Military service members and their spouses are growing angry after the Department of Defense missed its Jan. 1 deadline to release its parental leave guidelines, more than a year after plans for a new policy were announced. Signed into law in December 2021, the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act required that all of the services provide paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers, giving the military branches until the end of 2022 to make the changes.
Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare. The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select, and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers.
In recent months the Air Force Research Laboratory has been expanding its collaboration with commercial industry on technologies to inspect, repair and refuel satellites on orbit—not to extend the lives of just any satellites, but especially those responsible for keeping an eye on adversary spacecraft and potentially dangerous space junk. AFRL’s Tristan Griffith directly linked “rendezvous, proximity operations and docking,” or RPOD, to future space situational awareness (SSA), saying that it was a “critical” component.
GE Aerospace is getting an Air Force Life Cycle Management Center contract with a value of up to $203 million for work on new jet engine technologies, the Department of Defense said last week. General Electric has been issued an undefinitized contract action with a ceiling of $203 million for “technology maturation and risk reduction services,” and a $99.5 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for research and development, the DOD said.
U.S. Space Systems Command on Jan. 3 launched a cubesat intended to demonstrate commercial weather imaging technologies for military use. The Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) Weather Systems (EWS) demonstration launched on the SpaceX Transporter-6 rideshare that deployed more than 110 small satellites. Over a planned one-year demonstration, the Space Force wants to assess the capabilities of an imaging cubesat made by Orion Space Solutions to provide timely weather imagery data from low Earth orbit.
Airpower expert Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula discusses the air campaign in the war that Russia wages on Ukraine, including the strategy of Russians, why have they been so inept in dominating the skies above Ukraine, why Ukrainian pilots should receive Western combat aircraft, and the advent of drones, their role in the war in Ukraine, and future capabilities.
The U.S. Navy is set to become the newest operator of Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie drone, at least that we know about. The service recently awarded the company a contract for the purchase of two of these stealthy low-cost uncrewed aircraft as part of a previously unknown program called the Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer. The U.S. Air Force, the only currently known user of the XQ-58A, has been using its Valkyries for various test purposes, including projects that are feeding into the classified Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
Airmen are gradually shifting how they prepare for deployment as part of the Air Force’s new “force generation” plan, the adoption of which may hit a key milestone in 2023. In the coming year, the Air Force wants enough units moving through that four-step cycle—from resetting after a deployment, to basic training, to advanced training, to mission availability—to say it has created a sufficient foundation on which to grow that process.
L3Harris Technologies completed a $1.96 billion purchase of Viasat’s tactical data link business, an acquisition expected to better position the 10th largest defense contractor to win orders tied to the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative. The companies announced the closing Jan. 3, some three months after the arrangement was first disclosed. L3Harris on Dec. 20 said regulators gave it the green light, accelerating a purchase that was initially thought to wrap later this year.
When a polar vortex blanketed large swathes of the Midwest and Northeast in snow during the last days of December, state governors activated the National Guard to clear roads, deliver supplies and rescue people trapped by the icy conditions. One of the worst hit areas was Buffalo, N.Y., which saw people die in and outside their homes while waiting for medical help or rescue after losing power. During the storm, hundreds of National Guardsmen were activated in New York to help. Roughly 600 were sent to Buffalo. Among the units was the 107th Air Attack Wing, which sent troops to aid in search and rescue operations. On Friday, Dec. 30, 18 members of the unit were given commendation medals for their part in those efforts.