[Jpost] Australia said it will spend A$1.7 billion ($1.1 billion) on a fleet of "Ghost Shark" autonomous undersea vehicles, developed by its defense force and U.S. startup Anduril Industries, for surveillance and strikes.
Defense Minister Richard Marles told reporters on Wednesday the Ghost Shark will complement Australia's navy surface fleet and submarines to provide "a more capable and more lethal navy."
Dozens of Ghost Sharks will be built in Australia, with opportunities to export to allies, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said.
"It has the capability to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and strike at extremely long distances from the Australian continent," Conroy said, adding that the first Ghost Sharks will be in service from January 2026.
Australian defense officials declined to give details on how far the Ghost Shark can range, or how many will be built at Anduril's Australian factory.
"For years, Australia has faced the persistent and threatening presence of Chinese naval assets in its home waters. Ghost Shark ...can directly address this challenge
Australia separately plans to buy and build nuclear-powered submarines with Britain and the United States from the early 2030s under the AUKUS program to counter China's rapid navy build up in the Indo-Pacific region.
Chief of Navy Mark Hammond said the Ghost Shark can operate over long distances from Australian bases, navy vessels and also be transported by military aircraft to "be deployed forward."
"The undersea battle space will continue to be increasingly contested and increasingly congested, but ultimately that is the most opaque environment on the planet and I believe our allies and partners will continue to enjoy a capability advantage in that space," Hammond said.
As the U.S. presidential administration under Donald Trump reviews AUKUS it has urged Australia to increase defense spending; however Marles said the Ghost Shark fleet is funded within the existing defense budget.
The contract with Anduril Australia covers the delivery, maintenance and continued development of the Ghost Shark over the next five years, officials said.
Anduril has been readying a facility in New South Wales for production ahead of any contract. It began working with Australia's defense force on the development of the Ghost Shark in 2022.
The Ghost Shark had gone rapidly from concept to production in three years because the Royal Australian Navy had taken on shared risk, Anduril Industries said in a statement.
"For years, Australia has faced the persistent and threatening presence of Chinese naval assets in its home waters. Ghost Shark ...can directly address this challenge through coastal defense patrols and area-wide domain awareness powered by artificial intelligence at scale," the Anduril Industries statement said.
Australia's Defence Science and Technology Group has said it wants to incorporate autonomous technology into the defense force because Australia has a vast coastline and up to 3 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) of northern ocean that needs to be defended, but only a relatively sparse population.
[FoxNews] Milestone accelerates testing of America's first new long-range bomber in more than three decades.
A second B-21 Raider bomber has flown for the first time in California, the Air Force announced Thursday, a milestone officials say will accelerate testing of America’s first new long-range bomber in more than three decades.
"With the arrival of the second B-21 Raider, our flight test campaign gains substantial momentum," Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a statement. He added the service can now begin integrating weapons and mission systems into the bomber. Until now, flight testing has been limited mainly to performance checks.
The B-21, built by Northrop Grumman, is the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft and will be capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional weapons. Its stealth design is intended to penetrate deep into enemy territory and operate against increasingly advanced air defenses being fielded by China, Russia and other adversaries.
The new bomber follows in the lineage of the Cold War-era B-52 Stratofortress, the supersonic B-1 Lancer and the radar-evading B-2 Spirit.
Unlike the B-2, which cost roughly $2 billion per plane and was ultimately limited to a fleet of 21, the B-21 has been designed with a lower price tag of about $800 million per aircraft and with an open systems architecture to allow for easier technological upgrades.
The B-2, still in service, recently flew combat missions during U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June.
Air Force leaders have said the service plans to buy at least 100 B-21s, which will operate alongside a fleet of 76 modernized B-52 Stratofortress aircraft well into the future. Together, the two aircraft will form the backbone of America’s bomber force, providing both long-range strike and nuclear deterrence capabilities as part of the U.S. nuclear triad.
The program is being closely watched in Washington after past aircraft programs, such as the F-35 fighter jet and KC-46 tanker, included significant delays and cost overruns.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Earth will be covered by a six-day magnetic storm caused by a coronal hole on the Sun. This was reported on September 12 by the press service of the solar astronomy laboratory of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS).
"Geomagnetic disturbances from the new coronal hole may last up to six days. The peak is expected on September 14-16," says a message published on the IKI RAS Telegram channel.
According to scientists, a large coronal hole has formed on the Sun, creating a wide stream of fast solar wind, the full impact of which on Earth could take up to six days.
On September 11, the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the IKI RAS reported that new magnetic storms could hit the Earth in the near future. According to the data, a significant change in the geomagnetic situation, including magnetic storms of the second and third levels on a five-point scale, is expected on September 13-14 due to the appearance of a large equatorial coronal hole on the visible side of the Sun.
On the night of September 10, a sudden magnetic storm of medium strength occurred on Earth, which was not predicted in forecasts and arose without external influences from the Sun. It was assumed that the cause of the phenomenon was a large substorm - a spontaneous imbalance in the tail of the magnetosphere, which released the energy of the planet, which was confirmed by the observed polar lights.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
