Singapore to Launch Its Own Domestically Built Satellite

3 April 2010

Singapore's X-Sat satelitte (image : Wedlab)

Singapore to Launch Satellite

Singapore is set to launch its own domestically built satellite, X-Sat, into space in mid 2010.

The 120kg micro-satellite will launch atop an Indian Space Research Organisation-built polar satellite launch vehicle.

X-Sat, which is being developed by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and DSO National Laboratories, will be partly powered by solar energy and spend three years in orbit at an altitude of 800km, according to Strait Times.

Collecting images measuring soil erosion and monitoring environmental changes the micro-satellite relays information from sensors to a ground station at NTU.
X-Sat is expected to cost approximately S$40m (US$29m) and is scheduled to launch in June-July 2010.

(Aerospace Technology)

See Also :

X-SAT Onboard Navigation System

X-Sat is about 80cm in size and carries a colour camera, radio link and a Linux cluster. (photo : LinuxJournal)

X-SAT is a mini-satellite for technology demonstration and remote sensing applications, developed by the Satellite Engineering Centre of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. The focus of the technology-driven mission is the high-resolution remote sensing of the Southeast Asian region for environmental monitoring. To achieve the ambitious mission objectives, X-SAT will carry a GPS-based Navigation System (XNS) for high-precision, real-time, and onboard orbit determination and prediction. With a targeted position accuracy of about 1-2 m 3D rms, the XNS provides an unprecedented accuracy and thus enables the support of any satellite mission which requires precise onboard position knowledge.

X-SAT is a small platform with a total mass of less than 120 kg and a size of about 60 cm x 60 cm x 80 cm. The satellite carries three major payloads which comprise the IRIS multispectral sensor, the advanced data acquisition and messaging (ADAM) instrument for communication with remote mobile terminals and a parallel processing unit (PPU), e.g. for onboard image processing.

Targeted for a launch in 2006 by an Indian PSLV rocket, a near-circular sun-synchronous orbit at a nominal altitude of 685 km is the current mission baseline.

From this altitude, the IRIS main payload will provide a 10 m spatial resolution in the green, red, and near-infrared band at a swath width of 50 km.

(Linuxjournal)

Australian Super Hornets with a F-111

3 April 2010

Australian Super Hornets fly in formation with the F-111, a symbolic representation of the old leading the new home, in the ferry across the Pacific Ocean. (photo : Australian DoD)

Australia is acquiring 24 Block II F/A-18F Super Hornets as a bridging air combat capability during the transition to the F35 Joint Strike Fighter.The F/A-18F Super Hornet (Rhino) is a true multi-role aircraft that spans the air combat spectrum, including maritime strike which is vital for Australia.The Super Hornets will be progressively introduced to their new home at Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley throughout 2010 and 2011.

(Australian DoD)

Thailand Can Improve Laser Sistem on Stingray Tank

2 April 2010

Laser Range Finder on Thai's Stingray light tank (photo : ThaiRath)

Managing Director KCP Associates Ltd said the company has been doing maintenance of Army equipment. One of those is M32/Commander Stingray light tank that even 3 to 4 major equipment company can use the Thai engineers maintenance and create new equipment to replace.

However, the device 1 is critical to the overall system is laser distance measurement system (Laser Range Finder), it is a secret military technology, very defect problem and deterioration of equipment in light and defect of power electronic devices.

Foreign companies that manufacture equipment would not disclose details of the technology used. Maintenance is made with difficulty. And the company have the opportunity to meet with Dr. Saran Det achievement researchers from NECTEC with expertise in optical technologies and maintenance and teach skills with the Thai people.

Chor Pong said this is why the fire control systems that control the electrical system electronics and systems work steps of the standard light tank M32/Commander Stingray with a test firing of tank guns. Various strategies in the fight that work is satisfactory. Missile to target accurately. Squadron and the practice field satisfaction is significant. The performance of laser measuring equipment returning the same almost 99%.

Dr. Det said NECTEC provided technical advice information, only the system measuring laser (Laser Range Finder) that the weak feature limitations and maintenance problems solved. Thais are proud can rely on themselves. Do not rely on technology from abroad all the time and reduce the loss of money out of the country.

(Thai Rath)

Air Dropped Mortar Successfully Demonstrated from Tactical UAV

2 April 2010



81mm RCFC test (photo : Defense Industry Daily)



General Dynamics Demonstrates Precision Strike Capability for Tactical UAVs with 81mm Air-Dropped Guided Mortar



BOTHELL, Wash. – General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has successfully guided an 81mm Air-Dropped Guided Mortar (ADM) to a stationary ground target. The guide-to-target flight demonstrations, conducted at Ft. Sill, Okla., confirmed the ability of the 81mm ADM using a novel guidance kit and fuze to provide a precision strike capability for Tactical-Class Unmanned Aircraft (TUAV). The ADM was released from a TUAV using the company’s newly developed “Smart Rack” carriage and release system that enables weaponization of any TUAV platform.



Application of RCFC technology to the 81mm air-dropped guided mortar has been developed in conjunction with the U.S. Army’s Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) in Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. ARDEC developed and successfully tested environmental sensors for the guidance kit’s fuzing system. The results from the Ft. Sill flight tests built on previously successful 81mm air-dropped guided mortar guide-to-target flight demonstrations by General Dynamics and ARDEC in Kingman, Ariz., in December 2008.



RQ-7 Shadow as a tactical UAV platform (photo : Defense Industry Daily)



Designed to meet the needs of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps and Special Forces for a rapid target response capability, the ADM uses existing mortar inventory to provide a low-cost, lightweight weapon system with proven energetics. The company’s patented Roll Controlled Fixed Canard (RCFC) guidance kit, with an innovative flight-control and GPS-based guidance and navigational system, adds precision strike capability to existing mortars. The nose-mounted guidance kit replaces existing mortar fuzes and has been successfully demonstrated on multiple mortar calibers in both air-drop and tube-launch applications and provides a common, multi-platform Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) and integrated weapon system for unmanned aircraft.



The tube-launched application is a low-cost guidance approach that has been successfully demonstrated at Yuma Proving Grounds in a tactical 120mm guided mortar configuration known as the Roll Controlled Guided Mortar (RCGM). The tube launched 120mm RCGM uses the existing warhead and the M934A1 fuze.



(General Dynamics)

TNI AL Buka Tender Pengganti KRI Dewaruci

1 April 2010

KRI Dewaruci - kapal latih TNI-AL (photo : Armabar)

JAKARTA--MI: Mabes TNI Angkatan Laut segera membuka tender untuk mencari pengganti kapal latih KRI Dewaruci yang telah berusia lebih dari 50 tahun.

"Pembukaan lelang dijadwalkan tahun ini, karena kami menargetkan penggantian Dewaruci akan berlangsung dalam dua tahun ke depan," kata juru bicara TNI Angkatan Laut Kolonel Laut (P) Herry Setianegara di Jakarta, Kamis (1/4).

Ia menambahkan, pengganti Dewaruci tetap adalah kapal layar tiang tinggi namun lebih besar. Panjang kapal 105 meter, memiliki empat tiang pancang utama dan mampu mengangkut kadet AAL minimal 100 orang.

Tentang kemungkinan kapal pengganti diadakan dari Jerman, seperti halnya Dewaruci, Herry mengemukakan, "Kami tidak menyebut negara mana, namun kami akan segera membuka lelang terbuka."

Ia menambahkan, pembukaan lelang bagi KRI Dewaruci akan dikoordinasikan dengan Mabes TNI dan Kementerian Pertahanan sesuai aturan berlaku.

KRI Dewaruci dibuat pada 1952 oleh HC Stulchen dan Sohn Hamburg, Jerman dan pertama kali diluncurkan pada 24 Januari 1953. Pada Juli 1953, kapal tersebut dilayarkan dari Jerman ke Indonesia oleh taruna dan kadet AAL untuk menjadi kapal latih calon perwira TNI AL.

Kapal dengan panjang 58,30 meter, lebar lambung 9,50 meter, draft 4,50 meter, dan bobot mati 847 ton itu, telah dilengkapi dengan sistem navigasi canggih dan komputerisasi. Kapal tipe barquentin ini memiliki tiga tiang utama dengan 16 layar. Selain itu, kapal tersebut dilengkapi mesin berkekuatan 986 PK diesel dengan kecepatan maksimal 10,5 knot. (Ant/OL-02)

(Media Indonesia)

China Testing Anti Ship Ballistic Missile

1 April 2010

DF-21 anti ship ballistic missile (all photos : Wired)



China Testing Ballistic Missile ‘Carrier-Killer’



Dr. Andrew Erickson is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute and a Truman Security Fellow. This is his first post for Danger Room; these are solely his personal views.



Last week, Adm. Robert Willard, the head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), made an alarming but little-noticed disclosure. China, he told legislators, was “developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile based on the DF-21/CSS-5 [medium-range ballistic missile] designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.”



What, exactly, does this mean? Evidence suggests that China has been developing an anti-ship ballistic missile, or ASBM, since the 1990s. But this is the first official confirmation that it has advanced to the stage of actual testing.



If they can be deployed successfully, Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles would be the first capable of targeting a moving aircraft-carrier strike group from long-range, land-based mobile launchers. And if not countered properly, this and other “asymmetric” systems — ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines, torpedoes and sea mines — could potentially threaten U.S. operations in the western Pacific, as well as in the Persian Gulf.



Willard’s disclosure should come as little surprise: China’s interest in developing ASBM and related systems has been documented in Department of Defense and National Air and Space Intelligence Center reports, as well as by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the Congressional Research Service. Senior officials — including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead — have pointed to the emerging threat as well.

In November 2009, Scott Bray, ONI’s Senior Intelligence Officer-China, said that Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile development “has progressed at a remarkable rate.” In the span of just over a decade, he said, “China has taken the ASBM program from the conceptual phase to nearing an operational capability.… China has elements of an [over-the-horizon] network already in place and is working to expand its horizon, timeliness and accuracy.”



When someone of Bray’s stature makes that kind of statement, attention is long overdue.



Equally intriguing has been the depiction of this capability in the Chinese media. A lengthy November 2009 program about anti-ship ballistic missiles broadcast on China Central Television Channel 7 (China’s official military channel) featured an unexplained — and rather badly animated — cartoon sequence. This curious 'toon features a sailor who falsely assumes that his carrier’s Aegis defense systems can destroy an incoming ASBM as effectively as a cruise missile, with disastrous results.



Likewise, Chinese media seem to be tracking PACOM’s statements about this more closely than the U.S. press. The graphic above is drawn from an article on Dongfang Ribao (Oriental Daily), the website of a Shanghai newspaper.



Beijing has been developing an ASBM capability at least since the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis. That strategic debacle for China likely convinced its leaders to never again allow U.S. carrier strike groups to intervene in what they consider to be a matter of absolute sovereignty. And China’s military, in an apparent attempt to deter the United States from intervening in Taiwan and other claimed areas on China’s disputed maritime periphery, seems intent on dropping significant hints of its own progress.



U.S. ships, however, will not offer a fixed target for China’s DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles. Military planning documents like the February 2010 Joint Operating Environment and Quadrennial Defense Review clearly recognize America’s growing “anti-access” challenge, and the QDR — the Pentagon’s guiding strategy document — charges the U.S. military with multiple initiatives to address it.



In a world where U.S. naval assets will often be safest underwater, President Obama’s defense budget supports building two submarines a year and investing in a new ballistic-missile submarine. And developing effective countermeasures against anti-ship ballistic missiles is a topic of vigorous discussion in Navy circles. The United States is clearly taking steps to prevent this kind of weapon from changing the rules of the game in the Western Pacific, but continued effort will be essential for U.S. maritime forces to preserve their role in safeguarding the global commons.



(Wired)

India's Light Combat Copter Makes First Flight

31 Maret 2010

India's LCH attack heli (all photos : Indian Defence Forces)

As the helicopter taxied slowly along the airstrip, a little knot of designers and executives from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) watched silently, the sweat beads on their foreheads from more than just the Bangalore heat. March 29 had been selected for a landmark attempt: The first flight of the indigenous Light Combat Helicopter (LCH). Already a year late, and facing criticism for having gone several hundred kilograms overweight, the LCH had much to prove.

Attack helicopters involve the most complex aeronautical, stealth, sensor and weapons technologies. HAL’s state-of-the-art LCH aims to gatecrash an exclusive club of light attack helicopters that includes Eurocopter’s Tiger and China’s ultra-secret Zhisheng-10 (Z-10). In high-altitude performance, the LCH will be in a class by itself: Taking off from Himalayan altitudes of 10,000 feet, operating rockets and guns up to 16,300 feet, and launching missiles at UAVs flying at over 21,000 feet.

At 3.30 pm, the twin Shakti engines roared to a crescendo and the LCH pilots, Group Captains Unni Pillai and Hari Nair, lifted off the ground. The futuristic helicopter, all angles and armoured sheets, flew for a distance just a few feet above the runway; then cheering and clapping broke out as it climbed to 50 feet. Over the next 15 minutes, Pillai and Nair put the LCH through its first flight test, doing a clockwise and then an anti-clockwise turn, hovering motionless and circling the airport four times.

“It is a big day for all of us, especially those involved in the LCH’s design and fabrication,” Ashok Nayak, chairman and managing director of HAL, told Business Standard. “We were going to have the first LCH flight in December but, for one reason or another, it kept getting delayed.”
A feared predator in the modern battlefield, the attack helicopter is a key weapon system against enemy tanks. Once an enemy tank column is detected, attack helicopters speed to confront them, flying just 20-30 feet high to avoid radar detection with enemy rifle and machine-gun bullets ricocheting off their armoured sides. Hiding behind trees or a ridgeline, they pop up when the tanks are about 4 kilometres away to fire missiles that smash through a tank’s armour.

Excess weight has been the main reason for the delay in the LCH programme. The heavy armour needed for protection against enemy fire conflicts with the need for a light, highly mobile helicopter that can twist and dodge and hover stationary to allow pilots to aim and fire their missiles. The LCH was supposed to weight just 2.5 tonnes when empty; but the design team found that it actually weighed 580 kg more than that.

At lower altitudes, this would not be a significant drawback. But, at the LCH’s flight ceiling of 6,000 metres (almost 20,000 feet), this would significantly reduce the LCH’s payload of weapons and ammunition.

Last September, the chief of HAL’s Helicopter Complex, R Srinivasan, told Business Standard that the LCH’s weight would be progressively reduced over the first three Technology Demonstrators (TDs) of the LCH. “We will find ways of cutting down TD-1 by 180-200 kg; TD-2, will be another 100 kg lighter; and TD-3 will shave off another 65-75 kg. That would leave the LCH about 200 kg heavier than originally planned, but the IAF has accepted that.”

HAL chief Ashok Nayak today confirmed to Business Standard that this schedule was on track. “The weight reduction that we had targeted for TD-1, which flew on Monday, has been met. The second prototype, TD-1, which will make its first flight by September, will be lighter still.”

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has said that it needs 65 LCHs; the army wants another 114. If the development programme is not delayed further, the LCH will enter service by 2015-2016. To meet its needs till then, the Ministry of Defence floated a global tender for 22 attack helicopters. With only three companies responding, that tender was cancelled last year.

But HAL remains confident since most of the key technologies in the LCH — e.g., the Shakti engine, the rotors and the main gearbox — have already been proven in the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter, 159 of which are being built for the army and the air force.

Simultaneously, the LCH’s weapons and sensors are being tested on a weaponised version of the Dhruv. These include a Nexter 20 mm turret-mounted cannon, an MBDA air-to-air missile, and an EW suite from SAAB, South Africa. India’s Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) is developing an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) for the LCH. Based on the already developed Nag ATGM, the HELINA (or HELIicopter-mounted NAg) missile can destroy tanks from a distance of seven kilometres.

(Business Standard)