The U.S. military will pull all of its assets out of Niger by mid-September, the Pentagon announced May 19, after days of talks with the country’s military junta finalized a timeline.
On May 2, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall boarded a modified F-16 fighter jet equipped with specialized artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities that enabled the aircraft to autonomously fly and perform tactical maneuvers against human pilots. ... For the demonstration, Shield AI put a technology known as reinforcement learning-based artificial intelligence onto the aircraft, Brett Darcey, executive vice president and head of product at the company, told DefenseScoop in a recent interview.
The Pentagon is rushing to expand its capacity to wage war in space, convinced that rapid advances by China and Russia in space-based operations pose a growing threat to U.S. troops and other military assets on the ground and American satellites in orbit.
Hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues joined Roger Fortson’s family, friends, and others at a suburban Atlanta megachurch on May 17 to pay their final respects to the Black Senior Airman, who was shot and killed in his Florida home earlier this month by a sheriff’s deputy.
In episode 183 of the Aerospace Advantage, Heather “Lucky” Penney chats with Col. Angela Ochoa, commander of the 89th Airlift Wing. “SAMFOX”—which stands for Special Air Missions Foreign—are the Airmen who are best known for flying our nation’s most senior and elected leaders, like the President of the United States on Air Force One. This episode takes a special look at the 89th to learn more about their mission, the aircraft, and the people who all make it possible.
The commander of Air Force Special Operations Command has posthumously presented Distinguished Flying Cross medals to two air commandos 14 years after they were killed in a CV-22 Osprey crash on April 9, 2010, during a mission near Qalat, Afghanistan. Maj. Randell Voas and Senior Master Sgt. James Lackey helped save the lives of two crew members and 14 passengers on board after a series of incidents, including mechanical failure, caused the crash.
The Space Force’s Commercial Space Office (COMSO) now expects to hold its next industry session on its emerging plans for a space version of the Civil Air Reserve, called the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR), in August—in hopes of being able to issue first contracts including provisions by the end of the year, according to the director.
The Pentagon may be heading toward a reckoning with industry over the cost of parts, equipment, and weapons, with defense companies less amenable to taking on financial risk in future contracts, the head of the Aerospace Industries Association warned on May 16.
Potential military recruits and prospective officers soon may not need to worry about drug testing if they recently used marijuana. A provision included in the draft text of a must-pass defense policy bill released this week would prohibit the military from making someone take a test for cannabis as a condition for enlisting or commissioning into the military.
After years in development, the U.S. military’s latest attempt at an airborne laser weapon to protect troops on the ground from incoming ballistic missiles appears to be headed for the scrapyard. Initiated in 2016, the Self-Protect High-Energy Laser Demonstrator, or SHiELD, was envisioned as a laser weapon mounted on fighter jets such as the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II that would neutralize incoming air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, as well as ballistic missiles potentially targeting U.S. forces abroad, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report.
Italy could join Germany and Spain in making a top-up order for the Eurofighter combat aircraft, industry officials have said. Italy is set to discuss a new purchase of Eurofighters through a “parliamentary process over the summer,” said David Hulme, BAE’s Eurofighter project director.
“The Defense Department plans to release the implementation plan for its National Defense Industrial Strategy in early fall. America’s adversaries may not wait that long,” writes Christine Michienzi, a former senior defense official and the owner of MMR Defense Solutions, as well as a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Lawmakers are increasingly worried about where defense companies get critical materials, like batteries, for military technologies. But industry is also concerned about pressure to buy domestic materials—without any extra funding to make that possible.
Adata privacy amendment buried within the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill will allow private aircraft owners to fully block aircraft registration information. Concealing this information will make establishing who owns private aircraft much more difficult, and render aircraft harder to track.
