Daily Report

Sept. 4, 2024

Smaller, Better Battle Management Gets a Workout

Ground-based battle managers want to compress six C-17 Globemasters’ worth of gear down to a single C-130, thanks to a new system with a fitting name: Tactical Operations Center-Light. The 752nd Operational Support Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base been designated as the “pathfinder” for Air Combat Command, responsible for leading the charge in testing out the new tech. 

SDA More than Doubles GD’s Contract for Ground Ops, Integration

The Space Development Agency has contracts for more than 250 satellites in “Tranche 2” of its proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation. Now it's got a $491 million deal with General Dynamics to develop the ground systems and integration needed to capture all the data pouring down from those satellites. 

Radar Sweep

Inflation Has Some Military Families ‘Grasping at Pennies’

Military Times

Inflation is “destroying any joy we may have been able to afford,” the Airman wrote. “We are literally grasping at pennies to survive and it’s killing us.” Statements from the Airman—stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M.—and many others came in response to Military Times’ call for comments on how inflation has impacted service members and their families.

Russian Strikes Kill More Than 50 in Ukraine, Zelensky Says

The New York Times

A Russian missile strike killed more than 50 people and injured scores of others on Sept. 3, Ukrainian officials said, the latest in a series of devastating bombardments of Ukraine and one of the deadliest attacks of the two-and-a-half-year war.

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Top Enlisted Leader Talks Pay, Priorities, and 1980s Fashion

Defense News

Sgt. Maj. Troy Black speaks with his hands. And while talking around a conference table near the Pentagon briefing room, he reached for the only thing in the room to make his point: two remotes and five water bottles. Putting them in a row, one by one, Black made a list of enlisted personnel’s expenses: a phone bill, insurance, gas, rent, electricity, childcare, food. “These are all closer to being requirements than they are luxuries,” he said.

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USAF Mobility Boss: Modernization Needed Despite Cost Concerns

Aviation Week

The U.S. Air Force within the past several months appears to have increased its push to modernize its air refueling force based on a new understanding of threats, and the impetus to renew the fleet is important despite a coming budget crunch, the outgoing head of the service’s mobility forces argues.

Space Force and Intelligence Agencies Seek to Streamline Satellite Imagery Delivery

SpaceNews

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Space Force are trying to figure out how they can work side-by-side to collect and distribute space-based intelligence to military users around the world. Military leaders are asking for speedier access to images from commercial satellites, which they say is vital in fast-changing situations.

NGA Deepens Push into AI with Country’s Largest Data-Labeling Effort

Defense One

Two years ago, the entire world spent an estimated $800 million on data labeling: the painstaking process of annotating images and other information to train machine-learning and AI models. Now, the Pentagon’s mapping agency is prepping a data-labeling effort that will spend nearly that much all by itself.

As US Readies Last Cease-Fire push, Netanyahu Digs in on Border Demands

The Washington Post

As he fights for his political survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on keeping troops on a narrow strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border has become the main obstacle to a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement with Hamas, according to current and former officials from mediating countries.