Lifeboat Foundation

The sky above Osaka Bay is saturated in light pollution teeming from the neon-soaked metropolis below. Military bi-copters circle in patterns between the antenna towers of Niihama City’s looming skyscrapers as they survey the scene of an ongoing domestic security operation. Kneeling from atop the edge of one of these towers is a figure; a mauve-haired saboteur of the state clad in a leotard, side holster, and leather jacket. Combat boots and leggings hiked just past her knees with her upper thighs left exposed. An external HD cable juts from a small input jack indented at the base of her neck.

Her pupils dilate, sifting through the visual noise of an embedded surveillance feed while combing the room below for suspicious movements. She detaches the cable at her subordinate’s signal, stands upright and removes her clothing. She leans over the edge of the building, a smirk streaking across her otherwise stoic expression. A rappel line heaves sharply, suspending her body directly adjacent to that of her target, who is now only a trigger pull from annihilation.

DARPA’s newest invention is the Gremlin: a drone that be deployed from a bomber while in flight, execute its mission, and then return to an extraction point where a cargo plane yanks it out of the sky and brings it safely home.

The drones are capable of flying unmanned, but being able to retrieve them makes them reusable, which is both cost-effective and convenient. But drone retrieval also protects U.S. military technology and secrets. Sending fleets of tiny Gremlins on intelligence-gathering missions is one thing, but being able to recapture them instead of leaving them in the hands of hostiles is a huge boon to the military. Gremlin drones have up to three hours to accomplish reconnaissance missions, at which time they automatically fly back to a retrieval area to be collected by a C-130 cargo plane.

Related: DARPA’s 130-foot submarine-hunting drone will take to the sea in April.

Continue reading “Now that drones have become a standard tool in our military arsenal, the next job is to make them more efficient and capable than ever before” »

Airforce is looking for a few good men and women for their MQ-9 program.

WASHINGTON (AFNS) —
The Air Force released basing criteria April 12 that will be used to select candidate bases for a potential new MQ-9 Reaper wing with units at up to two locations.

The Air Force is pursuing additional locations to help diversify assignment opportunities for personnel within the MQ-9 enterprise, provide increased opportunities for leadership from within the community, and provide flexibility to enhance integration with other organizations and capabilities.

The desire for additional locations for an MQ-9 wing was identified during surveys of officers and enlisted Airmen in the MQ-9 and MQ-1 Predator enterprise as part of Air Combat Command’s Culture and Process Improvement Program.

Continue reading “AF releases criteria for basing new RPA units” »

Nice; Universal Soldier time.

So Orlowski and the advanced research agency have their work cut out for them. Meanwhile Americans have plenty of reasons to be skeptical they’ll succeed — and not just because the Pentagon has repeatedly failed to manage complex weapons programs without cost overruns and technical problems, the prime example being the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The Pentagon launched Squad X in 2013, to solve longtime serious problems. A squad, which is roughly a dozen troops, is the smallest conventional military unit capable of fighting independently. A “dismounted” squad — meaning traveling on foot rather than in vehicles — usually carries rifles, grenades, a few machine guns and several radios. It depends on larger units for speedy transportation, heavy firepower and long-range communications.

Continue reading “What is Squad X, and how much will it change the U.S. Army?” »

Awesome!

This is the future of naval warfare.

They will visit Hiroshima Peace Park and conclude their gathering with a “Hiroshima Declaration” that will likely express hope for a world without nuclear weapons.

The future of such weapons and how to reduce them is shaping discussions in Tokyo and Hiroshima this year, following the nuclear security summit held in Washington on March 31 and April 1 and the upcoming G-7 Ise-Shima summit at the end of next month.

But even as Japan seeks to play a larger role in international nonproliferation efforts, past personal statements by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his allies, and, more recently, official government replies about nuclear weapons for Japan, raise questions about how politically credible any leadership in that role might be.

Continue reading “Statements: OSAKA – When the foreign ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations gather in Hiroshima for a two-day meeting from Sunday” »

The greatest cybersecurity threat to the U.S. comes from Russia and China, but Iran is trying to increase and spend more on its capabilities, the military’s Cyber Command chief told Congress.

IRobot is going after the military dollars. Smart move given that the military in all branches are trying to modernize with AI.

By Sandra I. Erwin.

Continue reading “New iRobot Spinoff Eyes Big Pentagon Contracts” »

The remotely piloted aircraft has landed, but there’s still work to be done.

After the launch and recovery element lands the RPA, they taxi it off the runway and in to a hangar, where the maintenance Airmen get right to work.

“Post-flight we do any scheduled maintenance for the aircraft and change any parts that need to be replaced if they are broken, or if the manufacturer has deemed it necessary to change at a specific allotted time,” said Staff Sgt. Matthew, 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron MQ-1 Predator crew chief. “We also refuel the aircraft with the required amount for the next mission.”

Continue reading “Piecing the puzzle together, MQ-1 and MQ-9s provide crucial CAP capabilities: Post-flight procedures” »