The Air Force is crafting new policy that envisions more fluidity between conventional and nuclear weapons, as well as a broader range of options to keep others from using their own nuclear weapons. The U.S. has long treated conventional and nuclear warfare as separate concepts, ...
Gen. Thomas S. Moorman Jr., who developed and led a sizable portion of the Air Force's space organizations and capabilities, died June 17 at age 79. Moorman played a “pivotal role” in Air Force and defense space, laying the foundation for Space Force, said the ...
The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center is splitting its management of intercontinental ballistic missiles in two as the next-generation Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent progresses. AFNWC’s former Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Systems Directorate at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is now the Minuteman III Systems Directorate and the ...
The Air Force's Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program has passed its preliminary design review, clearing the way for an award of the engineering and manufacturing development contract by the end of September. If all goes as planned, the new intercontinental ballistic missiles will be deployed to ...
The Air Force expects to lose confidence in the full viability of its 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles starting in 2026, three years before replacement nuclear missiles start entering the ground, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.“ According to Air Force officials, as a ...
Step aside, fighter jets: Autonomous drones and manned spaceflight are the future of military aerospace, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 28. Musk, the serial entrepreneur and billionaire whose rockets take Pentagon sensors and satellites to space, ...
A touted $30 billion realignment of the Air Force's budget, with some wholesale retirements of major systems, did not materialize in the spending documents released Feb. 10. Instead, the Air Force is reducing its operational fleet to pay for technology upgrades emphasizing connectivity, agile logistics, ...
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.—You see the intercontinental ballistic missile before you hear it. Upon ignition in its underground silo, the horizon blooms bright red-orange, and a ball of light rises west over the Pacific Ocean. A dull roar intensifies as the unarmed nuclear missile ...
After a heated partisan fight over the Pentagon's nuclear modernization efforts, House and Senate authorizers agreed to let the Air Force's key strategic programs move forward relatively unscathed.