New Pentagon acquisition rules are making it possible to field the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) hypersonic missile five years faster than would be possible under the old rules, top USAF uniformed acquisition official Lt. Gen. Duke Z. Richardson said Dec. 3. He also ...
Victoria Coleman is an outlier. The new director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent most of her career outside of the Pentagon, looking in. A native of Greece, she’s one of the few foreign-born people tapped to lead the military’s secretive band ...
The Trump Administration released a new national technology strategy on Oct. 15, which assigns investment priority to 20 technologies while calling for an all-of-government approach to develop and protect them. The Pentagon is already applying a number of the actions the new strategy lays out, ...
President Donald J. Trump on Sept. 30 issued an executive order declaring U.S. dependence on China for rare-earth elements a “national emergency,” directing a multi-agency review and action before the election to establish domestic sources of the materials, which are used in a range of ...
The Air Force is pursuing a speedy program for a new air-breathing hypersonic missile, equipped with a modular payload bay that apparently will be used for something other than submunitions, according to a service solicitation. USAF solicited Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon for the work, ...
The AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), the Air Force’s first hypersonic weapon, completed its last captive-carry test flight on a B-52 on Aug. 8. During the test, which was conducted off the coast of Southern California, the AGM-183A Instrumented Measurement Vehicle-2 transmitted telemetry and ...
Boeing received a $1.2 billion sole-source Air Force contract July 13 to begin buying the first eight F-15EX fighters, meant to replace the F-15C/D Eagle fleet, which is rapidly aging out, the Pentagon announced. The contract could ultimately be worth nearly $23 billion and involve ...
The Air Force plans a high/low mix of rocket-boosted and air-breathing hypersonic missiles to give adversaries a troublesome and expensive defense problem, service acquisition executive Will Roper said May 14. While the ARRW missile is on track for operational service at the end of fiscal ...
The Air Force is spearheading development of the Defense Department’s first hypersonic cruise missile. The service on April 27 reached out to industry to seek input on a “solid rocket-boosted, air-breathing, hypersonic, conventional cruise missile” that can be launched from existing fighters and bombers. Air ...
A new-design aircraft to fill the arsenal plane concept is in the offing at Air Force Global Strike Command, according to its commander, Gen. Tim Ray. In a press telecon, he discussed the concept, along with USAF's preferred air-launched hypersonic missile, recovery in the B-1 ...
The ARRW hypersonic missile would equip B-1Bs refurbished and updated for a more potent long-range strike capability, Global Strike Command chief Gen. Timothy Ray said. The hypersonic missiles would be mounted on the external hardpoints once planned to carry AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missiles, but not ...
As the defense budget flattens, the other services may have to rethink their pursuit of long-range fires, purely because duplication is only a good thing when it's affordable, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said during an online Mitchell Institute event April 1. ...