The House Armed Services Committee's top Democrat endorsed a new Pentagon legislative proposal designed to work around Congressional gridlock to field new technologies faster. Spearheaded by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the DOD is seeking a "rapid response" authority that would allow initial work to ...
Rapid Acquisition & Sustainment
The defense industrial base is “incapable” of building hypersonic systems at scale, due mainly to the government giving ambiguous signals to industry about whether it will invest in such technologies, according to a new paper from the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technology Institute. The ...
Beginning with the fiscal 2024 budget, every dollar for F-35 will fund TR-3-equipped Block 4 jets. The need for those jets could hardly be greater.
“Electric air taxis” are coming to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., early next year, as the Air Force and Joby Aviation announced a deal April 25 as part of the service’s Agility Prime program. The deal’s announcement comes just a few days after Air Force pilots ...
The Raytheon AGM-181 Long-Range Standoff missile is on track for a production decision in 2027, having passed its critical design review in March, according to Air Force budget documents.
The Department of Defense is pushing Congress to give it the authority to start new developmental programs before a budget is approved—a change the Pentagon argues would make critical new programs less vulnerable to Washington gridlock. “Time is going by, and all those things that ...
Lockheed Martin won’t make its goal of 156 F-35s in 2023 due to engine delivery delays and continuing development and testing of the Tech Refresh 3 update, which underwrites the Block 4 upgrade. However the company expects a Performance-Based Logistics Contract by the end of ...
As the Space Development Agency celebrates the successful first launch of its planned constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, director Derek M. Tournear says he's no longer concerned about China or Russia trying to shoot U.S. satellites down. By deploying hundreds of satellites in SDA's new Proliferated ...
Lockheed Martin has opened a second production line to make two of the Pentagon’s most in-demand weapons: the LRASM anti-ship cruise missile and the JASSM-ER air-to-surface variant. Wargames have shown the utility of the missiles in countering a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The problem is that ...