Here's a few must-reads from this week's edition of Inside the Air Force:
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Key Issues Optical clocks Prototype funding SPAFORGEN
Courtney Albon was senior editor for aviation and space at Inside Defense until December 2021. She covered the Air Force since 2012, reporting largely on space programs and fighter aircraft acquisition, development and budget from inside Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and from military installations around the United States. Courtney previously worked as a general assignment reporter at The Ashland Times-Gazette in Ashland, OH, covering education and local government. She graduated from American University in 2008, where she studied journalism and sociology.
Here's a few must-reads from this week's edition of Inside the Air Force:
As the F-22 program office makes progress on a significant, fleet-wide hardware and software upgrade, the program is also looking ahead to its future modernization needs, developing a roadmap that outlines those needs over the next decade.
The Air Force's Office of Transformational Innovation is hoping to submit a business case to service leadership for a B-52 re-engining effort within the next few months after working through remaining statutory questions about the proposed financing model.
The Air Force chief of staff said this week he is not concerned about the long-term implications of an avionics cooling line malfunction that grounded 15 F-35A aircraft last month, and he is confident the aircraft will have a fix installed before the end of the year.
The Air Force is looking for industry input as it considers producing a next-generation ejection seat for some of its fighter and bomber inventory by fiscal year 2019.
As the Air Force looks to modernize its weather and space-based missile warning systems over the next several years, the Space and Missile Systems Center's remote sensing directorate is preparing to transition its focus from operating legacy systems to developing and producing those new constellations.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program expected to have an approved Block 4 follow-on modernization capability development plan in hand this summer, but officials now expect that document will not be approved by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council until later this year.
The chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee this week questioned whether Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James' role as principal Defense Department space advisor gives her the authority needed to lead the department's space acquisition efforts.
The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with the United Launch Alliance to certify the company's new Vulcan launch vehicle to fly national security space missions.
The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has confirmed that its concerns about potential "parts issues" on the third geosynchronous Space-Based Infrared System satellite are linked with the July anomaly experienced on a Mobile User Objective System satellite.
The Air Force's top military acquisition official said this week he expects the imminent release of the Government Accountability Office's redacted version of its decision last February to deny Boeing's protest of the B-21 bomber contract award.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The head of Air Force Materiel Command said this week it is unclear when funding for Third Offset technology will ramp up in the service's budget request, but she noted that it is important that the service develop the necessary expertise before it invests the money needed to transition new concepts into actual technologies.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- A request for proposals for the next-generation Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System is on hold until the Air Force and Congress can resolve a discrepancy over whether the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase should be under a firm fixed-price contract.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The official in charge of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program said Tuesday the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have all committed to begin investing in a block-buy deal in fiscal year 2018 should Congress approve the proposal.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The F-35 joint program office is conducting a risk analysis to determine whether some of the 15 F-35A aircraft recently grounded due to faulty avionics cooling line insulation may be able to return to flight before they're fitted with a fix.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The head of Air Combat Command told reporters that the 13 F-35As grounded due to "peeling and crumbling" insulation discovered inside avionics cooling lines in some A-model fuel tanks may be grounded for "a few months."
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The chief of Air Force mobility operations said he needs more than the 179 KC-46 tankers the service plans to buy through 2028 and laid out some options for pursuing the technology leaps he wants to see in the next fleet of refueling aircraft.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The new Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center -- pegged as the first operational construct of the Defense Department's Third Offset Strategy -- is poised to achieve initial operations by the end of this year.
The Air Force announced today the name of its newest bomber -- the B-21 Raider.
The U.S. Air Force and Norway have both ordered a temporary pause in flight operations for 15 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft after discovering "peeling and crumbling" insulation inside of avionics cooling lines in the jets' fuel tanks.