Friday, May 10, 2024
Following the Air Force's decision to create a new division within Air Force Material Command to oversee installation and mission support activities, Virginia's congressional delegation has claimed that Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, VA, is the base most suited to assume that responsibility.
After awarding contracts to three prime contractors earlier this month, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced the industry teaming arrangements for Phase 1 of its new XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane program.
The program office overseeing the Air Force's multibillion-dollar Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System recapitalization effort has notified industry of its intention to move to a risk-reduction phase by the first quarter of fiscal year 2015.
Major commands within the Air Force will relinquish control of their installation and mission support function to a new centralized office with Air Force Material Command, service leaders announced in a July 14 joint statement. Those support functions now reside with the newly created Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center (AFIMSC), the statement said.
The Air Force's main operating base in the Asia Pacific has emerged from Typhoon Neoguri relatively undamaged and up to 60 aircraft, including Navy and Marine Corps platforms, have returned to the base after being evacuated earlier this week.
The United States' largest military installation in the Asia Pacific, located on Japan's Okinawa island chain, is recovering after Typhoon Neoguri swept through the region on Tuesday.
Northrop Grumman will take the lead in offering the Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer aircraft, developed by Britain's BAE Systems, as an alternative to meeting the Air Force's requirement for a new trainer aircraft -- known as T-X -- to replace the 40-year-old T-38 Talon, according to a Northrop spokesman.
The production of Iraqi F-16 fighter jets has not been impacted by the worsening security situation there, Lockheed Martin confirmed this week, but whether the first two aircraft will be ferried to the country in September as planned remains in doubt.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded Mojave, CA-based rocket technology company Masten Space Systems a $3 million contract for work on the agency's XS-1 Spaceplane program, according to a June 27 award notice on the Federal Business Opportunities website.
The Air Force has announced Moody Air Force Base in Georgia as its preferred site to support A-29 Super Tucano pilot and maintainer training through the service's Afghan Light Air Support Program.
SpaceX has reacted angrily to the launch of a publicity campaign and lobbying effort by United Launch Alliance, the sole supplier of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles for the Air Force.
Just days after the CEO of United Launch Alliance defended the use of the Russian-built RD-180 rocket engine for national security space launches, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has asked the Pentagon whether the price the United States pays for the first-stage engines is excessive.
The Air Force's decision to proceed with the long-delayed Combat Rescue Helicopter program was the result of a trip to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, service Secretary Deborah Lee James told reporters at a Defense Writers Group forum in Washington this week.
Two days after announcing the signing of private contracts for next-generation rocket propulsion concept studies, United Launch Alliance CEO Michael Gass said the company has tasked the Russian manufacturer of the RD-180 engine to speed up production to mitigate against potential supply disruptions resulting from strained United State-Russia relations. He also said the company has the license and capacity to build the engine domestically, if needed.
The chief of the Air Force's international affairs office is pushing the U.S. government to implement a more relaxed export policy covering the sale of remotely piloted aircraft to foreign partners as a way of building regional capacity in the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance domain.
The renewed conflict in Iraq is threatening to further derail the delivery of F-16 fighter jets to the country as its government and military continue to lose ground to islamist insurgents, but the State Department said this week that it is too early to know how the fighting will impact the transfer.
The number of MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper pilots in the Air National Guard will grow by 369 through 2020 and the number of sensor operators will increase by 315, according to a report sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee in April. The Guard is also slated to grow its targeting enterprise by 543 personnel in the same period as it establishes three new targeting units across the United States.
The Government Accountability Office has released a report validating the cost analysis used in the Air Force's justification for proposing the cancellation of the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program.
Global Hawk prime contractor Northrop Grumman has released more information on the number of hours being flown by the Air Force's fleet of RQ-4s as Congress considers the service's plan to keep the aircraft in while retiring the U-2 spy plane.
The Senate Armed Service Committee's version of the fiscal year 2015 defense authorization bill includes provisions that would prohibit the Air Force from retiring any legacy E-3 battle management aircraft or transferring MC-12 spy planes.