DID - USN Proposes To Home Base Stingray At Ventura County | British Government Takes Back Control Of AWE | NG To Support South Korea’s RQ-4 Sustainment

Americas

Lockheed Martin won a $724 million contract modification for the Aegis Weapon System (AWS). Under the follow on contract, the contractor will conduct full development and lifecycle engineering for the Aegis Weapon System (AWS) fielding for cruisers, destroyers and Aegis Ashore configurations. The AWS contract will support the following efforts: Aegis Baseline 5.4.1 (Ballistic Missile Defense 4.2) development; BL 9 (BMD 5.X) development; Aegis BMD In-Service support; BMD ground and flight test support; modeling and simulation support; Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex combat system engineering, testing, site support, modernization, technical and logistics support; and Aegis BMD ship installation and planning. The Aegis Weapon System is a centralized, automated, command-and-control and weapons control system. Aegis Baseline (BL) 9 software allows a ship to do both air defense and BMD simultaneously. Work under the modification will take place in New Jersey. Estimated completion will be in February 2024.

The US Navy prepared a draft environmental assessment for home-basing of the MQ-25A Stingray carrier-based unmanned air system at Naval Base Ventura County in Point Mugu, California. The Stingray is an aerial refueling drone. It will serve as a tanker capable of refueling aircraft in flight. The Stingray will also be capable of conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations. The drone first flew on September 19, 2019. Boeing is developing the MQ-25. According to the company, will „provide the needed robust refueling capability thereby extending the combat range of deployed Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Boeing EA-18G Growler, and Lockheed Martin F-35C fighters“. According to the draft released by the USN, the Stingray will fly approximately 960 flights annually at Point Mugu. The home basing will bring 730 personnel and their family members to the base. A new hangar will be constructed northeast of the base with two taxiways to link to the existing Taxiway B.

Middle East & Africa

At Euronaval Online, which is the digital edition of Euronaval 2020, International naval defense and maritime security industry exhibition, Israel Shipyards presented the SAAR S-72, the new generation of the famous SAAR class Fast Attack Mini Corvettes, Israel Defense reported. The SAAR-72 is a multi-mission vessel using a modular design, in Corvette configuration, she can be used to conduct naval warfare missions. In OPV (Offshore Patrol Vessel), she can be armed with lighter weaponry. It is a stealth multi-purpose corvette derived from the Saar 4.5 missile boats fully designed by Israeli Shipyards. The ship has a length of 72 meters and a displacement of 800 tons. She has an endurance of 21 days with a crew of 50 people including officers and sailors. It can also accommodate 20 passengers or commandos.

Europe

According to news reports, the UK Government will take back control of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) following a written ministerial statement by the Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace. The AWE designs, manufactures and supports the UK’s nuclear weapons. For two decades, it has been under privatized management. It is currently run by Lockheed Martin, Serco and Jacob’s Engineering, with Lockheed holding a majority stake in the management consortium. The establishment, based at Aldermaston in southern England, is at the core of British activities toward developing, producing and disassembling nuclear warheads for the Royal Navy’s fleet of Trident missile-armed submarines. Back in February 2020, the Ministry of Defense started the development of a new nuclear warhead to allow the Navy to field an effective deterrent for deployment on the new fleet of Dreadnought Class submarines due to start replacing the existing boats early in the next decade.

Asia-Pacific

According to local media, another three Dassault Rafale fighters will be delivered to India the first week of November. The jets are reported to be arriving on home soil on November 4. With this, the IAF will have eight of the 36 Rafale jets in service. The first batch of five Rafale jets were formally inducted into the No.17 ‘Golden Arrows’ squadron of the IAF on September 10 at the Ambala Air Force station. They arrived in India in July. India has contracted 36 Rafale omni-role fighter jets from France in fly-away condition with 13 India Specific Enhancements (ISE) under a €7.87 billion ($9.1 billion) Inter-Governmental Agreement signed in September 2016. The Dassault Rafale is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft

Northrop Grumman won a $158.4 million contract action to help sustain the Global Hawk RQ-4 aircraft for South Korea. Northrop will provide contractor logistics services and RQ-4 spares as part of the sole-sourced award. The Global Hawk is a high-altitude, remotely-piloted, surveillance aircraft. The RQ-4 UAS has a capacity of more than 30 hours and is designed to gather imagery in real-time and in all weather conditions for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations. The unmanned platform has been deployed for Air Force missions since 2001. Work will take place in the Republic of Korea and Sierra Vista, Arizona. Estimated completion date is February 29, 2024.

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