General Atomics’s first prototype for the U.S. Air Force’s autonomous combat drone program could start flight tests as early as mid-2025, the head of its aeronautics division told Breaking Defense in a recent interview.
The Defense Department wants to see whether industry’s drone killers can get the job done while operating in a contested electromagnetic environment. The technical demonstration, slated to be conducted early next year, will be overseen by the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO), according to a new sources-sought notice.
After canceling its contract with RTX to build three missile tracking satellites, cutting its existing contractor pool from three companies to two, the Space Force is confident it can retain competition on the program moving forward.
The U.S. Space Force awarded Akima’s subsidiary Five Rivers Analytics a $480 million 10-year contract to support and modernize the Satellite Control Network—a decades-old system of 19 globally distributed parabolic antennas spread across several locations worldwide.
The price tag for F-35 Lightning II jets has been coming down for years, but that might not be the case in the production lots now being negotiated, Lockheed Martin officials said. Lockheed will be “challenged” to keep the price of an F-35 under the rate of inflation in the next contract for lots 18 and 19, according to Greg Ulmer, head of Lockheed aeronautics.
A flood of space-based intelligence is heading toward U.S. networks as satellite constellations grow and new sensors come online—not just photos, but radar, thermal, and radio data. But to properly exploit it will take new tools, new tech, and even new ways of working with contractors, the head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency says.
A North Korean military intelligence operative has been indicted in a conspiracy to hack into American health care providers, NASA, U.S. military bases, and international entities, stealing sensitive information and installing ransomware to fund more attacks, federal prosecutors announced July 25.
The U.S. military is concerned about its ability to defeat very high-volume drone attacks in the future, including in a large-scale conflict, such as one in the Pacific against China. So U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is now tasked with preparing to execute so-called “left-of-launch” counter-drone missions to destroy enemy uncrewed aircraft or otherwise disrupt their operations before they can leave the ground.
Junior enlisted troops will get $20 added to their paychecks for the next six months through a congressionally authorized pot of money intended to help fight the rising cost of living for the lowest paid in the military. Congress provided $43 million to the Defense Department for this purpose and required the money go to troops below E-6 ranks and the funds be spent before the end of the year.
The latest preview of the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program indicates the project will carry a nearly $13 billion price tag when the Air Force this fall establishes a formal cost and schedule for the effort to extend the service life of the Cold War-era bombers by giving the fleet a new power plant.
The remains of an Air Force sergeant who died defending a top-secret radar site on a mountaintop in Laos during the Vietnam War have been identified and located, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this week. Sgt. David S. Price, 26, of Centralia, Wash., who died in 1968, was stationed at Lima Site 85—a highly covert tactical air navigation radar site on the remote, nearly 6,000-foot-high mountain peak known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province, Laos.
