US Navy Hands Over 17 Suspected Pirates to Kenya
Reuters reported that the U.S. Navy handed over 17 suspected Somali pirates to Kenya on Wednesday, taking the number of such captives in prisons along the east African country’s coast to 111.
Kenyan police say the influx of suspected Somali pirates is clogging jails and congesting local courts and they would like foreign navies patrolling the shipping lanes off Somalia to start taking captives to other countries.
International navies trying to curb piracy off lawless Somalia are often reluctant to bring suspects to their own countries because they either lack the jurisdiction, or fear the pirates may seek asylum. The European Union, United States and some other countries have instead struck agreements with Kenya to leave suspects to face trial in east Africa’s biggest economy. Some pirates are being prosecuted in France and the Netherlands.
Kenya has made clear it cannot take all the pirates and local Muslim leaders are worried the growing number of Somali prisoners could fuel tensions between the neighbouring nations. Kenya’s Foreign Minister reassured diplomats on Wednesday of their security against any terrorist attacks, saying the diplomatic police had been put on “high alert.” He called upon the international community to address the issue of Somalia since it has assumed global ramifications.
“The minister added that we are living in a volatile world and the deteriorating situation in Somalia has compounded the security situation,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
There was a bomb scare at the Norwegian embassy last week and Delta Air Lines cancelled its maiden flight to Nairobi after the U.S. government said there was a “credible threat” to civil aviation in east Africa.
Chinese Sub Damages US Destroyer’s Towed Array Sonar
A Chinese submarine collided with an underwater sonar array towed by the destroyer USS John S. McCain off the coast of the Philippines, CNN television said, quoting a US official who said it was an “inadvertent encounter.”
The array, used to locate underwater sounds, was damaged in the incident, but the military official said the sub and ship did not collide.
The AN/SQR-19B Tactical Array SONAR (TACTAS) is a passive towed array system which provides the ability to detect, classify, and track a large number of submarine contacts at increased ranges. TACTAS is a component sensor of the AN/SQQ-89 ASW Combat System, and provides significant improvements in passive detection and localization, searching throughout 360 degrees at tactical ship speeds. The sonar provides very long-range passive detection of enemy submarines. TACTAS is a long cable full of microphones that is towed about a mile behind the ship. It is towed so far behind the ship so as to not let noise radiating from the ship itself interfere with the noise picked up from targets. Using that noise can determine exactly what ship or submarine is being tracked. The US Navy did not consider the event a case of deliberate harassment, CNN reported.
In March this year two tense standoffs between US and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea triggered accusations by the United States that China was behaving in an “aggressive” manner.
China later said a US naval vessel involved in the incident with Chinese fishing boats in the Yellow Sea had violated maritime law, and urged the United States to take steps to avoid a repetition.
Philippine Navy officer-in-command Vice Admiral Ferdinand Golez said they have no information on the alleged incident.
He also said that the USS John S. McCain was not in the Philippines and that Chinese submarines should not be passing through Philippine waters. However he admitted that the Philippine military has no equipment to detect such submarines.
Marport Has Successful UDT Exhibition
Marport would like to thank the many visitors who visited our booth during this week’s UDT conference and exhibition in Cannes.
UDT gave us the opportunity to introduce our new underwater defence products, and we successfully established relationships with major defence contractors. From the reception we received from UDT attendees, it’s evident that our products are right on target to address existing and emerging requirements for undersea domain awareness.
Mike Harvey, Marport’s VP for Offshore and Defence said, “UDT proved to be a great success for Marport. We utilized the Innovation Showcase and Poster Presentation sessions to highlight our Software Defined Sonar technology to hundreds of conference delegates. In addition to our SDS technology, strong interest was shown in our Integrated Subsea Surveillance System and our Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.”
Marport’s SQX-1 is a new robotic underwater vehicle that can hover in place like a helicopter – an invaluable tool to complement both manned and unmanned surface vehicle operations. Most traditional AUV designs have a significant limitation – like a torpedo, they can only operate while continuously moving forward. Marport’s SQX-1 vehicle overcomes this limitation. It’s hovering capability enables it to stop anywhere in the water column while constantly keeping station by adjusting to underwater currents and obstacles. Navigating to a pre-programmed destination, it can hover in place, making detailed inspections of underwater threats such as mines. Not only can the craft hover, it can move quickly, up to three meters per second (6 knots). Both its speed and its ability to stop in place are achieved through a dual pod design with integrated vector thrusters mounted on fore and aft foils that can rotate 360° to provide forward, rear, horizontal and vertical thrust. The propulsion control system enables tight turns, full rotation or even lateral movement.
During UDT, Marport has been invited by a major navy to deploy the SQX-1 vehicle in test and evaluation trials for Expeditionary Warfare including Special Operations and Mine Warfare.
China Now 2nd to U.S. in Arms Spending: Study
World military spending hit a new record in 2008, boosted by the Iraq war, the return of Russia as a global player and the emergence of China, a Swedish think tank said in its annual report June 8.
World arms expenditure totalled $1.46 trillion last year, a rise of 45 percent from a decade ago and representing 2.4 percent of global gross domestic product or $217 for every person on the planet, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said.
Compared with 2007, the figure rose by 4.0 percent in real terms.
“The introduction of the idea of ‘the war on terrorism’ has encouraged several countries to see their problems from a very militarized perspective, and is used to justify high military spending,” Sam Perlo-Freeman, the main author of SIPRI’s report on military expenditure, said in a statement.
“At the same time, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost an extra $903 billion in increased military spending for the United States alone,” he said.
The United States is, as expected, by far the world’s biggest arms spender, according to the think tank.
It represented almost 42 percent of the 2008 total, more than the 14 other top countries combined in what SIPRI described as a legacy from former president George W. Bush. Since 1999, U.S. defense spending has soared by 67 percent in real terms to 607 billion dollars last year.
China, which like Russia has almost tripled its military expenditure in the past 10 years, was for the first time the world’s second-biggest arms spender in 2008. SIPRI estimated its spending at $84.9 billion, which accounted for six percent of the global total.
That would put it ahead of France and Britain, which each accounted for 4.5 percent. “China’s increase has roughly paralleled its economic growth and is also linked to its major power aspirations,” SIPRI said.
Russia, like China, took advantage of the recent years’ economic boom prior to the global crisis to reassert its superpower ambitions, returning to fifth position on SIPRI’s list in 2008 after a decline in the post-Cold War period.
Meanwhile, military spending in South America soared by 50 percent in 2008 over the previous decade, “led by Brazil’s long-term push for regional power status and Colombia’s escalating spending related to its internal conflict,” the think tank wrote.
Among the top 15 biggest spenders, only Germany and Japan have decreased their arms spending since 1999, with drops of 11 percent and 1.7 percent respectively last year. At the other end of the line, the 100 biggest weapons manufacturers registered total sales of 347 billion dollars in 2007, an increase of five percent in real terms from 2006, according to the most recent statistics compiled by SIPRI and presented in its annual yearbook.
That list is topped by U.S. company Boeing, ahead of Britain’s BAE Systems and U.S. group Lockheed Martin.
Western companies dominate the ranking, with 44 of them from the U.S. and 32 from Western Europe.
SIPRI said the companies that registered the sharpest increases were manufacturers of armored tanks, in strong demand in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as companies that subcontract their services to militaries.
HMCS Winnipeg Completes Counter Piracy Mission
The Canadian frigate HMCS Winnipeg officially detached from Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 last week, ending a successful nine-week counter-piracy mission that began in early April, in the Gulf of Aden.
The Canadian warship left its home port in Esquimalt, B.C. in early February bound for the waters off the coast of Somalia.
The Winnipeg intercepted a number of attacks and safely escorted merchant ships during the mission. The ship’s crew also boarded half a dozen suspected pirate vessels, seizing weapons, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in some cases.
The NATO mission was originally set to wrap up at the end of April, but Defence Minister Peter MacKay extended it into June. “The efforts of the sailors and air crew aboard HMCS Winnipeg permitted the Government of Canada to contribute to the NATO coalition’s naval response to a global issue,” said Defence Minister Peter MacKay. “Their achievements helped bring a measure of security to the strategically important, yet troubled, waters of the Gulf of Aden.”
“I am tremendously impressed by the spirit and professionalism demonstrated by the men and women of HMCS Winnipeg,” said General Walt Natynczyk, the Chief of the Defence Staff. “All Canadians can take great pride in what their sailors and air force personnel have accomplished on this mission.”
HMCS Winnipeg is scheduled to return to her home port of Esquimalt, B.C., in late August.
Unmanned Aircraft Helping Scientists Learn About Alaskan Ice Seals
NOAA’s Fisheries Service scientists and their partners have launched an unmanned aircraft to mount the vehicle’s first search for ice seals at the southern edge of the Bering Sea pack ice during the Arctic spring, in an effort to learn more about these remotely located species.
On May 13, the NOAA research vessel McArthur II departed Kodiak, Alaska, and headed for the Bering Sea to launch the ScanEagle, an unmanned aircraft that is being used to collect images and video along the ice edge.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service scientists will use the images, taken during the month-long expedition, to evaluate whether unmanned aircraft could be useful for estimating the abundance and distribution of ice seals. “The distributions of ice seals are broad and include areas very far from shore,” said Michael Cameron, NOAA’s Fisheries Service’s lead scientist on the expedition. “Using traditional, manned aircraft to survey all of the sea ice habitat in Alaskan waters would be challenging, expensive and potentially dangerous. We hope that the ScanEagle will provide a safe and efficient way to collect information in this remote environment.”
The ScanEagle, owned and operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, weighs less than 27 pounds. When loaded with fuel and survey equipment it can fly for about 20 hours at a cruising speed between 48 and 75 knots. The small aircraft is recovered through a modified “skyhook” system—a catch line, hung out over the water using a large deck crane, caught by airframe-mounted hooks on the ends of the ScanEagle wings.
“We tested the ScanEagle from two NOAA vessels, the Dyson and the McArthur II, in Puget Sound near Seattle,” said Robyn Angliss, deputy director of NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Laboratory. “It performed well and we expect the same in the far north.”
There are many potential applications of this technology. In addition to surveys for ice seals and other easily visible marine mammals such as walrus, the system could potentially be used to study near surface oceanography, sea ice conditions and movements, and to collect information on atmospheric and weather conditions.
India, Britain, France To Practice Anti-Submarine Warfare in North Atlantic
Four Indian warships will participate in naval exercises with British and French forces in the Atlantic Ocean June 20 to July 4, a senior Indian Navy official said. The war games will include anti-submarine warfare – India’s first such exercise against nuclear subs, the Navy official said.
India is gearing up to counter Chinese weapons purchases as the Chinese Navy has deployed nuclear submarines in the Indian Ocean.
The Indian Navy is awaiting the delivery of its two nuclear submarines, which were ordered two years ago from Russia, the Navy official said.
The British will send the nuclear-powered submarine Trafalgar; two guided missile frigates, Westminster and Lancaster; two auxiliaries, Fort Rosalie and Mounts Bay; Merlin and Lynx helicopters; Falcon and Hawk fighter aircraft; and a Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft.
French assets will include the nuclear-powered submarine Emeraude, the guided-missile destroyer Primaguet, the guided-missile frigate Lieutenant de Vaisseau le Henaff, Atlantique II maritime reconnaissance aircraft, Lynx helicopters, and Rafale and Super Entendard fighter aircraft.
In September 2007, Australia, India, Japan and the United States took part in one of the biggest sea exercises ever held in the Bay of Bengal.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Vehicle “Nereus” Reaches Deepest Part of the Ocean
Nereus was tested in the waters off the WHOI dock in April before being sent to the Challenger Deep in the Pacific's Mariana Trench. At 11,000 meters — more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is high — Challenger Deep is arguably one of the most remote locations on Earth. (Photo by: Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution )
Nereus was tested in the waters off the WHOI dock in April before being sent to the Challenger Deep in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench.
At 11,000 meters — more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is high — Challenger Deep is arguably one of the most remote locations on Earth.
(Photo by: Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution )
A new type of deep-sea robotic vehicle called Nereus has successfully reached the deepest part of the world’s ocean. The dive to 10,902 meters (6.8 miles) occurred on May 31, 2009, at the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. The dive makes Nereus the world’s deepest-diving vehicle and the first vehicle to explore the Mariana Trench since 1998.
Nereus’s unique hybrid-vehicle design makes it ideally suited to explore the ocean’s last frontiers. The unmanned vehicle is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a lightweight, micro-thin, fiber-optic tether that allows Nereus to dive deep and be highly manoeuvrable. Nereus can also be switched into a free-swimming, autonomous vehicle.
“The Mariana Trench is the deepest known part of the ocean. Reaching such extreme depths represents the pinnacle of technical challenges and the team is very pleased Nereus has been successful in reaching the very bottom to return imagery and samples from such a hostile world. With a robot like Nereus we can now explore virtually anywhere in the ocean,” said Andy Bowen, the project manager and principal developer of Nereus at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). “The trenches are virtually unexplored, and I am absolutely certain Nereus will enable new discoveries. I believe it marks the start of a new era in ocean exploration.”
“Much of the ocean’s depth remains unexplored. Ocean scientists now have a unique tool to gather images, data, and samples from everywhere in the oceans,” said Julie Morris, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Ocean Sciences Division, the principal sponsor of the $8 million project. “With its innovative technology, Nereus allows us to study and understand the ocean’s deepest regions, previously inaccessible. We’re very pleased with the success of these sea trials.” Aside from NSF, funds for Nereus have been provided by the Office of Naval Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Russell Family Foundation, and WHOI.
The Mariana Trench forms the boundary between two tectonic plates, where the Pacific Plate is subducted beneath the small Mariana Plate. It is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometer (25,000-mile) area where most of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur. At 11,000 meters, its depth is approximately the same as the cruising altitude of a commercial airliner.
To reach the trench, Nereus dove nearly twice as deep as research submarines are capable of and had to withstand pressures 1,000 times that at Earth’s surface—crushing forces similar to those on the surface of Venus. Only two other vehicles have succeeded in reaching the trench: the U.S. Navy-built bathyscaphe Trieste, which carried Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh there in 1960, and the Japanese-built robot Kaiko, which made three unmanned expeditions to the trench between 1995 and 1998. Neither of these is presently available to the scientific community. Trieste was retired in 1966, and Kaiko was lost at sea in 2003.
The Nereus engineering team knew that, to reach these depths, a tethered robot using traditional technologies would be prohibitively expensive to build and operate. So they used unique technologies and innovative methods to strike a balance between size, weight, materials cost, and functionality.
Building on previous experience developing tethered robots and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) at WHOI and elsewhere, the team fused the two approaches together to develop a hybrid vehicle that could fly like an aircraft to survey and map broad areas and then be converted at sea into a tethered, remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that can hover like a helicopter near the seafloor to conduct experiments or to collect biological or rock samples under real-time human control. The present trials of Nereus are being conducted in this tethered, ROV mode of operation.
The tethering system presented one of the greatest challenges in developing a cost-effective ROV capable of reaching these depths. Traditional robotic systems use a steel-reinforced cables containing copper wires to power the vehicle and optical fibers to enable information to be passed between the ship and the vehicle. If such a cable were used to reach the seafloor in the Mariana Trench, it would snap under its own weight.
To solve this challenge, the Nereus team adapted fiber-optic technology developed by the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific (SSC Pacific) to carry real-time video and other data between the Nereus and the surface crew. Similar in diameter to a human hair and with a breaking strength of only 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds), the tether is composed of glass fiber core with a very thin protective jacket of plastic. Nereus brings approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) of cable in two canisters the size of large coffee cans that spool out the fiber as needed. By using this very slender tether instead of a large cable, the team was able to decrease the size, weight, complexity, and cost of the vehicle.
On its dive to the Challenger Deep, Nereus spent over 10 hours on the bottom, sending live video back to the ship through its fiber-optic tether and collecting geological and biological samples with its manipulator arm, and placed a marker on the seafloor signed by those onboard the surface ship. “The samples collected by the vehicle include sediment from the subducting and overriding tectonic plates that meet at the trench and, for the first time, rocks from deep exposures of the Earth’s crust close to mantle depths south of the Challenger Deep,” said Fryer. “We will know the full story once the shore-based analyses are completed back the laboratory this summer and integrate them with the new mapping data to tell a story of plate collision in greater detail than ever before accomplished in the worlds oceans.”
“These and future discoveries by Nereus will be the result of its versatility and agility – it’s like no other deep submergence vehicle,” said Shank. “It allows vast areas to be explored with great effectiveness. Our true achievement is not just getting to the deepest point in our ocean, but unleashing a capability that now enables deep exploration, unencumbered by a heavy tether and surface ship, to scientifically investigate some of the most dynamically-rich geological and biological systems on Earth.”
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans’ role in the changing global environment.
Marport to Exhibit at UDT Europe 2009
Marport will be exhibiting in Booth #30 at UDT Europe, being held at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès de Cannes, Cannes, France from June 9 – 11th.
The Underwater Defence Technology conference is the leading forum for influential members of the international undersea defence community. The conference unites key naval decision makers, defence scientists, technologists and procurement specialists with the leading undersea defence manufacturers and suppliers to discover and discuss the latest developments and issues affecting undersea defence technology.
Meeting appointments can be co-ordinated with Mr. Michael Harvey at mobile +713.855.9363 or with Mr. Loïc Ollivier at mobile +33.671.64.35.49
Cost Estimates Rise for US Navy’s First Littoral Combat Ships – LCS2 Over $700 Million
The estimated cost of the first of the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) rose a modest $6 million over the past year, but the price tag to complete the second LCS jumped $68 million, putting the ship over the $700 million mark, Pentagon budget documents show.
The price to build, outfit and deliver the USS Freedom (LCS 1) now is $637 million, up from last year’s estimate of $631 million. The ship was delivered to the Navy last September and commissioned in November, but the service and shipbuilder Lockheed Martin will continue to complete the warship well into 2009, as intended.
The price tag for the USS Independence (LCS 2), however, is pegged by the Navy at $704 million, up from last year’s mark of $636 million. The ship is still under construction at Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama, under subcontract from General Dynamics. Initial sea trials are expected to take place this summer, with delivery scheduled for later this year.
Most of the cost growth on the LCS 2 came under Basic Construction Costs, according to Navy budget justification documents that accompanied the 2010 defense budget request sent to Congress May 7. Basic costs are one of several subcategories used in computing the ships’ total price tags. Others include Change Orders, Government-Furnished Equipment and Other. Together, the categories make up a Total End Cost. To come up with that figure, the Navy adds outfitting and post-delivery costs and, on first-of-class ships such as the LCS 1 and LCS 2, final system design and mission module integration costs. The mission modules are expected to average around $100 million each. The modules — including weapons, sensors and manned and unmanned vehicles — are tailored for specific roles such as mine, anti-surface or anti-submarine warfare. The makeup and cost of the modules will vary according to the mission and the technology that is available.
Since 2004, soaring cost growth has severely disrupted the program, which once envisioned the purchase of a series of relatively inexpensive, $220 million warships that would take about two years to build - a relatively low figure in a Navy whose destroyers cost well over $1 billion. The low cost is a cornerstone of the Navy’s plan to buy a total of 55 LCS ships, or about one-sixth of the planned 313-ship Navy. The program envisioned a competition to build two very different types of LCS – a steel and aluminum monohull design from Lockheed Martin, and an all-aluminum tri-hull ship from General Dynamics – and at an unspecified point selecting one design.
But the fast-track program quickly ran afoul of increased builder regulations, design changes and contractor inexperience. The Navy revealed in early 2007 that cost had ballooned on each of the competing ship designs. Prior to accounting for those cost growths, the service at that time reckoned the cost for LCS 1 at $293 million and for LCS 2 at $297 million – figures that more than doubled a year later.
Scrambling to control cost escalation, the Navy tried to renegotiate construction contracts with each of the prime contractors from a cost-plus structure to a fixed-price deal, but both shipbuilders balked at the Navy’s demands to assume so much risk on an untried design. Negotiations failed, and the Navy in 2007 cancelled contracts to build a second ship from each contractor. Further ships were deferred to pay for cost overruns on the first two.
The Navy recently has tried to get the program back on track, and in March a contract for LCS 3 was awarded to Lockheed Martin, followed in May with an order for LCS 4 awarded to General Dynamics.
Unusually, the service did not reveal the price for those new LCS contracts, citing a “competition” for three more ships requested in the 2010 defense budget. Proposals from the two contractors to build those ships, the service said, will include price data from the 2009 ships, and federal acquisition regulations forbid publicizing competitive data.
But the nature of the competition, according to senior Navy officials, has changed. The service now plans to buy both designs, which have complementary features – the LCS 1 is nimble and has a tough steel hull, while the LCS 2 has much more internal volume and a larger flight deck.
“The Navy is not planning on down-selecting,” Sean Stackley, the Navy’s top weapon buyer, told reporters May 15. “We’ve got a competition going on right now for three ships in 2010. We’re using all the tools we have in our tool kit to figure out how far we can bring these costs down.” But Stackley refused to say what the Navy’s cost goals are on LCS, other than to cite a congressionally mandated cost cap of $460 million per ship. He said the Navy was taking “pretty aggressive actions to drive cost out” of the program but gave no specifics. “We know there are many challenges ahead as we ramp up construction, tackle affordability and learn how to best operate and support this new class,” he added.
Stackley also said acquisition reform was a top priority for the Navy given growing constraints on the military budget. “We have a plan to strengthen the acquisition workforce,” Stackley said, adding that the Navy was moving to increase its professional staff by 5,000. But he added: “It is not enough to merely increase the number of government workers. Rather, we must restore the core competencies inherent to the government.”
