Defense Systems

Coast Guard stretches with Deepwater

After decades of using aging communications equipment and ships, the Coast Guard is attempting to create a comprehensive command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system.

Defense Systems

GAO eyes global strike ISR

If the Defense Department wants to hit targets across the world with rapidly deployable weapons, it must better synchronize weapons development with the pace of advancements in ISR technologies.

Defense Systems

The future is slow to arrive

The Army's Future Combat Systems project is changing to meet criticisms and shifting priorities, but critics doubt the changes are coming soon enough to matter.

Defense Systems

Eyes in the Sky

Aerostats and towers give sensors a lookout on the battlefield

Defense Systems

The Army's future combat systems in a nutshell

Army future combat, command and control vehicles

Defense Systems

Wireless supply line

The Army is upgrading a wireless system designed to connect theater logisticians directly to their electronic ordering systems, which has been a Defense Department goal since Operation Desert Storm.

Defense Systems

Switches with wings: UAVs as comm relays

Giant blimps are not the only vehicles capable of stratospheric flight. Fixed-wing aircraft such as the Lockheed U-2 have done it for decades.

Defense Systems

GAO says FCS threatened by software bloat

The centerpiece program of Army transformation, Future Combat Systems, could collapse under the weight of poor software design.

Defense Systems

A helping hand with legs

It’s a bit of a mouthful: Sustainable Technologies, Accelerated Research-Transportable Infrastructures for Development and Emergency Support, or STAR-TIDES. But what is termed a research event for studying disaster mitigation is generating a lot of buzz in the United States and abroad.

Defense Systems

Common sub radio room buzzes on the horizon

The Navy’s Common Submarine Radio Room (CSRR) appears to be moving full speed ahead. With interoperability tests completed for two classes of the fleet’s submarines and a third under way, the automated communications system has been designated as operationally ready for the submarine fleet.

Defense Systems

Key elements of global defense

Current plans for a U.S. missile defense system include airborne lasers and other systems but will rely primarily on three systems that are either brand new or still in development.

Defense Systems

JTRS breach is a technicality

Reports of recent and sudden cost overruns by the military’s Joint Tactical Radio Program are inaccurate, officials from the JTRS joint program executive office said.

Defense Systems

Partnerships flourish for Armys FCS program

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — Army vehicles are no longer simply a way to move troops, weapons and supplies. Under the Future Combat Systems program, vehicles are now sensors in a networked battlefield.

Defense Systems

Congress wants closer eye on threats in orbit.

Almost a year after China used anti-satellite technology to explode the Fengyun 1C, its own weather satellite, Congress chose to up the ante on satellite protection.

Defense Systems

Swarms of small satellites could provide the edge

If DARPA has anything to do with it, the U.S. military’s space future will be built around small, fast and agile satellite systems rather than the big, slow and ponderous systems it now relies on.