Boeing is set to establish a new production facility for MQ-28 Ghost Bat "loyal wingman" type drones in Australia. MQ-28 is a key component of the Royal Australian Air Force's future plans. The U.S. Air Force is also making use of a Ghost Bat for testing purposes and the design, or a derivative thereof, could be a contender for the service's Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
Senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee want the Pentagon to tell them more about efforts to collaborate with the United Kingdom and Australia to develop next-generation artificial intelligence, according to a letter exclusively obtained by Defense One.
In the next few Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE) set to unfold this year, Pentagon personnel plan to expand data-sharing and integration among U.S. allies and continue to develop a new “methodology of rapid learning” to inform how the military adopts emerging and advanced technologies, according to a senior official.
Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force’s Chief of Space Operations, said there has been “dramatic growth in the use of space since 2008,” and expressed the importance for the U.S. to maintain its superiority during his remarks on national security concerns at the third annual Spacepower Security Forum hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Several topics were addressed, including servicemember recruitment and training, the 2025 budget request, private-public partnerships, and the increased concern on collisions with manmade debris in space. He also touched on the threats and challenges posed by adversaries, including China and Russia.
As the Space Force looks to improve its live testing and training capabilities, the service is considering upgrading existing satellites with more robust sensors to support that mission. Through a partnership with the Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center and the Defense Innovation Unit, Space Training and Readiness Command, or STARCOM, plans to install new space domain awareness sensors on satellites in orbit as soon as 2025.
The experiment, known as Project Convergence, was the largest effort yet to pull the services together under a single command and control apparatus to choose the best weapon in the Pentagon’s arsenal to destroy a target quickly. Dubbed the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2, Pentagon leaders, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have called it the Defense Department’s top technology priority, and plan to spend some $1.4 billion on the program next year, according to its fiscal 2025 budget proposal.
In a mission targeted for 2025, a robot satellite in geostationary orbit around 22,000 miles above Earth will rendezvous with a military satellite and attempt to affix a new imaging sensor payload on the spacecraft. The servicing vehicle—equipped with a robot arm developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Naval Research Laboratory—will seek to connect the payload to the satellite’s launch adapter ring. This ring, which originally connected the satellite to its rocket during launch, will provide the attach point for an electro-optical imaging sensor payload developed by the startup Katalyst Space Technologies.
A top British defense official revealed for the first time the U.K. is working on a secret armed forces design and capability review aimed at reshaping how it prosecutes future wars. Lt. Gen. Rob Magowan, deputy chief of defense staff for military capability, told lawmakers from the U.K. Defense Committee on March 26 that a classified Future Force Design Review (FFDR) is underway and will be defined by three core elements: how Britain fights future conflicts, any potential restructuring of the armed forces and other “capability choices.”
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has transitioned newly developed defensive capabilities to the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, according to a senior official. The tech was born out of DARPA’s Guaranteeing AI Robustness Against Deception (GARD) program, which kicked off a few years ago.
An Air Force colonel who was the commander of a maintenance group at a base in New Mexico has been fired from his leadership role, marking the latest in a string of command shake-ups this month. Col. Danzel Albertsen, commander of the 49th Maintenance Group at Holloman Air Force Base, was removed from his leadership role March 25, according to a news release from the base.
“As Soldiers look for the next conflict to define their service in a post-Global War on Terrorism era, much of the conversation indicates a belief that direct or proxy war with China is right around the corner. However, assessing the likelihood of armed conflict requires a deep investigation using proven methods that stimulate critical thinking devoid of biases and pitfalls,” writes Jacob T. Scheidemann, a transitioning Army officer and intelligence management graduate student.
The Air Force is planning to use a study intended to inform requirements for the Next Generation Air-refueling System to also help set guidelines for a follow-on tanker recapitalization program, Inside Defense has learned. “There is connective tissue,” Air Force spokeswoman Alexandra Stormer said in an email.
The military community is awash in book suggestions—from branch-specific reading lists to those focused on personal and professional development. So we set out to create an essential reading list by surveying the folks who have experienced the impact and importance of a really good book on their service: our Military.com readers.