Australia looks towards space with force restructure, investment and training
Australia is looking to improve its presence in space with a focus on communications and creating a dedicated segment of its defence forces committed to the domain.
FlexTech Alliance has been awarded a cooperative agreement by the US Department of Defense (DoD) to establish and manage a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) for Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE), the company announced on 28 August.
Flexible hybrid electronics is an emerging manufacturing capability that enables the integration of thin silicon electronic devices, sensing elements, communications, and power on non-traditional flexible substrates. The technology has potential application to defence applications such as electronic wearable devices and health monitoring systems.
FlexTech Alliance proposed a hub based in San Hose, California and a node approach to create the FHE MII, which will comprise 11 laboratories and non-profits, 96 companies, 14 regional and state organisations and 42 universities.
Federal funding of $75 million under the contract will be made available over a five-year span. It is be matched by over $96 million in cost-sharing from non-federal sources that include universities, private companies, several US states, not-for-profit organisations and the City of San Hose, California.
The research and development funds will be distributed by the institute through competitive-bid project calls. FlexTech Alliance's MII will be the first of seven planned FHE manufacturing facilities on the US West Coast, to be overseen by the DoD's Manufacturing Technology Program Office.
Michael Ciesinski, president and CEO, FlexTech Alliance, said: ‘FlexTech is privileged to accept this award from the defence department to stand up and lead the FHE MII. Our partners collaborated on a superb proposal that links a national hub in San Jose to a network of centres of excellence throughout the US. We are excited by the FHE manufacturing challenge and eager to get operations underway.’
Australia is looking to improve its presence in space with a focus on communications and creating a dedicated segment of its defence forces committed to the domain.
The Portuguese company’s naval communications system is in service across more than a dozen countries. It has turned to its home nation for support in developing a new vehicle based C2 system.
The Vision4ce Deep Embedded Feature Tracking (DEFT) technology software is designed to process video and images by blending traditional computer vision with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to present actionable information from complex environments.
Persistent Systems has been cleared by National Security Agency (NSA) to transmit sensitive data on commercial networks. The devices are added to the NSA’s Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) component list which also includes other companies’ products providing the same security.
The release of the UK’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) has been long promised as mid-year. It is possible it could be as early as 2 June although the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) continues to play its cards close to its chest.
Intelsat outlines how its multi-orbit SATCOM architecture is enhancing connectivity and resilience for special operations forces operating in degraded and contested environments.