Thursday, April 25, 2024
Rachel Cohen was managing editor for Inside the Air Force until January 2019. She previously covered the public health insurance marketplaces for Inside Health Policy and primary, secondary and higher education at the Frederick News-Post in Frederick County, Maryland. She graduated from American University in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in international studies and journalism.
The Defense Department plans to pair an Army-designed hypersonic boost glide vehicle with an off-the-shelf rocket to give the Air Force the ability to air-launch an ultrafast weapon as part of a new campaign to leverage the recent success of the Conventional Prompt Strike program, which Pentagon officials say has demonstrated technologies needed for a long-range hypersonic strike capability.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee Thursday the service could ask Congress to reprogram funding to keep the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program moving at a faster pace.
All 39 of the Air Force's Cyber Mission Force teams are now fully operational, finalizing the service's contribution to the Defense Department's new corps that will direct, synchronize and coordinate cyberspace operations under U.S. Cyber Command.
The Air Force will hold a teleconference May 30-31 with companies interested in building a new aircraft to monitor other countries' domestic military operations under the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, according to a notice posted this week.
House lawmakers propose giving the Air Force money to buy two more MQ-9 Reapers in their version of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill, which passed to the full chamber May 10.
Designing and buying a new reentry vehicle for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent is expected to cost around $3 billion, although the Air Force isn't sure whether it will choose one or more contractors for the first development phase, a service spokeswoman said this week.
The House Armed Services Committee wants to restrict funding for the Air Force's recapitalization of the two 57-year-old OC-135B aircraft until the Trump administration implements countermeasures to Russia's violations of the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, which allows 34 signatory countries to observe each other's domestic military operations.
Working groups comprised of Air Force and National Science Foundation staff have identified several areas of mutual interest where the two organizations can collaborate to advance those technologies, service Secretary Heather Wilson said this week.
House lawmakers support the military's push for multidomain command and control but request more information on how the services will fund, experiment with and field those capabilities, according to a proposed amendment to the House Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill.
The House Armed Services Committee today passed an amendment to its version of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill requiring the Air Force secretary to brief lawmakers by spring 2019 on plans for allowing enlisted airmen to fly all remotely piloted aircraft, as well as on the possibility of creating a path for enlisted airmen to pilot any aircraft.
The House Armed Services Committee is nudging the Air Force to invest more in its EQ-4B Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft, a modified version of Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk, in the chairman's mark of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill.
The Air Force's deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements said this week his directorate has the authorities it needs to make the new Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability succeed.
The second phase of the Air Force's light-attack experiment, which begins today, is vetting the logistics, sustainment and weapons integration aspects of a potential new attack fleet, according to the service's deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and programs.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) will include $623 million in his mark of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill to keep the Air Force's E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System recapitalization on track, though the service wants to ditch the modernization program in favor of a broader look at advanced battle management systems.
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee wants to grant the Air Force's wish to boost funding for its nuclear missile modernization programs, which the service included in its fiscal year 2019 unfunded requirements list submitted to Congress earlier this year.
The Air Force's two ongoing helicopter acquisitions are having trouble finding skilled workers to staff those programs as they ramp up, according to the Government Accountability Office's annual analysis of major weapon systems.
Some must-reads from this week's issue of Inside the Air Force.
Lawmakers on the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee recently proposed restricting a quarter of the Air Operations Center's fiscal year 2019 funding until Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson sends a report on agile software development and operations to Capitol Hill.
Gen. Robin Rand, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, has asked an outside advisory group to study modernization management and the command's current maintenance and logistics capabilities over the next year, a service spokeswoman recently told Inside the Air Force.
The Air Force this week announced a preliminary decision to house the B-21 Raider at three bomber bases starting in the mid-2020s, eventually replacing the B-1 and B-2 bombers at each location.