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.
US Marines using the MCH tablet on an exercise in August 2018. (Photo: USMC/Sgt Gloria Lepko)
The US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division has awarded Stauder Technologies a $49.15 million IDIQ contract to develop and deliver unspecified software enhancements to the Joint Effects Coordination Link (JECL) family of digital interoperability software.
The company is expected to complete this work by January 2027 via a series of individual orders, the DoD announced on 14 January.
Stauder will also provide plugins for the Digital Precision Strike Suite (DPSS) family of software applications used by the DoD and FMS customers.
JECL and DPSS include the Digital Imagery Exploitation Engine for C2, the Kinetic Integrated Lightweight Software Individual Tactical Combat Handheld (KILSWITCH), Android Precision Assault Strike Suite (APASS), and the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Common Handheld (MCH) lightweight tablet communications device.
KILSWITCH is an Android app used by the USMC to improve situational awareness via Google Maps-style graphic displays, even without a server connection.
APASS (another Android app) works in a similar way to KILSWITCH by showing satellite imagery of surroundings, including objectives, mission goals, and the position of enemy and friendly forces.
Both APASS and KILSWITCH are designed to replace radios and hardcopy maps, but a USN Inspector General report (compiled in March 2018 but only released to the public nine months later) revealed potentially severe cyber vulnerabilities in live combat scenarios.
The report added that neither app was designed to be deployed in combat scenarios, noting that cybersecurity ‘was not a concern for the developers’ as they expected APASS and KILSWITCH to be used mainly for training purposes.
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.