Thursday, April 25, 2024
Sara Sirota was an associate editor for Inside the Air Force until April 2021. Previously, she reported for The Hill and The Cazenovia Republican. She has a master's degree in security studies from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a bachelor's degree in political science from Colgate University.
The Air Force has awarded General Atomics an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract that enables the service and its foreign military sale partners to purchase up to 36 MQ-9 Reapers annually over the next five years.
The HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter program has begun on-the-ground, live-fire tests with the Sikorsky-built aircraft’s three primary guns, the Air Force revealed earlier this week.
The Air National Guard's MQ-9 enterprise has been quietly fighting under the radar to show the remotely piloted aircraft has utility in future operations by transforming its hunter-killer counterinsurgency capabilities to better enable joint all-domain command and control under a little-known initiative called the "Ghost Reaper," multiple sources tell Inside Defense.
The Air Force is eyeing an investment of about $100 million in its vanguard programs -- which strive to accelerate transformational capabilities to the battlefield -- in fiscal year 2024 to meet the demands of the service's 2030 Science and Technology Strategy.
The next-generation platform General Atomics is pitching to replace the Air Force's MQ-9 Reapers will leverage open architecture, artificial intelligence, advanced propulsion and other sophisticated technologies to enable reduced life-cycle costs, cross-domain communication, persistent operations and more, according to a statement the company shared with Inside Defense today.
The Pentagon is planning more tests of the Agile Condor pod that enables an MQ-9 Reaper to autonomously surveil targets with artificial intelligence -- such as algorithms developed by Project Maven -- for extended periods, even if connection to the ground station is lost.
The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board will meet next week to learn the results of a fiscal year 2020 study on how the service plans to select and manage future vanguard programs, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.
The Air Force is collaborating with the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to leverage the digital infrastructure enabled by its enterprise-wide cloud, software development and data support initiatives to achieve Project Maven's original goals and develop "AI as a service" for all the military departments.
The Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 billion contract to develop the military's next intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent.
The Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a $135 million, 14-year contract to remanufacture the Air-Launch Cruise Missile’s inertial navigation element, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.
One of the Pentagon's four X-61A Gremlins is undergoing repairs after suffering damage during a July test -- the program's second mishap in less than nine months -- and therefore will not participate in the long-awaited first experiment with the air recovery system that was delayed to this fall.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has finished captive-carry tests of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon's unique variants of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, paving the way for the first free-flight demonstrations later this year.
The Air Force has awarded Raytheon a $92.5 million contract to deliver its situational awareness datalink radios for U.S. Special Operations Command to use on its standoff precision-guided munitions, the Pentagon announced Monday.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is looking for white papers on existing and emerging technologies that can help ground and aerial surveillance platforms detect electronic intelligence signals, according to a broad agency announcement the service released today.
AFWERX is considering launching more programs in dual-use technology sectors while also eyeing export options for its inaugural Agility Prime effort that's pushing to bring electric vertical takeoff and landing providers to market amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Air Force is considering purchasing a dozen commercial-off-the-shelf, intelligence-gathering drones for unidentified international partners, according to a sources-sought notice released Wednesday.
The Air Force has directed legacy programs to quickly integrate with the Advanced Battle Management System, though it’s not necessarily clear to what extent aging platforms will play into the broader vision for joint all-domain command and control.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Gremlins program has completed a second round of flight tests of Dynetics' X-61A drone but delayed the first air recovery attempt to later this year.
The Air Force Research Laboratory had to abort a July 29 flight test of Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie after an "anomaly" with the rocket-assisted take-off system -- the drone's second mishap in 10 months.
The HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter program is working through technical deficiencies found during developmental testing, implementing more industry-standard software practices and planning to solicit proposals for a capability upgrades contract this coming fall.