Suboptimal rooming arrangements at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar affected troops’ sleep and safety as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan ramped up in the first half of 2021—an effort that relied heavily on Airmen traveling through the Persian Gulf nation, according to a review of Airmen’s safety reports.
Guam “would absolutely need” the Navy’s SM-6 missile for its defense against a hypersonic missile attack, the program executive for Aegis ballistic missile defense said. Rear Adm. Tom Druggan called the SM-6 “our leading defense capability for hypersonic missile defense.” It is “a fantastic missile, just absolutely great missile” because of its versatility.
Nobody likes doing busy work, so one enlisted Air Force maintainer started using a tool to spare his fellow wrench-throwers from doing so much of it. Senior Master Sgt. Paul Speer, the superintendent of the 9th Aircraft Maintenance Unit for the 7th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, implemented a trick called “waterfall scheduling” that not only makes the lives of maintainers easier but also makes more aircraft available for flight.
The U.S. Air Force has been busy flying QF-16 Full-Scale Aerial Target, or FSAT, missions in support of the Lockheed Martin AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program. While the AIM-260, or JATM, remains a highly secretive weapon, it’s now clear that test work is well underway, with around 30 FSAT missions last year alone.
In episode 51 of the Aerospace Advantage podcast, host John “Slick” Baum welcomes commander of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission and Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman to talk about how private industry is making incredible strides in space and how Inspiration4 was a landmark moment—the first all-civilian mission to space.
Astra Space joined Elon Musk's SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit in reaching orbit using privately funded rockets as its LV0007 launch vehicle lifted off from Astra Spaceport in Kodiak, Alaska. Astra reached orbit for the first time at an altitude of 500 kilometers, the company's co-founder and CEO Chris Kemp announced, as part of a commercial launch on behalf of a Space Force contract.
The Air Force has struck an agreement with six technology contractors to allow them to resell parts of its Platform One software development environment. The deal with Booz Allen Hamilton, Seeds Innovation, BrainGu, Revacomm, Indrasoft, and Novetta was made through a special framework that allows the government to give companies the authority to sell its technology. The arrangement allows contractors to resell two of the platform’s products, Iron Bank and Big Bang, which advocates say could widen Platform One’s visibility across the Department of Defense.
Cloud technologies are accelerating change at every level of the Air Force—and the Space Force. Whether it's pure computational power to enable autonomy or advanced encryption to ensure mission-grade security, the future of IT is here and now.
Three Russian-made Mi-17 Hip helicopters that previously belonged to the now-defunct Afghan Air Force arrived at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona and are set to be placed in storage at the boneyard there. The aircraft appear to be from among those that Afghan pilots and other personnel used to escape to neighboring Uzbekistan as the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August.
The U.S. military’s youngest branch, the Space Force, just trounced its sibling services, as well the United Kingdom’s military, in the second annual Call of Duty Endowment Bowl.