The Space Force’s hub for fostering innovation and partnerships with startups and academia has selected two dozen teams to participate in its latest challenge with the hope of developing technologies to solve several key problems in space—including one of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Vanguard ...
There’s a new X-plane in the Air Force’s fleet. The Air Force Test Pilot School in June redesignated the NF-16D Variable In-flight Simulator Aircraft as the X-62A, allowing the aircraft to be used for testing the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Skyborg program. The aircraft, originally ...
The Air Force demonstrated the successful launch of a drone by a larger remotely piloted aircraft on March 26, with the XQ-58A Valkyrie releasing a small UAS from its own internal weapons bay. The flight test, the sixth for the Valkyrie, marked the first time ...
Having successfully used “digital twinning” to design and prototype its latest jet trainer aircraft, the Air Force is moving to use the new technology to develop and test weapons, too—building an online Colosseum in which vendors’ systems can virtually fight each other. Col. Garry A. ...
The Air Force’s “Golden Horde” weapon swarming project overcame its earlier technical difficulties in a second flight test last month, the service said March 5. The Feb. 19 event featured four Small Diameter Bombs equipped with systems that let them work as a team, two ...
The Air Force Research Laboratory is kicking off 2021 with plans to forge closer ties with the fledgling Space Force and a new focus on digital engineering. AFRL boss Brig. Gen. Heather L. Pringle laid out the lab’s priorities in a Feb. 4 talk with ...
A group of networked bombs failed to hit the right target in the Air Force’s first flight test of its nascent weapon-swarming technology last month, posing a new obstacle as the service tries to speed the concept to the battlefield. On Dec. 15, the Air ...
Three companies will move on to flight experiments as part of the Air Force’s Skyborg drone program, the service said Dec. 7. Kratos earned $37.8 million, Boeing earned $25.7 million, and General Atomics earned $14.3 million to continue on in the program, the Air Force ...
Air Force science advisers will meet Dec. 17 to discuss the findings of their recent space research as they close out this year’s deep-dive studies. In 2020, the board considered emerging space technologies, military communications, and autonomous systems behavior. As the year comes to a ...
Air Force researchers in October will test whether a software version of the service’s developmental weapons swarm can make its way through a combat mission and reroute itself as conditions change. The demonstration is part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Golden Horde initiative, a ...
A promising experimental Air Force satellite is one step closer to being ready to launch. The Air Force Research Laboratory on July 30 said the service’s Navigation Technology Satellite-3 passed a critical design milestone in June that lets the contractor, L3Harris Technologies, start to build ...
Boeing, General Atomics, Kratos, and Northrop Grumman received indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts that allow them to compete for Skyborg Vanguard Program delivery orders, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center announced on July 23. Skyborg is an affordable unmanned system that will partner with ...