The military's COVID-19 vaccine mandate would be repealed under a compromise must-pass annual defense bill, ending the requirement that all Active-duty and part-time troops get the shot. The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which typically passes with large bipartisan majorities, would give the Pentagon 30 days to “rescind the mandate that members of the Armed Forces be vaccinated against COVID-19,” according to the text of the bill.
The U.S. may no longer enjoy a numerical advantage against China in certain elements of its intercontinental ballistic missile program, according to U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal. STRATCOM recently sent a classified determination to Congress pursuant to a clause in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires congressional notification if China overtakes the U.S. in at least one of three components regarding its ICBM stockpile.
When the Pentagon’s annual sexual-assault report landed on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s desk in September, its findings left the longtime reform advocate neither happy nor surprised: Fiscal 2021 brought a sharp increase in sexual assaults as well as other disturbing trends. “Every year we pass meaningful reforms to improve outcomes, and the DOD is not implementing them,” Gillibrand, D-NY, told Defense One. The Pentagon, she said, “just hasn’t taken this issue seriously.” But the Senate Armed Services Committee member said this year’s defense policy bill will bring changes that just might make future reports less bleak.
A three-year experiment to streamline maintenance on the Air Force’s F-35A Lightning II fighter jets has ended with lackluster results. The service’s Lightning Technician Program began as a smaller effort in 2017 and grew into a pilot program with hundreds of maintainers at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., in 2019. It ended in June 2022.
The U.S. military services are a step closer to having the authority to award non-competitive, multiyear contracts to refill the nation’s dwindling munitions stockpiles and purchase additional launchers such as the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. On Dec. 6, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees released compromise language for the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes the new multiyear procurement authority for “certain munitions.” Lawmakers spelled out which munitions and launcher lines are candidates for this new buying authority, and the total number of each that the services can acquire.
An official Russian Ministry of Defense video provides an in-depth look at one of the lesser-known combat aircraft involved in Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. Operations by the Su-27 Flanker-B jets have hardly been documented until now, and not at all by official sources, in contrast to the more modern and more advanced Su-30SM and Su-35S versions of the Flanker. The latest video focuses on the Su-27SM, an upgraded version of the original ‘vanilla’ Flanker-B that is now, more generally, a diminishing presence within the Russian Aerospace Forces.
The U.S. State Department has approved the potential sale of $428 million in aircraft parts for Taiwan to help its air force, which is strained from repeatedly intercepting Chinese jets operating close to the island. Taiwan's air force is well equipped but aging and is dwarfed by that of China. Beijing views the democratically governed island as its territory and during the past three years or so has been flying daily sorties near Taiwan.
Aerojet Rocketdyne is struggling to deliver quality rocket motors and has become “the weak link” in Raytheon Technologies’ supply chain, the latter company’s CEO said. Raytheon has between 35 and 50 people working with Aerojet Rocketdyne with scheduling and “working through … some of the quality issues that they're seeing,” Greg Hayes said in an interview. The “supply chain has at least stabilized with the exception of our rocket-motor supplier,” he said. “In fact, that is the only supplier that's getting worse … from a performance standpoint, as opposed to better.”
Maj. Kristin "Beo" Wolfe is a self-proclaimed military brat. Being born on a military base and having a dad who was an Air Force fighter pilot, flying was "a natural progression," she said. Despite her upbringing, Wolfe didn’t decide that she wanted to pursue a military career until she was in college, where she joined the ROTC, before deciding she wanted to join the Air Force. Now Wolfe is an experienced fighter pilot with more than 800 flying hours in the F-35A Lightning II and F-22A Raptor under her belt along with a feature spot in the Air Force's “Own the Sky” commercial, and is leader of the Hill Air Force Base F-35A Demonstration Team that travels around the world showcasing the impressive aerial capabilities of the F-35A Lighting II.