Programme Update: The Indo-French Maitri SR-SAM

Top sources reveal that the Indo-French joint tri-services Short-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (SR-SAM), christened Maitri, is likely to receive formal sanction shortly by the Indian government, with both sides finalising workshare agreements on the programme, initially entered into over three years ago. Described variously as the defunct Trishul point defence missile programme imbued with fresh life, joint work has already begun on the missile, that should see a first test-firing by late 2012. While MBDA and DRDL have awaited formal project sanction, the two agencies have been exchanging data on the Mica and Trishul for the last two years, and are ready to begun building the missile. The vertical launch weapon will have a range of 15-km and will be propelled by a smokeless solid rocket motor.

BY:LiveFist

BAE hails Mantis UAV success, nears Taranis roll-out

BY: Flight International

BAE Systems’ Mantis unmanned air vehicle technology demonstrator has been shipped back to the UK, after completing a successful first flight-test campaign in Australia.
Returned to BAE’s Warton site in Lancashire in mid-June, the Mantis is in rebuild ahead of undergoing further ground-based system development work at the site. However, the company has yet to decide whether its current demonstrator will be flown again.
“Mantis was about demonstrating an end-to-end capability,” says Dave Kershaw, business development and strategy director for Autonomous Systems & Future Capability, part of BAE’s Military Air Systems unit. “The test flights went to show that it could go to the endurance planned.”
The twin turboprop-powered aircraft made an undisclosed number of flights from the Woomera test range in South Australia, including five described as “mission-representative”. Kershaw says these included tasks such as automatically tracking a ground area for targets, and cross-cueing the aircraft’s two on-board payloads: an L-3 Wescam MX-20 electro-optical/infrared camera and BAE’s imagery collection and exploitation system.
One night flight was also made, and BAE also assessed the time needed to prepare the UAV to take off again after completing a sortie. This demonstrated a 30min performance. The 19.8m (65ft) wingspan Mantis made its first flight from Woomera in November 2009.
BAE says a production version of Mantis would be able to fly at altitudes up to 50,000ft and deliver an endurance of over 36h. The design is a potential candidate for the UK Ministry of Defence’s Scavenger requirement, which seeks a persistent intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capability to enter use from around 2015 to 2018.
The MoD is expected to downselect its preferred option for Scavenger in 2012, with possible alternatives including the X-UAS development of EADS Defence & Security’s Talarion UAV, which is already being offered to France, Germany, Spain and Turkey. However, the UK is also looking at whether its requirements could be met under a potential collaboration with the French defence ministry, Kershaw says.
Meanwhile, BAE will roll out its Taranis unmanned combat air vehicle demonstrator (artist’s impression pictured below) during an event to be staged at its Warton facility on 12 July.

AIT software for precise UAV landing

BY: indianexpress.com

The ARMY Institute of Technology (AIT) has developed a software programme which, it claims, increases the precision in landing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by doing away with the need for even a human remote operator.
The institute has developed a MATLAB software programme that not only increases the precision of landing of the UAVs to 97 per cent but even makes it happen automatically without these vehicles being guided by a hand-held remote. The AIT is in touch with the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to get the programme tested on the UAVs. The software has been developed by a team of scientists from the AIT’s electronics and telecommunication department, including Prof J B Jawale, Prof P V Bhat, and independent consultant Mahesh Khadtare.
“The software we have developed increases the precision of the landing of the UAV to 97 per cent and does not need a human operator. This means that the scope of error in landing is only 3 per cent and this will greatly circumvent difficulties in the present landing system of UAV,” said Mahesh Khadtare, the lead scientist of the project. nstead of human operator, the landing of the UAV will be controlled by its inbuilt microprocessor. “The landing of the UAV will be controlled by the microprocessor that will recognise the already stored images of the landing space and accordingly guide the UAV for landing. The webcam of the UAV will take the pictures of landing space for the microprocessor to recognise them,” said Khadtare.
AIT scientists said the software programme which they have developed will not only make the landing of UAVs precise, but also their development more cost effective. “This will be an economical system,” said Prof Bhat.
“There will be no additional increase in the equipment to be fitted to the UAV. The payload will not change. The only thing that needs to be done is to convert the MATLAB software into an equivalent assembling programme for the UAV,” said Khadtare.
He said the present system which is in vogue transmits the images captured by the UAV to its base station where the operator analyses the images and guides the UAV for landing.

Indian ballistic missile defense system to be test fired in August

BY: PTI

The indigenously developed ballistic missile defence system will be test fired in August this year, a top defence official said on Thursday.
“Now the (ballistic missile defence system) test is going to be conducted in the month of August during which we will try to intercept a missile at altitudes of 15-20 kilometres,” DRDO chief V K Saraswat told reporters here.
The ballistic missile defence system is being developed by the premier Defence Research and Development Organisation to thwart an enemy missile attack.
Referring to the failed test of the system on March 15, he said, “The anti-missile system is a two-tiered system where you first launch the target missile and then you launch the hit missile. Since the target was not launched as planned, the anti ballistic missile system did not trigger.”
Saraswat said that the DRDO was taking precautions to prevent any failure in the August test.
“Whenever there is a deviation, we will always take precautions. This is part of our development process,” he said.
India plans to deploy the first phase of the missile shield by 2012 after completing a series of trials and evaluating its target range.
Two different missiles have been developed as part of the system for endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric interception of an incoming ballistic missiles.
Replying to a query on the Indo-Israeli joint venture to develop a medium range surface-to-air missile, the DRDO chief said, “More than 70 per cent of the content in the missile being developed with Israel would be indigenous.”
Noting that the programme was going ahead smoothly, Saraswat said that agencies such as the BDL, the BEL and the DRDO have been designated for the project.

India's AEW&C Programme Gets Ready For Platform Flight Tests

Have just received a detailed briefing on the test phase of India's AEW&C programme. In a few months, the first of three modified EMB-145 platforms will begin a routine of flight tests for basic performance and handling. This preliminary testing will be carried out in Brazil by Embraer and a team from the Indian Air Force's Aircraft & Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE) in association with Brazil's Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil and India's CEMILAC.

The first flight test aircraft, which is set to make its first flight later this year, will be integrated with a Dorsal Unit (DoU) containing dummy electronics, ECS, IFR, auxiliary power units, internal fuel tanks, SATCOMs and antennae. India's Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS) -- the laboratory spearheading the programme -- has already supplied Embraer with a dorsal unit (with dummy electronics) and a Ku-band SATCOM dome, while the Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), CABS and the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL) have shipped in antennae for ESM, CSM and U/VHF.

While the EMB-145 with the configuration above will undergo flight tests in Brazil, the configuration for ferry to India in August 2011 will be the aircraft with only the dorsal pylon (minus the unit), ECS, IFR, APUs and internal fuel tanks.

Once the first aircraft reaches India, it will undergo a rigorous flight testing schedule by CABS, ASTE and CEMILAC in association with Embraer. After a few flights in India, the aircraft will be integrated with a dorsal unit with real electronics and other mission system equipment, including operator workstations (five), avionics racks, rest crew seating, seats and cabling.

On June 23, EADS Defence & Security announced that it had been awarded a contract to supply consultancy services to CABS for developing the AEW&C's system architecture with particular regard to certification and mission equipment optimisation.

By:LiveFist

HAL's Chopper School Lifts Off

The Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying (HATSOFF), the joint venture owned equally by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and CAE, today announced that its Bell 412 full-mission simulator has been certified to Level D, the highest qualification for flight simulators, by India's Directorate General Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

Photos Courtesy HAL

EuroHawk Makes First Flight

The Euro Hawk® unmanned reconnaissance aircraft takes off for its maiden flight June 29, 2010 from Northrop Grumman's Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility.

Photo Courtesy EADS

Race for `mother of all deals’ for 126 fighters gets hotter

BY: TNN
The race for the “mother of all defence deals”, the $10.4 billion project to acquire 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for IAF, is getting hotter.
Defence ministry sources said the technical evaluation report of the gruelling field trials, during which the six foreign fighters in contention were tested by IAF pilots both in India and abroad under different weather conditions, was “virtually ready” now.
“IAF is likely to submit the exhaustive report by next week. Subsequently, a shortlist of the fighters which have done well in the field evaluation test and the staff evaluation will be made,” said a source.
The commercial bids submitted by the six aviation majors — American F/A-18 `Super Hornet’ (Boeing) and F-16 `Falcon’ (Lockheed Martin), Swedish Gripen (Saab), French Rafale (Dassault), Russian MiG-35 (United Aircraft Corporation) and Eurofighter Typhoon (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies) — will be opened, examined and compared only after that.
This will be the first time that “life-cycle costs” will be taken into account rather than just pitching for the lowest bidder. The “direct acquisition cost”, the cost of operating the fighters over a 40-year period, with 6,000 hours of flying, and the cost of the ToT will all be taken into account to arrive at a “verifiable cost model” for the commercial evaluation.
Complex negotiations on the 50% offsets specified in the contract, under which the selected foreign vendor will be required to plough half of the contract forex value back into India, will also have to be conducted.
IAF is keeping its fingers crossed that the actual contract, under which 18 jets will be bought off-the-shelf and the rest will be manufactured in India under transfer of technology to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, is inked within a year.
IAF obviously wants to get the fighters as soon as possible, grappling as it is with a sharp fall in the number of its fighter squadrons (each has 12 to 18 jets), which is down to just 32 from even the “sanctioned” strength of 39.5.

British Harrier and Jaguar become work of Art

BY: Fiona Hanson/PA / © Guardian News and Media Limited
An RAF Jaguar that saw service during Desert Storm is displayed belly up on the floor of the gallery
Sea Harrier

Two warships commissioned into Navy fleet

BY: PTI

Giving a boost to Navy’s defence capabilities, two state-of-the-art high-speed warships, INS Cankarso and INS Kondul, were commissioned here on Tuesday into the naval fleet.
Andhra Pradesh Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan commissioned the ships in the presence of Commanding-in-Chief of Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral Anup Singh and other senior Naval officials.
The indigenously-built ships use water jet propulsion technology and can achieve speeds in excess of 35 knots. They will be based in Goa and tasked with the role of detecting, locating and destroying small, fast-moving enemy surface craft engaged in covert operations, a Navy spokesman said.
INS Cankarso and INS Kondul are fitted with 30-mm CRN-91 gun built by Ordnance Factory, Medak, and Igla missiles and set of machine guns ranging from light to heavy. “These features are an improvement over the previous fast attack craft (FAC) ships,” the spokesman said.
These two ships are the first lot of the ten similar ships that the Navy proposed to induct in its fleet. They belong to the Car Nicobar class V and VI in the FAC series.
“In addition to their primary role, the ships will be tasked with the role of policing, anti-smuggling and fisheries protection in India’s coastal waters. In the long run, these ships could help in ensuring stability in India’s maritime zones of responsibility,” the spokesman said.
INS Cankarso is named after an island near Goa while INS Kondul derives its name from an island near Nicobar.
Kolkata-based Garden Reach Ship Builders and Engineers, headed by Rear-Admiral (Retd) K C Shekar, built these ships in two years.
Water jet technology has rapidly gained acceptance as the leading means of propulsion for all types of high-speed marine craft, including ferries, work boats, patrol crafts and pleasure boats.
Recent advances in water jet technology have put them ahead of conventional propulsion systems in high-speed performance and reliability, the Navy spokesman said.
INS Cankarso is commanded by Arun Bahuguna and INS Kondul by Shashidhar R. Patil. The two ships that have 45 sailors and four officers on board, are equipped with a reverse-osmosis technology drinking water plant and sewerage treatment plant.

Indian Army To Use Micro Devices For Movement Of Terrorists

The Indian Army plans to use micro audio bugs, video devices, other micro devices and new age gadgets to keep a watch on terrorist hideouts, meeting places and activities. Says Army on the possible uses of nanotechnology products in the ˜Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap for the Defence Ministry.
It contemplates to use nanotechnology applications to develop nano security devices. Being a future manufacturing technology, nano tech will make most products lighter, stronger, cleaner, less expensive and smaller in size. This and many interesting uses and possibilities of nano products in future are featured in the first anniversary issue of ˜Nano Digest’, India’s first magazine on Nanotechnology published from Hyderabad city. The magazine is just hit the market.
Another interesting piece of news is about the development of world’s most powerful microscope, which is now up and running at the University of Texas at San Antonio in USA. The JEOL transmission electron microscope, model JEM-ARM200F, will propel the development of new cancer therapies and disease treatments by allowing nanotechnology researchers to see samples magnified 20 million times its original size. This is certainly a remarkable progress.
This new and the most powerful microscope can herald new chapter in cancer treatment to pinpoint and burn away the damaged cells without harming the surrounding healthy cells. It will also be used to study Alzheimer’s disease to develop new materials and for other applications.
What is Nanotech? It is not known well so far in India though mention of it was made in 1959. It is the study of controlling of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. One nanometer (nm) is one billionth, or 10 to the power of minus 9 of the meter. To put it more simply, a centimeter is one-hundredth of a meter, a millimeter is one-thousandth of a meter, and a micrometer is one-millionth of a meter, but all of these are still huge compared to the nanoscale. A nanometer (nm) is one-billionth of a meter, smaller than the wavelength of visible light and a hundred-thousandth the width of a human hair. Nanotechnology is a technology with future full of promises.
The first anniversary issue features a cover story on the need for patenting of scientific discoveries is just hit the market. In an exclusive article, it presented the need and urgency to safeguard India’s scientific findings in this world of piracy and cheating. The cover article presents the guidelines and thorough information about the need for patenting of scientific discoveries. Among other features, the issue also has an exclusive article written by Prof. R. Tenne of Israel. A thought provoking article on the way from lab to market is presented for Indian scientists to get inspired. The issue also delves in Nanocomputing, Analytical & Measuring Instruments for Nanotechnology, Nanotech Courses, Nano Lab Alerts, Nanomedicine Updates and others. All in all, an issue worth preserving.
The annual issue also discusses about many advancements in nanoscience. One such an eye opener is how highly lethal venom of cone snail helps in medicine. The highly lethal venom contained in cone snails found in coastal waters near coral reefs when extracted and administered via nanotechnologic methods can potentially be used as a safe and effective alternative to highly addictive morphine based medications.
The only of its kind of magazine in India on Nanotechnology was launched last June. Nano Messiah, world’s great scientist and Father of Indian Nanotechnology Prof. C.N.R. Rao launched it then. One year down the lane, Nano Digest emerged as premier magazine with well over 8000 readership.
Who says ˜No-no to Nano�. The encouraging support magazine receiving from month to month over the last one year proves that Nano is happening in India. Many who felt that market was not ripe for such a magazine proved otherwise, said K.Jayadev, Editor of Nano Digest English monthly. It also dispelled the myth that journalists do not understand technology. Hence, they shouldn’t publish a technology magazine was the opinion of the industry. But, Nano Digest proved that journalists too can edit and produce technology magazine, informed Jayadev.
We wanted to develop a popular magazine, which would decipher technology, inform and educate people about this lesser known science. Nano Digest has been popularizing nanoscience and technology over the past one year. Today Nano Digest has become a platform for many to talk about their experiments and findings; about new products and discoveries; about their curriculum, conferences. Today Nano Digest is the one-stop source for information on Nano Science in India, declared Mr. K. Hari Prasad, Publisher of Nano Digest.
In a short time Nano Digest forged partnerships with many International organisations and particiapated in Conferences like Nanotech India in Kochi, ICE in New Delhi, Indo-US workshop in Hyderabad, ICONSAT in Mumbai, ICONN in Chennai and many others. Among its subscribers are IITs, IIScs, JNCASR (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research), most of Universities, CSIR Institute, Engineering Colleges, etc. across the country.
Many Industry Stalwarts, who’s-who of Nanotechnology in India and abroad, Nano Scientists, Nano Industry captains contribute articles regularly.
BY: EYTIMES

U.S. to cooperate with Russia on global missile defense system

The United States is ready to cooperate with Russia toward the creation of a global missile defense system, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia said on Monday.
“We will continue this dialogue so that Russia and we can work together on the creation of a global missile defense system,” John Beyrle said in Russian while speaking to students and staff at a Moscow university.
U.S.-Russia relations have seen a dramatic increase since Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama announced last year a new policy of resetting bilateral ties and overcoming Cold-War era set-backs.
Although Obama scrapped last September earlier plans to deploy missile defense elements in the Czech Republic and Poland, Washington has not given up on its European missile shield initiative.
In May, the United States opened a temporary military base in northern Poland, just 80 km (50 miles) from the border of Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, in accordance with an agreement negotiated under former President George Bush in 2008 – a move which drew much criticism from Russia.
The United States is also in talks with Bulgaria and Romania on deploying elements of the U.S. missile shield on their territories from 2015.
BY : RIA Novosti