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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
Some of the Air Force’s most advanced, secretive aircraft flew together in a large-scale event this week to vet the service's methods for destroying enemy air defenses, and to see how well older planes work with more advanced airframes. The 53rd Test and Evaluation Group's ...
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,” ...
Eight more companies are getting the chance to join the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System, bringing the total number of participating firms to more than 50. The Air Force added ARES Security, AT&T, Centauri, Cogniac, NanoVMs, Pacific Defense, SRC, and Systematic to an open-ended ...
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 ...
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is eyeing new strides in artificial intelligence and biological technology as it lays plans for fiscal 2022, its acting director said July 30. Former DARPA Director Steven H. Walker’s departure to industry in January offers an “opportunity to rethink ...
The Air Force wants its follow-on to the venerable MQ-9 Reaper to move beyond the surveillance and strike roles, and be able to conduct air-to-air and base defense missions with increased autonomy to lessen the number of people in the loop, the service’s top acquisition ...
House appropriators want to severely limit funding for the Air Force's new Advanced Battle Management System, while also restricting the series of ABMS exercises. The Air Force's fiscal 2021 budget calls for more than $302 million for ABMS —its “system of systems” linking space, air, ...
Michael J. K. Kratsios, the White House’s 33-year-old chief technology officer, is the new acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, effective July 10, the Pentagon announced July 13. He fills in behind Michael D. Griffin, whose last day was also July 10. Griffin ...
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 ...