The secretive Space Rapid Capabilities Office’s workload has taken shape two years after its inception, as the space research and development enterprise changes around it. The Space RCO, which speedily develops cutting-edge technologies at the request of Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John ...
More than a year after the Air Force released its “Science and Technology 2030” strategy, the officer in charge of carrying it out says the future should come a little faster. “The strategy is important, but accelerating it, … that's at the top of my ...
The new commander of the storied Air Force Research Laboratory will realign—not reorganize—the lab so it can ably support both the new U.S. Space Force and its traditional Air Force customers. "We’ll be one AFRL serving two services: The Air Force and the Space Force,” ...
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 ...
Economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to undermine the growing U.S. commercial space sector and, potentially, U.S. space superiority, according to a new report by a panel of government experts released on July 28. Investors are pulling back to conserve cash at the very ...
Tracking and countering advanced cruise missiles developed by Russia and China needs to be a top priority for U.S. Northern Command, the nominee to lead the organization told lawmakers July 28. USAF Lt. Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, currently the director of the Joint Staff, said ...
Air Force officials are still looking to perfect directed-energy weapons to use against the low-tech threat of small drones before scaling up lasers and microwaves to take out cruise missiles. The Air Force’s high-power microwave weapon known as the Tactical High-Power Microwave Operational Responder, or ...
Air Force researchers are designing an autonomous aircraft that can take down a manned plane in air-to-air combat, with the goal of pitting the two against each other in July 2021. Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said the ...
The X-37B spaceplane launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on May 17, sending the U.S. Air Force Academy's largest batch of satellite experiments to date along for the ride. USAFA’s FalconSat program, run with the Air Force Research Laboratory and contractor Geneva Technologies, ...
The Air Force will shortly launch its effort to buy Skyborg drone prototypes, according to the official running the unmanned wingman program. The service will begin soliciting aircraft this month and plans to award contracts to the winning designs by the end of the summer, ...
The Air Force is seeking industry input on a new class of air-to-air missiles, which would be faster and longer-ranged than the AIM-120 and AIM-9X that currently equip its fighter fleet. It's not clear, though, how the new weapons would join a portfolio where there ...
The X-37B spaceplane will embark on its sixth mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on May 16, Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said. The secretive, unmanned orbital test vehicle, which will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, is notching new ...