Month: June 2022

Source: United States Navy

Dynamic Mongoose is an exercise held in the Norwegian Sea every summer, where surface ships, submarines, as well as aircraft and personnel converge for anti-submarine warfare training.

The aim of Dynamic Mongoose is to provide all participants with complex, realistic and challenging warfare training to enhance their interoperability and proficiency in anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare disciplines, while maintaining focus on safety. During the exercise, submarines will take turns hunting and being hunted, closely coordinating their efforts with the air and surface participants.

Led by Allied Maritime Command, the long-planned exercise will also demonstrate the readiness and mobility of the maritime element of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), the spearhead of the NATO Response Force (NRF).

“These exercises are designed to gain experience, enhance teamwork, and improve knowledge of the operating area strengthening the NATO Alliance’s interoperability,” Commander, Submarines NATO U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Stephen Mack said. “They will take place in the expansive waters of the GIUK Gap between Iceland and Norway, demonstrating NATO’s ability operate in the area, including our role in maintaining freedom of navigation for the international maritime community.”

Units participating in the exercise will pull into Reykjavik, Iceland on 9 June.

Source: United States Navy

A joint U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)/ U.K. Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) experiment is preparing to measure Earth’s ionosphere and particle radiation environment as part of the Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction CubeSat Experiment (CIRCE) mission.
 
Space Systems Command is partnering with Virgin Orbit National Systems, a U.S.-incorporated, wholly-owned subsidiary to Virgin Orbit, to launch CIRCE. The satellites, which contain twin 6U CubeSats, will fly in a circular orbit at 555 km (344 miles) altitude in a lead/trail formation 300-500 km (186-310 miles) apart in the same orbit plane to measure Earth’s ionosphere and particle radiation environment.
 
“The NRL CIRCE Team is thrilled to be a part of this joint U.S/U.K. mission,” Andrew Nicholas, CIRCE’s Principal Investigator said. “We are looking forward to a successful launch out of Spaceport Cornwall, and are excited to continue work with our U.K. partners once the CIRCE science data starts flowing.”
 
CIRCE pushes the boundaries of the CubeSat platform technology, challenging the size, weight and power constraints of the platform as well as integration and complex concepts of operations.
 
“The CIRCE spacecraft are the size of a shoebox and we’ve managed to sandwich five sensors in each of them,” Nicholas said. “So they are very compact and pretty laden with technology and it is all really tightly integrated in there.” NRL developed the Triple Tiny Ionospheric Photometer (Tri-TIP) to measure nighttime O⁺ 135.6nm airglow emissions in the atmosphere. Each CIRCE CubeSat will have two Tri-TIPs onboard, configured to look along coordinated lines of sight to perform ionospheric tomography in the orbital plane.
 
The U.K. contribution to CIRCE is the In situ and Remote Ionospheric Sensing (IRIS) suite, complementary to NRL sensors, and comprising three highly miniaturized payloads. One IRIS suite will be flown on each satellite, and incorporates an ion/neutral mass spectrometer, a tri-band global positioning system receiver for ionospheric remote sensing, and a radiation environment monitor.
 
NRL Sensor Development & Applications section of the Space Science Division contracted with Blue Canyon Technologies out of Boulder, Colorado to build and integrate the two CIRCE spacecraft.
 
“With most of the program being completed during the global pandemic we are now at the point where we have all the payloads integrated,” Nicholas said. “The spacecraft has been through testing and we are now in a storage period awaiting the launch call up.”
 
During the life of its mission, CIRCE will help researchers better understand how the ionosphere is changing day-to-day, hour-to-hour and even minute-to-minute, which is important to the Navy, especially for over the horizon communications and radar.
 
“In addition, if you really want to understand the ionosphere tomorrow, you have to understand the thermosphere today, so it is great that we have the INMS from the U.K. to measure the neutral composition as well.” Nicholas said.
 
The U.K. instrument suite showcases academic collaboration, with payloads provided by University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University of Bath, and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), drawing on expertise from University of Surrey.
 
“We are delighted to be working with NRL on the CIRCE mission, and proud of the valuable contribution made by our UK payload providers,” Gemma Attrill, Ph.D., Dstl’s CIRCE lead, said. “The data returned by CIRCE will provide unparalleled temporal and spatial detail regarding the dynamic behavior of the ionosphere, allowing us to develop our understanding of system impacts relevant to both defense and the civil sector.”
 
CIRCE is scheduled to launch during the United Kingdom’s first commercial space mission from Spaceport Cornwall located at Newquay Airport in Cornwall, England this summer.
 

About the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

NRL is a scientific and engineering command dedicated to research that drives innovative advances for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps from the seafloor to space and in the information domain. NRL is located in Washington, D.C. with major field sites in Stennis Space Center, Mississippi; Key West, Florida; Monterey, California, and employs approximately 3,000 civilian scientists, engineers and support personnel.
 
For more information, contact NRL Corporate Communications at (202) 480-3746 or nrlpao@nrl.navy.mil. Please reference package number at top of press release.
 

Dstl – The science inside UK defence and security

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) delivers high-impact science and technology (S&T) for the UK’s defence, security and prosperity. Dstl is an Executive Agency of the MOD with around 4,500 staff working across four sites; Porton Down, near Salisbury, Portsdown West, near Portsmouth, Fort Halstead, near Sevenoaks, and Alverstoke, near Gosport.

Source: United States Navy

The Green H is an annual award from Commander, U.S. Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMNAVSURFPAC) that recognizes and promotes general health, physical fitness, and mental readiness of active duty Sailors assigned to COMNAVSURFPAC units.

“It takes a lot of work behind the scenes to even be eligible for the award. We issue monthly notifications on healthy promotion and fitness-focused programs for starters,” said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Bryan Escueta, a member of Tripoli’s health services team. “We take pride in our mission so it does not seem like work to meet all the eligibility criteria. At the end of the day, it’s all about taking care of our shipmates.”

Escueta added that this is an internal competition instead of one against other ships and commands. Keeping the “Green H” involves more than just the Health Services Department, which can be a challenge.

“You have to coordinate with entities besides Health Services, for example Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR),” said Escueta. “We have to collaborate with every single department to make sure it benefits everyone, not just medical.”

Tripoli’s Health Services Department encouraged all hands to maintain physical readiness by providing resources such as brochures and health awareness fairs, said Lt. Jonathan Tablada, USS Tripoli’s medical administration officer.

“We oversee the whole operation when it comes to health readiness,” said Tablada. “We make sure Sailors are healthy, ready to get in the fight, and that they have access to all the resources they need to take charge and take care of their health.”

Other health resources for Sailors and Marines include websites like www.med.navy.mil, (the Navy and Marine Corps public health center), Center for Disease Control guidelines, and resources available on the ship, said Tablada.

“We have the annual physical health assessment,” said Tablada. “When we do that, we cover a lot of topics, including smoking cessation and eating healthy.”

Having earned a second consecutive award, Tripoli’s Health Services team is focused on the next one.

“Earning the award makes me feel proud of the department and the ship itself. It shows that we are focused on health promotion, which is both an individual and team effort,” said Escueta.

Tripoli is currently underway conducting routine operations in U.S. 7th Fleet.