Defense One
The Swiss Air Force has chosen the F-35 stealth fighter in a $5.5 billion deal to replace its aging F/A-18 and F-5 fighter jets. The Lockheed Martin-made F-35 beat out the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, and Eurofighter Typhoon. Switzerland also announced it would buy five Patriot missile batteries from Raytheon Technologies.
Air Force Association release
Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, Space Force Director of Staff, described the national security imperative for creating the U.S. Space Force, including descriptions of Chinese and Russian space threats, as well as the day-to-day detail work someone in her position must worry about, such as basics like finding enough Pentagon office space to accommodate 600 Space Force staff members.
The Associated Press
The solemn task of sifting through rocks, twigs, and ice to find human remains as small as a fingernail continued this month on a glacier north of Anchorage, nearly 69 years after all 52 members of a military transport flight were killed when the plane slammed into a mountain. Wreckage from the plane was spotted by the Alaska National Guard in 2012 during a training mission, setting up annual trips by military officials to recover remains of the crew and passengers of the C-124 Globemaster, which was en route from Fort McChord in Washington state to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage when it crashed in bad weather on Nov. 22, 1952.
Breaking Defense
The Air Force’s AI-based Skyborg ‘brain’ successfully flew a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger on June 24, marking the second time the software package has piloted a drone—and proving that it can be integrated into different drones. The first flight of the Skyborg Autonomous Control System (ACS) took place April 29 aboard a Kratos UTAP-22 Mako.“Flying the Skyborg ACS on platforms from two different manufacturers demonstrates the portability of the Government-owned autonomy core, unlocking future multi-mission capabilities for the Joint Force,” Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Commander Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle said in a statement.
Space News
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed off last month on a strategy document that tells the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force to figure out how to share data on the battlefield. Space-based communications will be at the core of this strategy known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control. JADC2 is the latest attempt by the Pentagon to speed up the military’s transition into the digital age. The plan is based on the idea that the United States can gain an advantage over enemies if U.S. commanders can see what’s happening across the battlefield in real time.
The Drive
Draken International, the adversary air support contractor which boasts one of the world’s largest private tactical jet air force, is now set to add F-16A/B fighters to its roster after the Dutch government announced it had agreed to transfer 12 of the jets to the North American company. Draken will join fellow private contractor Top Aces in operating F-16s for “red air” adversary support, which is now in great demand, especially to fulfill the U.S. Air Force’s mammoth adversary air contract.
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Washington Post
Satellite images point to a construction spree for ICBM launch tubes that could a signal a major expansion of Beijing’s nuclear capabilities, though some could be decoys.
The Drive
The U.S. Air Force's Strategic Development Planning & Experimentation Office, or SDPE, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, has announced a successful demonstration of a new concept of operations for Precision, Navigation, and Timing, or PNT. The concept combines new software architectures with existing PNT technologies that could allow the services to operate in GPS-denied environments, which is becoming a growing concern as peer-state rivals continue to advance GPS spoofing and denial techniques.
One More Thing
NBC News
The U.S. Air Force Academy has distributed actor and activist George Takei’s graphic memoir “They Called Us Enemy,” which recounts his family's incarceration during World War II, to cadets as part of a new reading initiative. In the bestselling book, Takei, known for playing Lt. Hikaru Sulu in the original “Star Trek” TV series, describes what it was like to be a 5 year old who was one of the approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent who were forcibly removed from their West Coast homes and put into concentration camps in the 1940s.
