Hudson, N.H. — BAE Systems, Inc. has developed an advanced version of its combat-proven APKWS guidance kit that offers enhanced strike distance and precision strike lethality, the company said in an Aug. 2 release. The upgrade improves the effective range of APKWS guided rockets by up to 30%, allowing warfighters to engage targets from a greater standoff distance with improved survivability. 

APKWS is the U.S. government’s only program of record for guiding 2.75-inch laser-guided rockets, providing an efficient, low-cost weapon in the U.S. arsenal of precision munitions. Initial production of APKWS block upgrade guidance kits will start in the third quarter of 2021. 

“Our customers’ precision strike needs are changing,” said John Watkins, vice president and general manager of Precision Strike & Sensing Solutions at BAE Systems. “We’re focused on evolving APKWS guidance kits to provide them with a more capable low-cost product that’s easy to use and known for its accuracy.” 

APKWS block upgrade guidance kits create an optimized flight trajectory that enables the rocket to engage targets at a steeper angle of attack, providing improvements in range and lethality. The optimized attack trajectory improves first-shot success against stationary and moving targets. 

The enhanced guidance kits also provide logistics and training benefits to customers. A single variant of the weapon is now qualified for rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft across the U.S. armed forces customers, easing stock management and reducing the cognitive load on pilots. An upgrade to the surface danger zone logic also provides better training range options in certain conditions, allowing crews to improve their proficiency at home stations. 

BAE Systems’ APKWS guidance kits are manufactured at the company’s production facility in Hudson, New Hampshire. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy is implementing a six-phase process to improve and standardize the development of autonomous unmanned systems, according to an official.

Pete Small, program manager for unmanned maritime systems (PMS 406) said Monday at Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland, that this process “represents the future of autonomous capability.”

“From day one, we know these platforms need to be upgradeable and interoperable,” Small said, noting that the Rapid Autonomy Integration Lab (RAIL) was key to achieving that.

To accomplish this, the program starts with a “software factory” approach, where software is rapidly developed, tested, and certified for autonomous capabilities.

The second phase is “DevSecOps,” which are a set of automated software tools, services, and standards that allow programs to develop and deploy applications securely.

The third phase is peer groups, who identify autonomy gaps, requirements, and performance metrics.

The fourth phase is Common Control, which standardizes vehicle planning and control across platforms. That is followed by Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture, which standardizes autonomy interfaces.

The sixth phase involves making data available to support artificial intelligence and autonomy development.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Raytheon has developed a version of its Joint Precision Aircraft Landing System (JPALS) designed for expeditionary airfields, which it is proposing as ideal for Marine Corps expeditionary base operations.

JPALS is a landing system based on differential Global Positioning System navigation. It is installed or being installed on the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships and U.K. and Italian navy aircraft carriers. JPALS was first deployed in 2018.

CJ Jaynes, executive technical adviser, Precision Landing Systems for Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, speaking at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland, said the company has developed vehicle-portable JPALS that could be deployed to a forward base for providing precision landing for aircraft fitted with the JPALS avionics.

The expeditionary JPALS consists of a user display, antennas, and for processing racks, and a power generator. It can be carried in a vehicle such as a Humvee or Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The system can be set up on site in 60-90 minutes by one or two personnel.

The JPALS uses triangulation to provide precision landing data to aircraft from a distance of up to 20 nautical miles. It can provide information to a fixed-wing aircraft while at the same time it provides the landing data to a helicopter within range.

The system does not rely on precision approach radar or an instrument landing system, said Brooks Cleveland, Raytheon’s senior aviation adviser for Precision Landing Systems.

Aircraft currently configured for JPALS include the F-35A/B/C strike fighters and the CMV-22B Osprey carrier-onboard delivery aircraft and will be installed on the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial vehicle. Installation on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is planned for the 2026-2027 time frame.

The JPALS suite for aircraft includes the JPALS waveform, a reprogrammable radio, and computer power.

Raytheon demonstrated its expeditionary JPALS for three weeks in June at Yuma, Arizona. Marine Corps F-35Bs made 50 approaches.

Jaynes and Cleveland said the land-based system at the outlying field also was praised by Marine Corps F-35B pilots because it gave them practice using the system that would enable them to be more ready for shipboard deployment.

JPALS was first deployed on the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp for use by Marine Corps F-35Bs. The USS Carl Vinson deployed Aug 2 as the Navy’s first aircraft carrier to deploy with JPALS. The ship carries the F-35C and CMV-22B on their first deployments.

Raytheon built 12 engineering and manufacturing development versions of JPALS and has delivered 10 of 26 production versions. Raytheon expects to deliver the rest by 2023.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — All hopes of prevailing in the next conflict, if and when it arises, hinge on seizing the advantage in information warfare, the Navy’s chief officer of that domain said Aug. 2 audience at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland. 

“Technologies that exist today are all about fusing together information faster,” said Vice Adm. Jeffrey Trussler, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare. “Our data, our information, the use of artificial intelligence, robotics — the nation that harnesses that the best is going to have the advantage should we go to conflict. And I’m one of those guys who says we’re in conflict right now.”

Trussler then turned the floor over to Rear Adm. Gene Price, Vice Commander of Naval Information Forces, who described the roughly 11-year-old command as a place under which data from a host of communities is amalgamated.

“Information warfare is a combination of oceanography, meteorology, intelligence, electronic warfare, cryptology, cyber warfare, IT [information technology] — all these things — come together,” Price said. 

By integrating all of these disciplines as one, Price said, the Navy creates awareness, assured command and controlled integrated fires in the battlespace. 

“This is the heart and soul of what information warfare is all about – pushing [data] out to whoever needs it, whenever they need it, wherever it is,” Price said. “Our job is to make sure that the right weapon is in the right place at the right time.” 

Price cited AI/ML — artificial intelligence and machine learning — as a critical area that warrants attention. 

“It’s a data problem, a platform problem, a management problem,” Price said. 

Work on transferring data to AI/ML is ongoing, Price said. He also discussed continuing efforts in the field of LVC — live, virtual, constructive training. He noted that the aviation community has been involved in LVC for years, and that it should be incorporated more widely through all areas of training. The security benefits are tangible, he said. 

“If we go out and practice, we tip our hand to what we want to do,” Price said. “It’s readily apparent to information warfare that we have to have a way to train for the high-end fight in a way that the rates could do their thing without tipping off too much.” 

The capability is being managed mainly at the acquisition level, Price said, where a cross functional team with information forces is developing the command requirements and content necessary to make sure information is readily available in a controlled but usable environment. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Littoral Combat Ship program office was able to deliver five ships and begin early construction on six others during the 17 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a program official said Monday.

Howard Berkof, deputy program manager for PMS 501 (LCS), said at Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland, that the office was able to progress with shipbuilding despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.

“We have not slowed down,” Berkof said.

Ever since shutdowns began in March 2020, the program has delivered LCS-19, LCS-22, LCS-24, LCS-26 and LCS-28. Additionally, the program began fabrication on LCS-31, LCS-34 and LCS-36, and laid keels for LCS-29, LCS-32 and LCS-34.

The program also conducted acceptance trials and live fire test and evaluation.

Berkof said the average cost of a block buy LCS is 20% below the congressional cost cap, and production hours from the first block buy of ships to the most recently delivered have dropped by 35%.

He added that he has seen LCSs delivered with increasing levels of completion and fewer open trial cards.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — In addition to cooperating with each other and maintaining a physical presence at the top of the world, Arctic nations need to consider what technologies will still be needed when there’s less ice to negotiate, according to a panel discussion on the Arctic domain.

“The demand for heavy ice breakers is going to decrease” in the not too distant future if the Arctic becomes “an ice-free zone,” Richard Jenkins, CEO of unmanned surface vessel (USV) maker Saildrone said Aug. 2 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland. 

“Unmanned systems are not a replacement for manned systems,” Jenkins said during the panel discussion, Arctic Domain Readiness. However, he added manned-unmanned teaming could reduce the need for humans to be present 24/7 in the harsh Arctic environment, with USVs or aerial or undersea drones keeping watch and alerting military, Coast Guard or scientific teams to changing situations. 

With no year-round ports for large ships, ice breakers like the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, which recently began a four-month deployment to the Arctic have to pack enough food and fuel for an extended stay in the region, Jenkins said. The changing environment may be “an opportunity to rethink how to design our ships going forward,” he added. 

Dr. Alyson Azzara, international trade specialist with the U.S. Department of Transportation, noted that new international regulations to address climate change will ban heavy fuel oil use by ships starting in 2024 and global fuel sulphur cap. Replacement fuels “will be, presumably, zero emission and low carbon fuels. And those fuels don’t exist yet,” she said.

In addition to concerns about the spread of pollution with increasing maritime traffic crossing the Arctic as melting sea ice opens more transit channels, scientists have noticed underwater noise pollution is on the rise. “The volume has doubled in under 10 years,” Azzara said.

“That’s important for the environment, for marine mammals,” she said, “but it’s also important for anything operating or listening or recording under the ice, under the water.” 

Operating in the Arctic “becomes more difficult when there’s more noise” under the water said Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis, commander of the U.S. 2^nd Fleet, another panel member. 

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to establish two MQ-25 squadrons to deploy detachments of the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial refueling aircraft on board aircraft carriers. Later this year, the MQ-25A fleet replacement squadron will be established to train operators and maintainers for the Stingray.

The fleet replacement squadron, Unmanned Carrier-Launched Multi-Role Squadron 10 (VUQ-10) is slated for establishment on Oct. 1, 2021. It will be based at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California.

Speaking Aug. 2 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland, Capt. Chad Reed, the Navy’s program manager for Unmanned Carrier Aviation, said that the two fleet squadrons will be VUQ-11 and VUQ-12.

The VUQ squadrons will operate under the administrative control of commander, Airborne Command & Control Logistics Wing — also based at Point Mugu — which also controls the Navy’s E-2 battle management aircraft.

The two fleet VUQ squadrons will deploy detachments to the E-2 squadrons to operate the Stingrays. Each detachment will deploy with five MQ-25As.   

The Navy plans to procure 72 Stingrays. A Boeing-owned prototype, T1, is being test-flown by the company. Boeing is building four Engineering and Manufacturing aircraft, two ground test articles, and three system demonstration aircraft. The Navy is scheduled to receive it first production fleet MQ-25A in 2024. 

T1 made its first flight in September 2019, and first flew with an aerial refueling store in December 2020. On June 4, it made history as the first unmanned aircraft to pass fuel to an aircraft in flight.

“T1 has just been tremendous,” Reed said.

The MQ-25A will be the “first unmanned aircraft intended to connect with a manned aircraft,” he said.

Reed said he is looking forward to taking T1 and the ground control station to a carrier deck for the critical trials in handling control on the deck.

The MQ-25A is scheduled to achieve initial operational capability in 2025. 

Reed affirmed that there is “no requirement in the current plan for armament [for the MQ-25A], but in the future it certainly could [carry armament].”

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is a secondary mission for the Stingray.

Four aircraft carriers are being modified with Unmanned Aviation Warfare Centers (UAWC) to control the MQ-25 missions, Reed said, with four more in planning for the modification.

The MQ-25A and the control system are being integrated in the planning for the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The rapid development of a vast array of new technologies is changing the fundamental character of war and if the U.S. military fails to adapt, it could mean future generations would suffer massive casualties in the next major power conflict, the nation’s top military officer said Monday.

About 40 to 50 new technologies will evolve very rapidly in the next 15 to 20 years and will fundamentally change the character of war, Army Gen. John Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a luncheon audience at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space expo. He cited unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, 5G technology and other concepts that will be available to all major powers. The nation that masters those technologies “is likely to have a distinct advantage,” he said.

Recalling the heavy military casualties that America suffered due to its lack of preparation for both World War I and II, Milley said, it is the responsibility of the current leaders to make the right investments “so that future generations of Americans don’t have a disadvantage in the next war.”

“It’s not about the amount of money we’re spending, it’s what we’re spending it on,” he said.

Milley said he has “a great deal of pride” in the Navy because both of his parents served in the Navy during World War II — his father as a Navy corpsman with the Marines in the bloody battles in the Pacific and his mother as a Wave. He noted that America has always been a maritime nation and the Navy has played a major role in the nation’s military power with its mastery of sea control and power projection.

“That is the role of the Navy and no one has ever done it better. … The Navy today is the best in the world and we want to keep it that way,” Milley said.

 “The decisions we are making today — which are mostly economic — will determine the future of the U.S. Navy, and how we mange sea control and power projection,” he said.

In addition to the challenges of the rapidly changing technologies, Milley said the international order, which has been relatively stable since the end of World War II, “is under tremendous stress” because of international terrorists, crime cartels and the rise of new national powers. He singled out the growing economic and military power of China, which has developed “a world-class navy … China will be a major agent of change to the current international order, there is no doubt,” he said.

Milley said the U.S. military currently is ready for combat and “we have to maintain that readiness. But we most also modernize. Preparing for war is very expensive. But even more expensive is losing a war. … Our task as the military is to prepare for war,” because if war breaks out, “we must be prepared,” he concluded.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – As the entire Department of Defense modernizes technology to enable commands, warfighters and autonomous systems to communicate with each other under the most trying of circumstances, significant questions remain. 

“We’re really about closing capability gaps and building the right resourcing requirement plans [to do so],” said Kelly McCool, acting director of the Navy Digital Warfare Office, speaking during a July 2 panel discussion on netted battlespace at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2021 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Joining McCool on the panel were Naval Warfare Systems Command commander Rear Adm. Douglas Small, Northrop Grumman chief technology officer Scott Stapp and L3 Harris Technologies chief technology officer Ross Niebergall. Patrick Tucker, technical editor at Defense One, moderated the discussion, which addressed the Navy’s role in improving JADC2 (joint all-domain command and control). 

Small said the Navy has a long history of expertise in connecting disparate sensors, weapons and command and decision systems. The current climate, he believes, is an expansion of this traditional role. 

“We’re talking about contested environments,” Small said. “How do you get that information to the right place in a contested environment, where every aspect of how you fight is being challenged?”

Stapp pointed out that JADC2, as its name suggests, must be applied across all services and domains as well. 

“It’s how you move that data into all those critical platforms,” Stapp said. “As a company, we are focusing on the integration of new and unique ways — multi-domain and multi-service.”

Niebergall discussed the need to take all the data generated by stand-alone systems and use it as a strategic asset. “We need to put it together into a collection that we can operate on, make sure it’s available everywhere, is secure, accurate and can be disseminated everywhere.” 

 The Navy is accustomed to operating in disconnected environments, Small said, providing commanders with information they need at the time they must make decisions.

“There are certainly areas where we can do a lot better — and we are,” Small said. “It’s more how you take that [data] from a naval platform and expand it out to the joint force.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The advances in shipbuilding technology and investments in facilities, training and tools is helping Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) — a Huntington Ingalls Industries (Booth 1323) sector — keep up with the demands of the present and prepare for the future, according to its president.

“We are busier than we have been in my 34 years [with NNS], said NNS President Jennifer Boykin, speaking to reporters Aug. 2 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland.

NNS currently is building or overhauling 34 ships, including 27 at the shipyard in Newport News, Virginia, and 14 elsewhere at other sites.

That capacity is enabled by new technology, including additive manufacturing, laser scanning, augmented reality, 5G shipyard connectivity and data analytics.

Boykin said NNS has the capability to use additive manufacturing to produce components of more than 600 pounds. The capability is awaiting certification from the U.S. Navy to use on its ships.

She also pointed out that the third Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, the future USS Enterprise (CVN 80), is the first aircraft carrier being built by workers using digital tablets.

With these new technologies, Boykin noted that “many refer to this as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

NNS has invested $1.9 billion in physical plant infrastructure since 2016. Those funds have been devoted to submarine facility expansion, a joint manufacturing and assembly facility, a new 310-ton crane replacement, machine shops, foundry and steel fabrication improvements, new automation, and digital infrastructure throughout the shipyard.

NNS builds nuclear-powered ships including Ford-class aircraft carriers and — teamed with General Dynamics Electric Boat (Booth 1023) — Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines. NNS also conducts refueling and complex overhauls of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and depot-level maintenance and refueling of some Los Angeles-class attack submarines.

The shipyard is on track to deliver two Virginia-class submarines and re-deliver the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Helena to the fleet in 2021.

Asked about what would be needed in terms of shipyard investment to increase capacity to build three Virginia-class submarines per year if so funded, Boykin said significant investment across the submarine construction enterprise — including the supply chain — would be required.