미국, F-35 JSF Software Code 공유불가...

 

미국 정부가 F-35 JSF 에 장착되는 컴퓨터 소프트웨어의 소스코드를 공개하지 않을 방침이라는 24일 로이터 통신 보도 입니다.

영국을 포함한 8개국이 JSF 개발사업에 일정지분을 투자 공동개발에 참여하고 있는 가운데, 특히 영국의 경우 8개 참가국 중

유일한 Level-1 등급의 참여국으로 BAE Systems 사를 포함 약 20억불을 투자하였습니다.

 

그럼에도 미국은 영국에 대해서 조차 소스코드에 대한 접근을 불가한다는 방침에 따라, 지난 부시정권 당시에는 양국 정상간에

이 문제로 껄끄러웠던 바 있었습니다. 심지어는 <영국의 개발참여 철회> 라는 초강경 발언도 있었습니다.

 

그런데 이번에 다시 미국 관계자의 입을 통해 소프트웨어 소스코드 공개/공유 불가방침 천명. 이에 대한 영국의 반응이 어떨지

궁금해지는 대목입니다.

 

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US to withhold F-35 fighter software codes

Reuters News    11/24/2009

Author: Jim Wolf

(C) Reuters Limited 2009.

 

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The United States will keep to itself sensitive software code that controls Lockheed Martin Corp's new radar-evading F-35 fighter jet despite requests from co-development partners, a senior Pentagon program official said.

 

Access to the technology had been publicly sought by Britain, which had threatened to scrub plans to buy as many as 138 F-35s if it were unable to maintain and upgrade its fleet without U.S. involvement.

 

No U.S. partner is getting the so-called source code, the key to the plane's electronic brains, Jon Schreiber, who heads the program's international affairs, told Reuters in an interview Monday.

 

"That includes everybody," he said, acknowledging this was not entirely popular among core partners -- Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway.

 

The single-engine F-35 is in early stages of production. It is designed to escape radar detection and switch quickly between air-to-ground and air-to-air missions while still flying -- processes heavily dependent on its 8 million lines of onboard software code.

 

Schreiber said the United States had accommodated all of its partners' requirements, providing ways for them to upgrade projected F-35 purchases even without the keys to the software.

 

"Nobody's happy with it completely. but everybody's satisfied and understands," he said of withholding the code from partners and Israel, which also has sought the technology transfer as part of a possible purchase of up to 75 F-35s.

 

REPROGRAMMING FACILITY

 

Instead, the United States plans to set up a "reprogramming facility," probably at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, to further develop F-35-related software and distribute upgrades, Schreiber said.

 

Software changes will be integrated there "and new operational flight programs will be disseminated out to everybody who's flying the jet," he said.

 

Representatives of the British defense staff in Washington did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Britain has committed $2 billion to develop the F-35, the most of any U.S. partner.

 

In March 2006, Paul Drayson, then Britain's minister for defense procurement, told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that Britain might quit the program if the United States withheld such things as the software code.

 

The issue rose to the top. In May 2006, then-President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that both governments had agreed "that the UK will have the ability to successfully operate, upgrade, employ, and maintain the Joint Strike Fighter such that the UK retains operational sovereignty over the aircraft."

 

HOLY GRAIL

 

The source code is "kind of the holy grail" for this, controlling everything from weapons integration to radar to flight dynamics, said Joel Johnson of TEAL Group, an aerospace consultancy in Fairfax, Virginia.

 

Lockheed Martin said all F-35 partners "recognize the complexity of the highly integrated F-35 software and the program plan to upgrade F-35 capabilities as an operational community."

 

"This enables the aircraft to remain at the cutting edge of combat capability while allowing the program to meet affordability objectives," John Kent, a company spokesman, said in an emailed statement.

 

Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales, projects it will sell up to 4,500 F-35s worldwide to replace its F-16 fighter and 12 other types of warplanes for 11 nations initially.

 

The United States eventually plans to spend roughly $300 billion over the next 25 years to buy a total of 2,443 F-35 models, its costliest arms acquisition.

 

Competitors include Boeing Co's F/A-18E/F SuperHornet; the Eurofighter Typhoon, made by a consortium of British, German, Italian and Spanish companies; Saab AB's Gripen; Dassault Aviation SA's Rafale; and Russia's MiG-35 and Sukhoi Su-35.

 

(Reporting by Jim Wolf, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)