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To whom it may concern,

I am an idiot, unfortunately for the world, I have a internet connection and a fondness for beer....apologies for that.

Thank you for you patience.

 

 

Many people don't want the truth, they want constant reassurance that whatever misconception/fallacies they believe in are true..

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http://www.janes.com/article/64251/ausa-2016-all-future-raytheon-an-tpy-2-radars-to-be-built-with-gan

 

AUSA 2016: All future Raytheon AN/TPY-2 radars to be built with GaN - Jane's IDR

 

The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded Raytheon a contract modification to transition the company's future AN/TPY 2 radar to Gallium Nitride (GaN), making the ballistic missile defense radar the latest to move away from Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), to improve reliability and efficiency while lowering cost.

 

The award, announced by Raytheon on 30 September, will be used to transition the production piece of company's Andover foundry in Massachusetts, which had been used to produce GaAs Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MIMIC) to produce GaN, Jim Bedingfield, director, missile defence and C4I systems for Raytheon, said at a company briefing on 29 September.

 

"The work has begun as we're on contract and will continue for the next few months," Bedingfield told IHS Jane's on 30 September.

 

Raytheon is working with MDA on a plan to upgrade existing TPY-2s that were built with GaAs MIMIC transmit and receive modules. If and when that would occur is up to the MDA, Bedingfield said.

 

"We are working closely with MDA on those options for a clear upgrade modernisation path. Our intent is to make it as affordable and efficient as possible as these radars are in worldwide demand," he said. "GaAs will continue to be produced for systems that require it."

 

TPY-2 will now be built using GaN modules just like Raytheon's SPY-6(V) for the Arleigh Burke-class of guided missile destroyers and the new enterprise air surveillance radar (EASR) for future Ford class aircraft carriers and amphibious ships. GaN is also a key component in the new Patriot radar that includes an Active Electronically Scanned Array and is used in the Next Generation Jammer.

 

GaN is a wideband gap semi-conductor so it has a higher voltage breakdown, which provides radars a higher power density on the radio frequency (RF) MIMIC amplifiers that Raytheon builds.

 

"With GaN you can increase your search capability by 5x the search volume, Bedingfield said on 29 September. "It allows the power to be much more effectively used."

 

The transition from GaAs to GaN occurs just below the transmit and receive modules at the MIMIC level, he said.

 

GaN enables the search volume to be greatly enhanced and the range increased by upward of 50%, Bedingfield said. "And you can increase the discrimination capability."

 

It is also possible to decrease a radar's aperture size because the system is operating more efficiently. "You could package the same capabilities into a smaller aperture size"; however, TPY-2 is not going that path, Bedingfield added.

 

AN/TPY-2 is an X-band radar that has a high degree of discrimination; it clears up the complexity of dense scenes allowing operators to understand what is the difference between a threat and non-threat, Bedingfield said.

 

Raytheon has produced 14 radars so far: 12 for the United States, and two for Foreign Military Sales customers. Of the 12 US radars, seven are with Terminal High Altitude Area Defense batteries and five in forward bases: Two in Japan, one each in Israel, Turkey, and US Central Command and one is deployed to Guam.

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Trophy_on_NAMER_APC_3.JPG

 

The Israeli Ministry of Defence Directorate of Production and Procurement will purchase hundreds of Rafael's TROPHY systems, worth hundreds of millions of shekels. The procurement of these additional systems will ensure that every MERKAVA 4 tank and NAMER APC will be equipped with an active protection system.

http://www.monch.com/mpg/news/14-land/254-israeli-mod-purchases-hundreds-of-rafael-trophy.html

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There is no shortage of innovative ways to shoot down drones. Some companies are pitching lasers, others prefer radio-frequency disruption or, if you prefer explosions, the U.S. Army has tested Raytheon AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and fired course-corrected projectiles with forward-blast fragmentation warheads from a 50-mm Bushmaster cannon. But could a whole swarm be destroyed electronically with a 1-millisec. zap?

 

The answer may lie with the Phaser system, designed and developed by Raytheon’s Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Ktech group, the same team that worked with Boeing to produce the “CHAMP” counter-electronics cruise missile for the Air Force.

 

High-Power Microwave Knockout

 

Ground-based HPM weapon promises to clear the skies of drones and other electronically guided devices

 

Raytheon’s Phaser weapon performed a live-fire demo Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2013, at Fort Still, Oklahoma—video below was just cleared by Pentagon

 

Phaser was used to bring down Tier I Flanker and Tier II Tempest drones

 

There was a time when radio-controlled drones were mostly in the hands of militaries and model-aircraft hobbyists, but now anybody, including terrorists, can purchase relatively sophisticated and inexpensive unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) online.

 

Although UAS were once feared for their spying potential, there have been several accounts of self-proclaimed Islamic State group militants in Iraq and Syria using them as flying improvised explosive devices.

 

Finding agile, inexpensive way to destroy these threats has become a priority for the Pentagon in recent years, and in response, Raytheon has turned its high-power microwave (HPM) technology skyward.

 

On Sept. 10, the company provided Aviation Week with footage of its deployable, ground-based Phaser knocking out two small drones during a 2013 experiment at the Army Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The Defense Department cleared the video footage of the live-fire demonstration for public release on Oct. 5, but some details such as its effective range remain classified.

 

The technology is not known to have been fielded operationally, although several initiatives are underway to transition the technology to programs of record. Raytheon lifted the veil on its Fort Still experiment during a media roundtable in Washington in June, saying the trailer-mounted device is effective against drone swarms over a wide area, has been proven to stop cars and vehicles and could even throw off missiles guided by electronics. Unlike lasers, these types of HPM weapons can disrupt or destroy electronic devices across a wide area.

 

Fort Sill is home to the Army Field Artillery School and is leading the development of directed-energy doctrine for the service. It conducted a live-fire investigation of the Raytheon-built weapon from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3, using it to bring down a Tier I Flanker and Tier II Tempest drone.

 

The HPM weapon is mounted on a 20-ft. trailer with power provided by an internal diesel generator. The Phaser system can detect and track threats using its own radar or be cued by third-party sensors. The device’s parameters can be set to “disrupt” or “damage.” In this demonstration, the Flanker and Tempest drones were detected, tracked and cued for destruction by a three-dimensional X-band Thales/Raytheon MPQ-64 Sentinel radar and vehicle-mounted Ku-band Close Combat Tactical Radar, with Raytheon’s radio-linked Command View-Tactical system providing command and control.

 

“The objectives of this investigation were to engage real targets with a deployable directed-energy system, attack more than one type of threat, engage multiple threats simultaneously and kill these threats at operational ranges,” the video’s narrator says. “The Phaser system engaged and shot down two types of UAS targets. Both engagements took place at the speed of light, and target kill confirmation was immediate.”

 

DF-PHASER-VIDEO_USArmy.jpg

Raytheon’s Phaser weapon can destroy whole swarms of drones with a single burst of microwave energy. Credit: U.S. Army

 

In June, Raytheon’s Albuquerque site director, Steve Downie, said the Phaser demonstrated multiple kills in a single shot over the target area, as opposed to a laser, which must narrow in on a single point until the air vehicle is burned out of the sky. Anything that flies through the HPM’s beam will be destroyed, he says.

 

Because the HPM weapons do not discriminate between friendly or enemy electronics, extra care must be taken to avoid wrecking your own systems. But the technology shows promise for fixed-base protection or to destroy airborne threats on the move as part of a convoy. Raytheon says it has already halved the size of the Phaser payload since the experiment in 2013, believes it can deliver an operational system with 18 months of a contract award and could build 5-10 units per year at its Albuquerque site.

 

“The effect from a high-power microwave is not instantaneous but certainly within milliseconds,” Downie says. “A laser is typically going to focus on a target for seconds to kill it. If you’re addressing a swarm, an HPM is going to put out a field and anything that flies through that field is going to go down. Once you’re invested in the cost of the system, it costs cents per firing. It is negligible compared to a missile. This technology really does exist.”

 

The Air Force was among the first to build an operational microwave weapon, the non-lethal, vehicle-mounted Active Denial System or “Pain Ray” that was deployed to Afghanistan to disperse crowds or force people to drop their weapons by causing a burning sensation under their skin. In 2012, Boeing and Raytheon successfully flight-demonstrated their cruise-missile-based HPM weapon under the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, experiment, launching one from a B-52H bomber to destroy electronics at the Utah Test and Training Range. Three of those weapons were built, and Raytheon has been put on contract to refurbish two unexpended rounds as test and training assets.

 

Meanwhile, the Air Force and Navy are now embarking on another demonstration effort, led by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s directed-energy division at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. That program, dubbed High-power Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike or HiJENKS, will probably explore a more operationally relevant version of the CHAMP weapon based on a modern cruise missile instead of the outdated AGM-86C Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile, with flight testing expected around 2018-19, based on available funding.

 

Directed-energy proponent Mark Gunzinger, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says the government needs to do a better job transitioning successful experiments into operational weapons systems. Examples of missed opportunities include CHAMP and the Boeing X-51 WaveRider, a hypersonic missile prototype. He has called on the incoming Trump administration to more quickly move directed-energy and electronic-warfare systems from the laboratory into programs of record, particularly for defending U.S. forces and bases from air and missile threats.*

 

“The new administration needs to begin to transition new, mature technologies to acquisition programs rather than continue to fund a seemingly endless series of experiments and demonstrations,” Gunzinger tells Aviation Week.

 

http://www.w54.biz/showthread.php?16-UAV-s-UCAV-s-and-other-such-matters&p=68720&viewfull=1#post68720

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To whom it may concern,

I am an idiot, unfortunately for the world, I have a internet connection and a fondness for beer....apologies for that.

Thank you for you patience.

 

 

Many people don't want the truth, they want constant reassurance that whatever misconception/fallacies they believe in are true..

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, this is not April fools yet but I just got word that Portugal will have its own Space agency in 2017. :huh: :hehe:

 

This news is related with the eventual installation of a spaceport in the Azores for ESA rocket launches.

 

In order to do this, a local agency will be created in order to study, implement and control local launch activity and coordinate cooperation between private and state companies connected to aerospace technology thus joining the strict club of nations that have both agencies and launch bases. The Agency will be created in 2017 as work begins.

 

 

Source (in portuguese).

 

http://expresso.sapo.pt/sociedade/2016-12-04-Portugal-a-nova-nacao-espacial


Edited by Pilotasso

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Russian military plane crashes in Black Sea, killing 92

 

Russian military plane crashes in Black Sea, killing 92

 

The plane disappeared from radar two minutes after taking off from Sochi at 05:25 (02:25 GMT), heading for Latakia in Syria.

 

Debris and several bodies have been found, with no reports of survivors.

 

The Tu-154 was carrying soldiers, reporters and 64 members of the famed Alexandrov military music ensemble who were to perform for Russian troops.

 

So sad. RIP.

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