The Air Force has made another investment in hypersonic aircraft, teaming up with venture capital firms to give a $60 million contract to startup Hermeus, which is looking to develop a jet that can travel at five times the speed of sound.
The Air Force will try again to make a free flight of its hypersonic missile the AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon in July, Gen. Timothy M. Ray, head of Global Strike Command, said June 3 during a virtual Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event. He's ...
The Air Force's fiscal 2022 budget request for munitions cuts deeply into production of staples like the Joint Direct Attack Munition bomb and Hellfire missile. The service, however, promises its stockpiles are adequate and that it needs to invest in new munitions that are better ...
The Air Force should pause its major recapitalization of its intercontinental ballistic missile fleet—a move top military officials strongly oppose—as budgets tighten and other nuclear modernization efforts proceed, a key lawmaker said May 17. Rep. John Garamendi (D-California), the chairman of the House Armed Services ...
Sustainment of the F-35 is rapidly becoming the most profitable part of the program, as growing numbers of jets, bases and depots drive a greater demand for parts and services, top Lockheed Martin officials said in an April 20 corporate earnings call. The comments come ...
President Joe Biden will request $715 billion for the Pentagon in his first budget request in office, about a $10 billion increase from the 2021 enacted budget but below the sustained growth military officials have asked for. Notably, Biden’s budget...
The first booster flight test of the Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon failed April 5. In a release issued April 6, the service acknowledged the failure is a “setback” for hypersonic progress, but said the test still provided “valuable information” for the program’s ...
Read about forward base defense, U.S. progress on hypersonic weapons, building coalitions between spacefaring nations, the heroism of Capt. Stephen Phillis, a one-on-one interview with Air National Guard director Gen. Michael A. Loh, and more in the April issue of Air Force Magazine.
The United States is on a crash course to field prototype hypersonic weapons within three years, with more elaborate and mature systems to follow soon after. Flight tests will ramp up quickly this year, with follow-on tests as frequently as every six weeks over the ...
The government’s 70 hypersonics programs—ranging from enabling technology efforts to all-up prototyping projects—are expected to cost $15 billion from 2015 through 2024, and several have sharply exceeded cost estimates, the Government Accountability Office reported. Hypersonic research funding grew 740 percent, government-wide, between 2015 and 2020. ...
Advanced cruise missiles and potential hypersonic weapons will challenge North American Aerospace Defense Command’s legacy warning systems, so the command needs to improve awareness to provide earlier warning. USAF Gen. Glen. D. VanHerck, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, told the Senate Armed Services ...
The Army is pursuing its own deep strike and suppression of enemy air defense capability—roles and missions assigned to the Air Force. The Army is already setting up a forward-based task force that will direct the employment of hypersonic and mid-range missiles for the mission ...