In October 2022, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration Frank Calvelli released his nine “tenets” of space acquisition, meant to guide the future of the Space Force’s capabilities. His very first step: Build smaller satellites. Nearly two years later, the service ...
The Space Force is ramping up its investment in domain awareness to stay ahead in the increasingly contested space environment, and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman described the effort as essential to his “Competitive Endurance” theory meant to guide the entire service.
Space is a warfighting domain, and to ensure superiority in that domain, the Space Force and U.S. Space Command need to field and demonstrate a full range of capabilities—including counterspace weapons—a new paper from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a panel of experts ...
After a long period in which munitions were almost an afterthought and sacrificed to pay for other priorities, the Air Force needs to focus on them in order to have the right “package” of capabilities for future conflicts, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown ...
It would cost $7 billion to keep flying the 32 Block 20 F-22 aircraft the Air Force wants to retire in its fiscal 2024 budget request—money it feels must be spent on the Next Generation Air Dominance system, the USAF's top programmer said.
As the Space Development Agency celebrates the successful first launch of its planned constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, director Derek M. Tournear says he's no longer concerned about China or Russia trying to shoot U.S. satellites down. By deploying hundreds of satellites in SDA's new Proliferated ...
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proven that air superiority is vital to success in conflict, Gen. James B. Hecker, the top U.S. Air Force commander in Europe, said March 22. In a Mitchell Institute event, Hecker argued that if Russia had gained air superiority early ...
The Air Force needs a new force-sizing construct to budget and plan to, but first has to figure out a force-presentation model to combatant commanders that’s worded in language and metrics common with the rest of the Joint force, Lt. Gen. James C. Slife, deputy ...
The Space Force made resiliency its No. 1 priority in 2022, with proliferated constellations of satellites a focus of this program to ensure systems remain operable even if some elements are lost. This year, resiliency is “baked into all the conversations,” said assistant secretary of ...
Manpower, material, and funding remain the foundation—and a key concern—for the Air Force’s top-to-bottom nuclear modernization effort, a pair of top generals said Jan. 24. That modernization effort covers everything from personnel to weapons systems to entire facilities, and the service must execute this massive ...
When the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meets in Germany late this month, provision of fighters to Ukraine will be a key topic of discussion, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and retired Gen. Tod D. Wolters said. While he thinks it should happen, he sees the ...
The Space Force is poised for two major changes in November, with a new Chief of Space Operations taking command early in the month and the service’s component for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command standing up a few weeks later. Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David ...