A senior Biden administration official warned on June 6 that “absent a change” in nuclear strategy by China and Russia, the United States may be forced to expand its nuclear arsenal, after decades of cutting back through now largely abandoned arms control agreements.
The U.S. has begun a slow transition of its exit from Niger in in preparation for a troop withdrawal, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of National Defense of the Republic of Niger. “The U.S. Department of Defense and the Nigerien Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of Niger announce that the withdrawal of U.S. forces and assets from Niger has progressed from initial preparations to redeployment,” the statement reads. “This significant transition began with the departure of a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III from Air Base 101 in Niamey on June 7, 2024.”
The United States provided some intelligence that aided in June 7’s rescue of four Israeli hostages, according to several people familiar with the matter. An American team based in Israel furnished the information, these people said, though it appeared to be secondary to intelligence gathered by the Israelis ahead of the operation. One person said the U.S. material included overhead imagery. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the operation’s sensitivity.
The Trident humanitarian aid pier in Gaza has been re-attached and supplies will start arriving over the coming days, U.S. Central Command’s deputy commander announced June 6. The pier broke apart in heavy seas on May 28, less than two weeks after being installed.
The new leader of a fighter wing based 220 miles from Pyongyang said deterring North Korea will remain the main mission under his tenure. Col. Peter Kasarskis took command of the 8th Fighter Wing from Col. Matthew Gaetke during a June 6 ceremony attended by about 300 people inside an aircraft hangar.
The Space Development Agency is pushing prime contractors to line up secondary and tertiary suppliers for key satellite components amid fears of supply chain shortfalls that could delay the agency’s ambitious schedule for deploying a new proliferated architecture in low-Earth orbit. Col. Alexander Rasmussen, chief of SDA’s Tracking Layer program, said the agency is in discussions with all its major vendors about “diversifying the supplier base” as much as possible after issues emerged with contractors being overly reliant on single sources for critical subsystems.
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SpRCO) has tapped 20 firms to compete for up to $1 billion in task orders for command and control software to manage future highly maneuverable satellites. The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract for SpRCO’s Rapid Resilient Command and Control, nicknamed R2C2, project “will develop, integrate, and demonstrate capabilities for an end-to-end satellite operations (SatOps) ground system with the capability to fly Dynamic Space Operations (DSO) missions, leveraging a commercial cloud architecture,” an SpRCO spokesperson told Breaking Defense in an email.
Missileers will soon have workplace exposures and hazards added to their records, and there will be more inspections of the underground bunkers where they work, a major reform as the service continues to investigate growing cancer concerns within the career field.
US and allied governments, as well as commercial firms, have been racing to improve their ability to spot potential threats (both natural and deliberate) among the ever-growing satellite population: building more sensors in more locations, looking to put new ones in space, and turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning to wade through the rising tide of data. Many experts believe that this technology push is leading to a not too distant future where it will be nearly impossible for satellites to avoid prying eyes.
House Appropriations Committee Republicans released their fiscal year 2025 State Department spending bill this week, which will be considered by the full committee next Wednesday, with sections demonstrating the continued U.S. interest in countering China’s growing threat in the Indo-Pacific region.
U.S. Central Command is moving to explore and quickly adopt intuitive, user-driven commercial platforms that can enable military analysts and operators with limited technical expertise to rapidly create and apply advanced computer vision capabilities for real-time, current operations.
Local officials on the Hawaiian island of Maui on June 5 voted to oppose a U.S. military proposal to build new telescopes on the summit of Haleakala volcano, the latest observatory project to meet objection in the islands. The U.S. Space Force and Air Force want to build a new facility on the top of Haleakala, Maui’s highest peak, to track objects in space.
The Missile Defense Agency plans to begin work on tracking technology as a first step in a potential project that could build the case for arming uncrewed aircraft with a next-generation airborne laser powerful enough to defeat long-range ballistic missiles, according to a senior official.
The U.S. Army is hunting for a new large, long-endurance uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) in a sign it might be shifting the scout role to a drone following the cancellation of its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program.
William Anders, Air Force pilot, diplomat, nuclear engineer, and astronaut who was one of the first three people to orbit the Moon as part of the Apollo 8 mission, died June 7 when his plane crashed into the waters off the coast of Washington state. He was 90. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office reported that a small plane, a T-34, had crashed in the waters near Jones Island, shortly before 11:40 a.m.