The Air Force science and technology community has begun work to demonstrate a high-velocity penetrating weapon, reusable space-access system, and new cyber capability under a promising new initiative, said Stephen Walker, USAF’s deputy assistant secretary of science, technology, and engineering, Tuesday. These projects are part of the service’s new “flagship capability concepts,” under which the Air Force Research Lab is pursuing capabilities that address the service’s highest priority needs, Walker told the House Armed Services Committee’s emerging threats and capabilities panel in testimony on the service’s Fiscal 2012 S&T funding request. “These are large-scale, integrated demonstrations of technology,” explained Walker. The goal has been to line up these activities so that they could smoothly feed into potential future programs of record for fielding the capabilities, he said.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.