial vehicle or light aircraft.

The SA Army has invested substantial amounts of money in the project in recent years: In March 2007 it awarded Denel Dynamics R720 205 for a local active protection system technology maturity study, and in August 2007 R17 192 301 for “active protection system technology establishment”. In October 2008 it added R526 315 for he same purpose and in March this year a further R712 716.46, amounting to R19 151 537.46. Last week’s contract takes the value of “hardkill” work since 2007 to R48 097 843.12. Indications are the latest infusion of money is for R&D work on “more challenging threat scenarios” than those that fit the Mongoose I profile.

Rugged radio designers for military applications focus on improving the networking, building tiny radios

Designers of rugged radios for military communications are focusing their efforts on improving the warfighter network, while at the same time creating radio communications technologies that are more efficient in terms of size, weight, and power.

“Today it is all about the network,” says Joe Miller, director of Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Ground Domain for General Dynamics C4 Systems in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Current operations demand better communications and warfighters need more bandwidth across secure seamless pipes. Networks must self form and auto route communications all without the benefit of fixed infrastructure — no cell towers. Real-time communications and situational awareness are critical, and current operations in rugged remote regions of the world require new networking technologies.

“However, the network is just an enabler,” Miller continues. “The value lies in applications that run on the network. Applications provide information and intelligence that improves safety, increases effectiveness, and multiplies lethality.”

The funding trends out of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) also are pushing toward a more efficient network, says Steve Marschilok, president of Department of Defense Business at Harris RF Communications in Rochester, N.Y. “The market and funding trends for military radios in the DOD are transitioning to wideband requirements as there is a pent-up demand for more and more data at the lowest echelons on the battlefield. Much like the commercial world, data intensive applications like biometrics, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), video, logistics are driving an increasing need for bandwidth.”

Falcon III AN/PRC-117G
Harris is meeting this demand with their Falcon III AN/PRC-117G, which is “the first wideband tactical radio that is both compliant with the JTRS Software Communications Architecture and NSA Type-1 certified,” Marschilok says. This radio has been deployed by the U.S. Army and other services to mission areas.

“The current challenge is to develop effective human interfaces at the soldier level to disseminate this intelligence without adding significant size and weight,” Miller says.

“From a product perspective, our military customers have placed emphasis on size, weight, power, and cost (SWAP-C) for new products,” says Earl Johnson, vice president of business development at ITT Communications Systems in Fort Wayne, Ind. “Radios of the future will be required to have an open systems architecture and run various waveforms as dictated by the operational environment. Tactical ground forces are seeking satellite communications on the move (SOTM) and beyond line of sight (BLOS) capabilities for company and below units.”

ITT’s Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW) meets this demand and brings “the network to battalion and below units,” Johnson continues. “We are developing smaller handheld radio capabilities that will exceed requirements for the JTRS Rifleman Radio. Our NexGen Iridium products such as the RO Tactical Radio are providing BLOS capabilities to deployed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In addition, we have tested and demonstrated a SOTM with our GNOMAD system that brings on the move capability using a low profile SATCOM antenna, Johnson adds.

Smartphone on the battlefield
“The Army has also expressed strong interest in bringing smartphone capabilities to the battlefield based on the commercial model of smart phones using various applications,” Johnson says. “This is a low cost, open system solution leveraging commercial technology.”

However, as “new radios become cheaper and the military move to commercial type smart phones, the ruggedization required maybe relaxed in the future,” Johnson says.

“Military standards for ruggedization really have not changed, nor have techniques to achieve ruggedization,” Miller says. “That said, what is new is miniaturization. The Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS) Handheld, Manpack, Small Form Fit (HMS) leverages technologies from the commercial cellular industry to achieve increased capabilities in packages significantly smaller than current radios.

“The smallest HMS radio, used on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sensors, weighs approximately 8 ounces, he continues.

“Ruggedization does become a challenge as density of electronics increases and size decreases,” Miller says. “Special techniques are required to manage thermal dissipation and unique power savings modes are necessary as well. Within the HMS radio, individual circuits can be shut down for fractions of a second all to conserve battery life and reduce thermal loading.”

Europe And Beyond: U.S. Consolidates Global Missile Shield

On September 17, 2009 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and President Barack Obama separately announced plans to shift the emphasis of the global American interceptor missile – so-called missile shield or anti-ballistic missile defense – project from the previous George W. Bush administration’s plans to a more mobile, flexible and geographically broader system.

The proposed deployments of ten ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and a forward-based X-band radar installation in the Czech Republic were abandoned in favor of what Obama deemed “stronger, smarter and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies.” Both Poland and the Czech Republic, however, remain part of Pentagon plans and will be incorporated into a broader grid with all 28 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which in its final stage will cover all of Europe. Or at least the entire continent west of Russia and Belarus.

Plans for ground-based interceptors in Poland alarmed Russia, which necessarily saw them as aimed at itself, but would also have been housed in fixed silos that made them easy targets.

In the month before the announced change in American plans to begin the incremental buildup of a missile shield in Eastern Europe – phased adaptive approach in government terms – a report surfaced at the annual U.S. Space and Missile Defense Conference of the Boeing Company planning a 47,500-pound mobile interceptor missile launcher to be deployed within 24 hours to NATO bases in Europe. During the same month the Missile Defense Agency and Boeing also announced the successful test of their joint Airborne Laser (ABL) anti-missile system.

At the end of last August the first disclosure appeared of plans to expand U.S. interceptor missile deployments to the Balkans and the Black Sea region, Israel and Turkey. [4] The head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, said at the time that he supported the installation of Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors in the Balkans and Turkey. (In 2007 his predecessor, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, mentioned placing U.S. interceptor missile radar sites in the Caucasus and even Ukraine.)

The SM-3 is a ship-based anti-ballistic missile and anti-satellite interceptor – used to destroy an American satellite in orbit over the Pacific Ocean in February of 2008 – and part of the U.S. and allied Aegis ballistic missile defense system. It has the main advantage of being deployable around the world on destroyers and cruisers. What O’Reilly was referring to, though, was a combination of sea-based SM-3s and their adaptation for use on land.

In describing current U.S. missile shield plans last September, Pentagon chief Gates spoke of a four-phase program that began with the deployment of Aegis class warships equipped with SM-3s in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea last year, to be followed by enhanced versions of the missile both on sea and land, with successive generations of more advanced models in the third and fourth stage.

This February plans to station land-based SM-3s in Bulgaria and Romania were announced [5], and when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in the latter’s nation early last month to sign an amended agreement on interceptor missile cooperation, it was revealed that SM-3s will be stationed in Poland in the second phase of the Pentagon’s plan for a continent-wide interceptor system. [6] Slightly more than a month before, the U.S. moved Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors and approximately 100 troops into eastern Poland, only a few kilometers from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. [7] U.S. deployments in the country are also part of a broader NATO strategy.

Connecting the ship- and land-based components of the global U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe with other locations to the east and the south, the Pentagon has also been qualitatively expanding Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Standard Missile-3 deployments in the Persian Gulf. Washington is now preparing to provide Gulf Arab states with the longer-range Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile intercept system.

Last October and November the U.S. and Israel conducted the fourteen-day Juniper Cobra 10 exercise with five missile interception systems, the largest such live-fire maneuvers ever held. An American military officer present at the war games said the unparalleled drills would “help the development of a planned NATO missile shield for Europe.” A year before, the U.S. deployed an X-band missile shield radar (Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance) to Israel with 120 troops, the first and to date only long-term foreign troop deployment in Israel’s history.

Washington and NATO are well advanced in solidifying an impenetrable interceptor missile system from the Baltic Sea to the Arabian Sea and the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

In the past few days further details have emerged concerning the expansion of those plans in both breadth and sophistication.

On August 30 Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas announced that “his government has been negotiating a plan with the United States to place a warning center in the Czech Republic as part of a reworked U.S. missile defense plan.” He also stated that personnel manning the facility could be provided by the U.S. and other NATO states and that the site could even be based in his nation’s capital, Prague. Necas added, “The U.S. plans to initially invest $2 million in 2011 and 2012 for the center, which is expected to become part of a joint NATO missile defense shield in the future,” and that no new treaty with Washington would be required for the project. Czech popular opposition to the earlier plan for an X-band missile defense installation was credited for the U.S. discarding the Bush-era plan.

Two days afterward Czech Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra confirmed that the U.S. had allotted $2 million for the construction of the facility, that American experts would be deployed there and that it would be in operation by the middle of next year. Vondra added, “I believe it will be one of many parts of the NATO system….”

In August of last year the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza revealed that the U.S. would expand its interceptor missile plans to the Balkans, Israel and Turkey. This August the Washington Post belatedly confirmed that design.

An article by staff writer Craig Whitlock appeared in the August 1 Sunday edition of the newspaper which quoted several U.S. military officials to the effect that:

“The U.S. military is on the verge of activating a partial missile shield over southern Europe….

“Pentagon officials said they are nearing a deal to establish a key radar ground station, probably in Turkey or Bulgaria. Installation of the high-powered X-band radar would enable the first phase of the shield to become operational next year.

“At the same time, the U.S. military is working with Israel and allies in the Persian Gulf to build and upgrade their missile defense capabilities. The United States installed a radar ground station in Israel in 2008 and is looking to place another in an Arab country in the gulf region.”

Not substituting for deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic, as has been seen above, but adapting and extending the network of which they are a part southward and eastward.

The Washington Post feature added that although the interceptor missile projects in Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf are technically distinct, “they are all designed to plug into command-and-control systems operated by, or with, the U.S. military. The Israeli radar, for example, is operated by U.S. personnel and is already functional, feeding information to U.S. Navy ships operating in the Mediterranean.”

Providing historical perspective and dispelling the prevalent notion that the current administration’s plans are in any manner a retreat from those of its predecessor, the piece stated:

“The concept of a missile shield began with former president Ronald Reagan, who first described his vision of a defense against a Soviet nuclear attack in his ‘Star Wars’ speech in 1983….It has expanded further under President Obama, despite the skepticism he expressed during the 2008 campaign about the feasibility and affordability of Bush’s plan for a shield in Europe.

“In September, Obama announced that he was changing Bush’s approach. Instead of abandoning the idea, he directed the Pentagon to construct a far more extensive and flexible missile defense system in Europe that will be built in phases between now and 2020.”

The author provided these additional details:

Starting late last year the U.S. has steadily deployed Aegis class warships in the Mediterranean Sea equipped with Spy-1 360 degree missile radar and “arsenals of Standard Missile-3 interceptors [which] will form the backbone of Obama’s shield in Europe.”

The initial detachments, one or two destroyers and cruisers at a time, will be tripled in number. Furthermore, “the Obama administration has plans to nearly double its number of Aegis ships with ballistic missile defenses, to 38 by 2015.”

Citing the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Henry B. Harris Jr., the Washington Post article stated that one “option would be to assign some Aegis ships to home ports in Europe instead of making them sail constantly back and forth to the United States.

“Other Navy officials have floated the idea of flying in fresh crews so a ship could more or less deploy continuously, obviating the need for long breaks.”

It then supplied further specifics, disclosing that “Aegis ships, armed with dozens of SM-3 missile interceptors, will patrol the Mediterranean and Black seas and link up with…high-power radar planned for southern Europe.”

Romania will host land-based Standard Missile-3 deployments and Poland will follow as the site of SM-3s and additional sensors.

Although as recently as last year the Pentagon envisioned a total of 147 SM-3s, the Obama administration intends to nearly triple that number to 436. The new strategy “will require an unspecified number of new SM-3 missiles, which cost between $10 million and $15 million apiece.”

The system will expand in earnest after the NATO summit in Portugal in November, when the U.S.’s 27 members in the military bloc are expected to endorse a comprehensive, layered, mobile interceptor missile system for the entire European continent, albeit still firmly under U.S. control.

The Missile Defense Agency’s O’Reilly “said combined defenses would feature the best of both worlds: an ‘upper layer’ framework of SM-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors, operated by the United States, that could shoot down enemy missiles in space or the upper atmosphere; and a ‘lower layer’ of Patriot batteries, operated by European allies, providing a second layer of defense closer to the ground.”

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles have a longer range than both the PAC-3 and SM-3 and had not been discussed before as part of the new system.

Regarding the placement of U.S. and NATO interceptor missiles in Romania, on the Black Sea across from southwestern Russia, a recent analysis examined the geopolitical consequences:

“This means that the U.S. front line of defense is shifting from the eastern border of Germany to the Black Sea, which is adjacent to the Middle East, the Caucasus and Russia.

“Romania is ready to accept deployment of 20 SM-3 anti-ballistic missile units, currently installed on American naval vessels with the Aegis Combat System. These missiles could later be replaced with the more advanced terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) missiles. They will also be deployed in Bulgaria. Meanwhile, it has become more likely that the X-band radar system, which the U.S. originally planned to install in the Czech Republic, will be set up in Israel.”

Bulgarian Defense Minister Anyu Angelov was summoned to Washington for six days starting in late June for “the launch of technical negotiations about NATO’s missile defence in Europe in general” and meetings with Defense Secretary Gates, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher, the last-named the key point person in securing U.S. missile shield deployments in Eastern Europe.

Angelov was given his marching orders and returned home to confirm that his nation will join the U.S. interceptor missile program in Europe (and beyond) and that “Bulgaria is participating actively in the discussions and the practical realization of all steps concerning the establishment of a NATO-wide missile defense system.” [17]

For domestic consumption he presented the decision as his country’s own – “We are the most interested state in Europe in the establishment of a missile shield because we are in the most threatened region – we fall within the range of ballistic missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles [such] as the ones employed by the states in the wider Middle East” – but since Bulgaria was incorporated into NATO in 2004 it now receives orders from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon.

In a recent report that 700 Bulgarian combat troops have been ordered to Afghanistan (as Dutch troops have left), a leading local news agency demonstrated how such decisions are made: “Bulgaria’s center-right government, elected last July, initially said it would not be able to provide more forces in Afghanistan due to the economic crisis, but later changed its strategy under pressure from the United States and NATO.”

The same relationship of supremacy and subordination obtains between the U.S. and all other NATO members, particularly the twelve new acquisitions in Eastern Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic Sea.

The Pentagon has secured seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania since the latter two states joined NATO in 2004. Those sites include the Bezmer Air Base in Bulgaria, fifty kilometers from the Black Sea, and the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania near the city of Constanta on the Black Sea. Both are being upgraded to strategic air bases which, already employed for the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, are available for strikes against Iran and in the South Caucasus in the event of an equivalent of the Georgian-Russian war of two years ago. The Romanian base is the main headquarters for the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force-East.

At any given time there are several thousand U.S. troops in Bulgaria and Romania, the first foreign forces in Bulgaria since shortly after the end of World War Two and in Romania since 1962.

A comparable situation exists in Poland. An American military newspaper recently ran a feature on the deployment of Patriot missile batteries in the country called “U.S. Army’s presence in Poland most significant since World War II” in which an American Army spokesman stated, “We have between 80 and 150 troops going there on a regular basis. We’ve never had that number and for that long of a period.” No foreign troops had been stationed in Poland since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991.

The article also stated that “For the first time since the end of World War II, U.S. Army soldiers are making regular rotations into Poland, this time to train its forces to use Patriot missiles.

“Forty miles from the Russian border, a small group of U.S. Army Europe soldiers is instructing the Polish military about the missiles, which are designed to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft.”

A Fox News report characterized the operation as “the first long-term U.S. troop presence…in Poland,” and quoted U.S. ambassador to the nation Lee Feinstein as maintaining “It’s U.S. boots on the ground, a very tangible symbol of the U.S.-Polish alliance.”

Regarding Israel, where the U.S. has also deployed the first foreign troops on that country’s soil, in late July the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense added $95.7 million to a White House funding request for Tel Aviv’s long-range Arrow and medium-range David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile programs subsumed under the Iron Dome layered air and missile defense system. Abiding by the subcommittee’s recommendations, Congress will allot $422.7 million for the above purpose for next year (with $109 million for the Arrow 3 system), bringing total U.S. underwriting of Israeli interceptor missile programs to $1 billion over the past four years.

According to member of the subcommittee Congressman Steve Rothman, “Given the concern and attention that we are focusing now on every dollar we are expending on behalf of the US taxpayer for all purposes, including the defense of the United States and its allies, it is a mark of the importance of these projects that they were all funded so robustly and fully by our subcommittee.”

By absorbing most all of Eastern Europe into NATO, the U.S. has also provided its Israeli ally access to air bases and training sites of strategic significance for future attacks on neighboring Middle East nations. On July 29 Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i stated, “We fly in Romania so we can act deep inside neighboring Arab states.”

The more extended and flexible, the “stronger, smarter and swifter” U.S. missile strategy, then, pursues a trajectory from the Baltic Sea, with Standard Missile-3-equipped Aegis warships also available for service in the Norwegian and Barents Seas, to Southeastern Europe into the South Caucasus, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf, covering Russia’s western and southern flanks and encroaching upon Iran.

When President Obama visits India in November he intends to secure billions of dollars in arms deals with the world’s second most populous nation.

On July 12 Russia’s Vzglyad newspaper reported that “The deal, if signed during Obama’s visit, would [have] the US replace Russia as India’s biggest arms supplier…adding that the deal would also help India curb China’s rise.

“India’s shortlist includes Patriot defense systems, Boeing mid-air refueling tankers and certain types of howitzers, and the total cost of the deal may exceed $10 billion….”

By selling anti-ballistic missile systems to India – starting with Patriots and advancing to longer-range models – Washington will connect its missile interception network from Europe through the Middle East to its eastern wing, that which includes 26 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska, a 280-foot-tall, 50,000-pound sea-based X-band radar in the Aleutian Islands, and PAC-3, SM-3 and THAAD missiles in Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Current U.S.-China tensions, the worst in several decades, were triggered early this year when Washington confirmed it was providing Taiwan with 200 advanced Patriot missiles and warships capable of being upgraded for the Aegis Combat System.

For all the talk of protecting the U.S. Mainland from alleged Iranian and North Korean missile threats – accusations that are in the first case absurd and in the second highly improbable – at the end of the day Washington and its military allies around the world are well on the way to encircling Russia, China and Iran with an insurmountable barrier of interceptor missile deployments in conjunction with the militarization of space and the Prompt Global Strike program. Neither those three nations nor any other outside the rapidly expanding U.S. global military nexus will be permitted to retain effective deterrence or retaliation capabilities.

DARPA eyes space-based Internet for persistent battlefield data communications, surveillance, and satellite control

Satellite communications experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., are taking the next step in developing broadband data communications links to orbiting satellite constellations, not only to establish persistent SATCOM capability for fighting forces in the field, but also to enable real-time control of satellites from military theaters of operation.

The ability to control clusters of satellites from military theaters of operation like Iraq and Afghanistan not only could help establish predictable, round-the-clock satellite communications links for forward-deployed warfighters, but also has the potential to help establish controllable, persistent surveillance capability for the military commanders in the field who need it most.

DARPA awarded an $18 million research contract Friday to Inmarsat plc in London for the Persistent Broadband Ground Connectivity for Spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit program, which seeks to enable near-24/7, very-low-latency, on-demand broadband connectivity between ground satellite terminals and spacecraft in low earth orbit (LEO).

This capability could help establish a persistent communications system for LEO satellites for time-sensitive spacecraft control for defense maneuvers, rapid transmission of critical mission data such as space weather events, direct-from-theater control of spacecraft, and direct-to-theater data delivery with a small ground-based transceiver.

Researchers from DARPA and Inmarsat will use the Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service from Inmarsat’s I-4 satellite communications constellation to help develop and demonstrate technology for this program. The BGAN service is the fastest mobile data link available that uses a portable terminal and offers on-demand connectivity with global coverage that could extend to LEO orbital altitudes, DARPA officials say.

The BGAN network, which serves land-based, shipboard, and aircraft satellite communications, provides 492-kilobit-per-second full-duplex, full-channel bandwidth over about 600 spot beams with 588 channels per beam.

A space-based BGAN terminal for LEO use appears to be technically feasible by making modest adaptations to the airborne terminal involving Doppler compensation, radiation hardened components, and software changes for rapid beam-to-beam handover without loss of service, DARPA officials say.

For the Persistent Broadband Ground Connectivity for Spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit program, Inmarsat engineers will design a space-based BGAN terminal, modify the BGAN, perform hardware-in-the-loop tests of a space-based BGAN terminal, and integrate the space-based BGAN terminal with the System F6 fractionated spacecraft demonstration cluster.

Army Has Put Safeguards In Place For Satellite Transmissions

The military got one of its biggest security-related wake-up calls in many years in late 2009 when it learned that Iraqi insurgents were intercepting Predator transmissions by using easily available hardware.

Interception of transmissions is also possible with satellite communications that pass through very-small-aperture terminals, which has inspired extensive efforts to beef up what’s commonly called transmission security (transec) for VSATs. The worry is that an adversary would be able to determine traffic patterns.

That vulnerability is not new, and it relates to the nature of communicating with satellites. Satellites beam their transmissions to a wide area so anyone in the proximity can intercept those transmissions. The technology to obfuscate satellite traffic patterns has existed for only the past couple of years.

“Without transec, it’s possible that for an adversary to tell who is talking to whom,” informed Karl Fuchs, vice president of engineering at iDirect Government Technology. The company provides one of the key elements of military VSATs: the modem, which is where transec is housed. “In other words, is a lot of traffic going to Site A and very little traffic going to Site B, and then all of a sudden that changes and Site B is getting all the traffic? The adversary might not know exactly what’s going on, but they know something’s happening at Site B.”

Captured VSAT transmissions can also reveal the priority level of traffic. As in the example above, a sudden shift from low-priority transmissions to high-priority ones could alert an enemy about impending action.

One of the steps the military is taking to improve transec is transitioning from hardware key exchanges to software key exchanges.

“The key exchange is really the differentiator in what makes it easy or cumbersome for the end user,” Fuchs informed. “The key to usability is the implementation of software key exchange as opposed to hardware key exchange. We are trying to help soldiers by extending this to the global network.”

The military also is working to make it easier to configure VSATs by addressing the IP configurations through which they communicate. The goal is to enhance worldwide portability so a VSAT configured in the United States can be deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan or any other part of the world and will operate as previously programmed with little to no user intervention.

“This means maintaining a persistent IP address from location to location to location around the globe,” Fuchs informed. “That portability and usability is really what’s key to making this system effective for the end user. This is very much a modem challenge and, ultimately, an operator challenge because whoever owns the network has to design it with portability in mind.”

Programs of Record

The Army’s VSATs are managed by the Project Manger Warfighter Information Network-Tactical — part of the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical. PM WIN-T is perhaps best known for its communications-on-the-move program, but it also is responsible for all tactical military satellite communications terminals that the Army buys.

That includes tactical terminals for the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellites, of which three are in orbit and three are under construction, and the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites, the first of which is expected to be launched in the fall. AEHF satellites will operate in the portion of spectrum that the military uses for protected, anti-jamming communications.

Deployed Troops Bridge Distance With Technology

On her third deployment to Afghanistan, Army Spc. Traci Petaway said it’s the little things she misses most about being back home – holding her husband’s hand or playing in the sand with her 2-year-old daughter, Arabelle.

But rather than letting the miles grow into a chasm between them, Petaway has combined modern technology with a dose of creativity to bridge the distance to her family.

The personnel actions clerk, deployed to Forward Operating Base Lightning, takes full advantage of the communication tools on hand, such as Yahoo Messenger, Skype and Facebook, to keep in touch with her husband and daughter, who are awaiting her return in Germany.

“When I am on a video call with Arabelle, I feel as though I am there with her,” she informed. “Playing ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ and blowing kisses back and forth really brightens up my day.”

Deployed servicemembers, who once had to rely on mail and a shaky phone system, now have a multitude of communication options at their fingertips, whether it’s webcams, instant messaging, e-mail or a plethora of social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter.

“The parent may not be physically present, but the child is still hearing their voice and seeing their face,” informed Barbara Thompson, director of the Pentagon’s office of family policy and children and youth. “Those connections are very important over the course of a deployment.”

Some 1.7 million American children under age 18 have a parent serving in the military, and about 900,000 have experienced multiple deployments. Recognizing the importance of strong connections, the military has stepped up to help with a variety of free, technology-based resources designed to foster communication, Thompson noted.

She described a program in Navy child development centers in which deployed parents can see their children’s assessments and what they’re working on. Thompson also encouraged parents to check out TroopTube, an online video site on Military OneSource.

“Families can record significant or day-to-day events, such as Mom tickling a baby and Dad being able to hear him laugh,” she informed. “These kinds of things help people not feel so isolated.”

Deployed parents of children attending Defense Department schools can participate in important milestones such as graduations and football games using webcams, she informed.

Also aimed at schoolchildren, the Defense Department offers free online tutoring through Tutor.com. The site – http://www.tutor.com/military — offers round-the-clock professional tutors who can assist military children with homework, studying, test preparation and more. Deployed parents can keep tabs on students by accessing online resources offered through school Web sites or via e-mail with teachers.

“Families can use technology to do a science project together online or play a game over the Internet,” Thompson said. “By doing so, the deployed parent is still an integral part of the family.”

Nearing the end of a year-long deployment in Afghanistan, Army Sgt. Mark Morrison said he primarily relied on e-mails and phone calls to stay connected with his wife, Pamela, and daughters, 18-year-old Dominque and 6-year-old Gabriella.

“I have to call about every day for my 6-year-old,” informed Morrison, a Georgia Army National Guardsman who works in the joint operations center on Forward Operating Base Lightning. “As long as she hears my voice, she knows that everything is OK in the world.”

If more than a few days go by without contact, Morrison said, Gabriella starts to “act out” at school and at home. “We tried the webcam, but Gabriella didn’t like seeing daddy on the computer screen and not at home,” he said. “She wouldn’t look at me on the computer, so the webcam was out.”

When technology offers a stumbling block, such as with Morrison’s family, some families turn to more creative options to keep in touch.

Petaway said she mails her daughter kisses, but of the chocolate variety, to add to a jar. She sends a kiss each time she sends a letter. “As their jars are getting fuller, they realize that you did not forget about them and that you love them very much,” she explained.

She also suggests parents make a “flat parent,” created by gluing a picture of the deployed parent to an ice cream stick. That way, children can take their “flat mom or dad” with them wherever they go, she said. Some families also have created special stuffed animals or quilts to keep deployed loved ones close at hand for children.

Army Sgt. Stephen Nichols is preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, his second deployment since his 4-year-old son was born. As a single father, Nichols is doing his best to prepare his son for the long separation. As he did for the last deployment, Nichols bought his son a pre-deployment teddy bear and while he’s deployed, he plans to call often and chat with him online.

“My son is a lot like me, short and to the point,” he said. “As long as he hears my voice though, all is good.”

Air Force Maj. Spring Myers, officer in charge of a combat stress clinic, is dealing with the older end of the spectrum during her deployment in Basra, Iraq. Her younger daughter, 17, is with her grandmother at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, while her older daughter, 20, is in the states attending college. Her younger daughter is applying for college, she said, and needs help with reference letters and applications.

“You just do what you have to do,” she informed. “I call as often as I can and try to work on things from here. I’m still a parent, even though it’s from a distance.”

It takes a great deal of effort to keep connected, Thompson acknowledged, but in the end, it’s well worth it.

“Communication can help ease the separation and the reunion when the parent returns,” she informed. “It’s critical to keep the child in the mind of the parent and the parent in the mind of the child.”

Petaway agrees. “For me, staying in touch is so important because I don’t want Arabelle to forget who I am,” she said. “And on really stressful days, seeing them is like my breath of fresh air.”

Conference Showcases Surveillance Technology

Massive helium-filled blimps known as “aerostats” have been a fixture in the skies over the Texas-Mexico border since at least the early 1990s.

Authorities use them to deliver long-term surveillance of illegal immigration and drug-trafficking.

A new company is marketing a smaller, more mobile version of the giant blimps that would mimic the surveillance capability of unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the predator drones used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Overhead Communications unveiled its fleet of aerostats at the Texas Homeland Security Conference at the Convention Center in downtown San Antonio on Wednesday.

Overhead Communications was one of 5,000 representatives of law enforcement, transportation and cyber security officials that attended the conference, which concludes today.

The gathering is a chance for law enforcement agencies to share ideas about border security, terrorism and emergency management, according to officials from the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

But it also was a forum for defense contractors and inventors to showcase the latest in law enforcement gadgetry, such as license plate-recognition technology systems, pickups retrofitted with machine guns and Kevlar siding designed to better withstand the impact of an improvised explosive device.

Officials at the year-old Houston company see their blimps — which can be equipped with a communications network that includes radio, video cameras and Wi-Fi — as a cheaper alternative to satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance systems. Overhead Communications’ aerostats top off at around $3 million while predator drones have a $4.5 million price tag, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a research group in Alexandria, Va.

“The Texas border is 1,500 miles long, and 80 percent of it is without communication,” stated Rob Campbell, vice president for business development at Overhead Communications. “We can come into an area with nothing and re-establish communications and put a hi-def video camera with infrared capability 2,000 feet in the air for weeks at a time.”

Drones, on the other hand, are only able to stay in the air for around 20 hours before needing to be refueled.

The aerostats developed by Overhead Communications are the latest in a series of ideas from companies looking for new ways to alleviate communication obstacles that often compound emergency-response efforts during natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, Campbell said.

He said his company’s aerostats, which can be deployed in minutes from the back of a pickup, also would be useful for authorities needing to monitor crowded public events such as the Super Bowl from above or for firefighters who wanted to use an infrared camera to pinpoint the best place to attack a blaze.

“Say Hurricane Ike blows down your communication towers,” he informed. “Emergency responders will have to rely on mobile command systems with 40-foot towers.

“If I can take those same systems and put them 500 feet in the air, you can see for 27 miles in every direction and communicate in an area the size of San Antonio.”

General Dynamics Awarded $154 Million to Help U.S. Army's Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care

General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), has been awarded a task order to support the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS), Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care (MC4) Product Management Office (PMO). The task order is valued at $154 million over five years if all options are exercised.

General Dynamics will provide the full spectrum of pre-deployment, deployment, on-site, re-deployment and garrison support to MC4 PMO system activities at as well as worldwide training events, including combat areas and contingency operations use. General Dynamics also provides on-the-ground support for Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom with fielding, training and sustainment of MC4 medical information systems for tactical medical forces that have been deployed to serve warfighters.

“General Dynamics is proud of our partnership with the MC4 PMO for the past five years,” informed Zannie Smith, senior vice president of General Dynamics Information Technology’s Army Solutions Division. “We will continue to support MC4′s vision for improved tactical healthcare and better decision making through the power of information technology. Our in-depth experience and thorough understanding of the program and its requirements enable us to promote, maintain and enhance the health and readiness of military personnel.”

MC4 integrates, fields and supports a comprehensive medical information system, enabling lifelong electronic medical records, streamlined medical logistics and enhanced situational awareness for Army tactical forces. Since 2003, MC4 has fielded 35,000 systems to combat support hospitals and deployable medical assets with the Army, Air Force, Navy and Army Special Operations Forces in 14 countries. More than 44,000 users, commanders and systems administrators have been trained through the program on how to use and support the system.

As a trusted systems integrator for more than 50 years, General Dynamics Information Technology delivers information technology (IT), systems engineering, professional services and simulation and training to customers in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, health, federal civilian government and commercial sectors. With approximately 17,000 professionals worldwide, the company manages large-scale, mission-critical IT programs providing IT services and enterprise solutions. More information about General Dynamics Information Technology is available at www.gdit.com.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 91,700 people worldwide. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies. More information about the company is available on the Internet at www.generaldynamics.com.