China and Russia made huge strides in missile technology, while U.S. air base defense has languished. Now the United States is playing catch-up.
Technology
The United States is on a crash course to field prototype hypersonic weapons within three years, with more elaborate and mature systems to follow soon after. Flight tests will ramp up quickly this year, with follow-on tests as frequently as every six weeks over the ...
The Missile Defense Agency on March 23 awarded Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin contracts worth a total of $7.6 billion to develop technology for the Next Generation Interceptor, which will replace aging ground-based interceptors and serve as the first layer of defense against intercontinental ballistic ...
The Indo-Pacific region needs a large influx of spending to bolster missile defense, both at the strategic location of Guam and at other locations across the vast area of operations, the nominee to lead the region’s combatant command argued March 23. Adm. John C. Aquilino, ...
The government’s 70 hypersonics programs—ranging from enabling technology efforts to all-up prototyping projects—are expected to cost $15 billion from 2015 through 2024, and several have sharply exceeded cost estimates, the Government Accountability Office reported. Hypersonic research funding grew 740 percent, government-wide, between 2015 and 2020. ...
The Air Force Research Laboratory on March 16 broke ground on a 3,500-square-foot facility located on 72 acres at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., that will allow the Space Vehicles Directorate to test sensor systems before sending them to the field. The Skywave Technology Laboratory ...
Two bases in Air Mobility Command are using virtual reality to teach Airmen how to talk to someone who might be suicidal. The Air Force in recent years has been grappling with high levels of suicide in its ranks. In 2019, the department ordered a ...
Advanced cruise missiles and potential hypersonic weapons will challenge North American Aerospace Defense Command’s legacy warning systems, so the command needs to improve awareness to provide earlier warning. USAF Gen. Glen. D. VanHerck, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, told the Senate Armed Services ...
The Army is pursuing its own deep strike and suppression of enemy air defense capability—roles and missions assigned to the Air Force. The Army is already setting up a forward-based task force that will direct the employment of hypersonic and mid-range missiles for the mission ...
