Saturday, September 14, 2024
Briana Reilly was a Pentagon emerging tech reporter until December 2022. She previously covered the Air Force for Inside Defense after joining the publication in June 2021. Before that, she spent five years covering state politics and government in Wisconsin for The Capital Times and WisPolitics.com.
As the Air Force works to better leverage the electromagnetic spectrum, officials are looking at ways to turn it into a mutually denied space at given times -- a defensive strategy that the service's deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements said today would ensure an adversary like China "is fearful of their ability to operate in that area."
The head of the recently stood up 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing said today the transition of a new data translation tool to the unit "may have hit upon a way to cheat the valley of death" and could serve as a framework for further maturing software going forward.
Officials at Hill Air Force Base, UT, are poised to mark the first successful 5G network deployment at a service installation with a ribbon-cutting ceremony next week, a key milestone in the first phase of mid-band dynamic spectrum sharing work at the site.
A new agreement between the Air Force’s Kessel Run software factory and Platform One -- the service’s flagship DevSecOps team -- aims to lay the foundation for increased collaboration and guide future development between the two outfits.
Northrop Grumman has performed initial insulation and casing work tied to the first-stage solid rocket motor for the new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, a step a company official called a “manufacturing milestone” for the modernization effort.
As the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements looks toward the future, he sees a need for three improved weapons as part of the service’s force design and modernization efforts: “a better air-to-air weapon, a better ship-killing weapon and a better surface-to-air missile killing weapon.”
The Army-led Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office is planning to hold a two-part demonstration next spring centered on a directed-energy, ground-based aerial denial system and another defensive capability to detect, track, identify and defeat sUAS threats from a given location.
Following the long-awaited demonstration of the airborne retrieval system for a single X-61A Gremlin drone, Dynetics' team lead for the program anticipates officials will need just "one more deployment" to showcase multidrone recovery and move onto the effort's fourth phase.
As Kratos continues working to complete its 12 Valkyrie drones tied to its first production lot and make deliveries to the Air Force, company officials are formulating plans for a second batch of the aircraft next year.
One X-61A Gremlins drone was recovered by a C-130 as part of a long-awaited successful demonstration of the program’s airborne retrieval system, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced today.
The Biden administration today signed off on the sale of up to 280 AIM-120C Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles to Saudi Arabia, part of a tentative deal valued at $650 million that would also include 596 LAU-128 Missile Rail Launchers and other equipment.
The Air Force Research Laboratory and Google Cloud today unveiled a joint effort to streamline communications and data sharing with external research partners, a move that one scientist and researcher says will speed the pace of discoveries and aid the delivery of new technologies to the service.
The head of Air Combat Command says work to leverage unmanned, semi-autonomous platforms as simulated adversaries could inform what capabilities may come after the MQ-9.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is poised to receive the remaining major subsystems for its high-energy laser demonstrator effort this fiscal year, after "technical challenges in the build phase" pushed back the delivery timeline, an official told Inside Defense this week.
The Air Force expects to award a follow-on production contract for Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits in fiscal year 2024, a service spokeswoman said this week, with the new deal "likely" going to the program's current prime contractor, Boeing.
General Atomics is the second company to win a $17 million contract for developing an unmanned Off-Board Sensing Station, setting up a later competition with fellow awardee Kratos for a follow-on deal down the line.
Lockheed Martin is now projecting its acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne will close in the first quarter of calendar year 2022, rather than the fourth quarter of this year, as previously expected.
The Air Force has awarded Kratos a $17 million contract for research and development of an unmanned Off-Boarding Sensing Station -- a platform the company’s president and CEO has said "could ultimately be as significant and transformational to Kratos as we expect Valkyrie to be."
The Air Force is poised to enter initial operational test and evaluation for its HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter in early 2022, a service spokeswoman says.
The head of Air Combat Command doesn't anticipate the Air Force would receive the Boeing E-7A Wedgetail this year or next if the service moves forward with buying the aircraft as a replacement for its aging E-3 Sentry fleet.