The Senate's version of the fiscal year 2016 defense policy bill includes a provision that would prohibit contract awards for launches using the Russian made RD-180 rocket engine after 2022.
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Key Issues HADES deployment SAOC contract FORGE framework
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.
The Senate's version of the fiscal year 2016 defense policy bill includes a provision that would prohibit contract awards for launches using the Russian made RD-180 rocket engine after 2022.
Some must-reads from this week's issue of Inside the Air Force.
The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center is using a new data utilization lab to explore additional applications for its remote sensing data, including information received from the Space-Based Infrared System and from military and commercial weather assets.
HARTFORD, CT -- The Air Force is in the final stages of negotiations with engine-makers Pratt & Whitney and General Electric for a prototype program meant to mature advanced technologies that could be used to field higher-performing and more fuel-efficient engines and upgrades for key Air Force platforms.
HARTFORD, CT -- As F-35 engine-maker Pratt & Whitney moves through the last year of system development and demonstration for the Joint Strike Fighter program, its newest engines are meeting availability and reliability targets and, according to a company official, the company is well-positioned for a successful sustainment program.
The White House budget office this week released a sweeping rejection of several provisions in Senate authorizers' fiscal year 2017 defense policy bill, including those that would place additional cost oversight on the B-21 bomber program, restrict the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program and call for broader use of enlisted pilots in the remotely piloted vehicle enterprise.
The Air Force anticipates it will complete a cost capability analysis in 2017 for procuring airborne terminals as part of its Family of Beyond Line of Sight Terminal program -- a requirement it stripped from the central program of record in 2014.
The Air Force will deploy the F-35 Autonomic Logistics Information System to Mountain Home Air Force Base, ID, next week for the second time this year, and will use data from the deployment to inform an impending initial operational capability decision.
The Air Force hopes a 2017 analysis of alternatives considering offensive counterair capabilities will offer a deeper understanding of whether re-starting the F-22 production line fits into its air superiority strategy.
Lockheed Martin announced today it completed a successful first flight of its offering for the Air Force's next-generation T-X competition.
Despite holding the KC-46 tanker's required assets available milestone as a key deadline for the struggling program, the Air Force said this week it is unclear whether Boeing will face a penalty for missing the milestone by more than a year.
The Air Force plans to launch an analysis of alternatives in 2017 to explore penetrating counterair capabilities, according to an unclassified report from the service's "Air Superiority 2030" developmental planning team.
KC-46 prime contractor Boeing will not be able to deliver on its key required assets available milestone to deliver 18 new tankers by August 2017 and will miss the deadline by more than one year, the Air Force announced Friday.
Outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh has accepted an appointment as dean of Texas A&M's Bush School of Government.
After warning of a likely two-month delay to the Air Force's objective initial operational capability date, the F-35 program executive officer said this week that prime contractor Lockheed Martin could deliver required Autonomic Logistics Information System capabilities by August -- the front end of the service's four-month IOC window.
The Senate Appropriations Committee wants to terminate parts of the troubled next-generation Global Positioning System's ground segment development program and delay launches of early GPS III satellites.
The Air Force is considering whether buying more F-22s is a viable, and cost-effective, alternative to developing a sixth-generation fighter as part of a larger effort to identify future air superiority capability needs, the service's top uniformed officer said Thursday.
Although the Senate Armed Services Committee's mark of the fiscal year 2017 defense policy bill does not seek to break the Air Force's cost-plus B-21 bomber contract, the legislation would enact sweeping acquisition reforms the committee hopes will rein in some of the perceived "negative incentives" associated with the cost-plus development program.
F-35 operational testing has been delayed by about six months because the joint program office cannot retrofit 23 jets needed for the test event, according to an official.
Senate authorizers want the Air Force to explore the feasibility of using foreign allied launch vehicles to lift some national security space payloads should the service be unable to use the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket.