Air Force

The Defense Department is on the cusp of seizing the lead in maneuvering hypersonic technology development from China and Russia and is poised next year to ramp up flight tests to as many 40 over the next four years, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Senior Pentagon officials for months have publicly touted an internal budget review said to have "harvested" $5.7 billion in "savings" that can be reinvested in military modernization and readiness, but the process, along with newly surfaced documents breaking down the cost cutting, is generating heartburn on Capitol Hill.

The Air Force expects to restart Small Diameter Bomb production next month after previously undisclosed safety deficiencies with the Small Diameter Bomb II led prime contractor Raytheon to halt production last July.

After completing a critical design review in March for its next-generation GPS satellites, the Space and Missile Systems Center expects the program to achieve milestone C and a production decision by June 30.

The Missile Defense Agency's partnership with commercial space companies to develop and set in orbit nearly two-dozen sensors, a prototype project called the Space-based Kill Assessment, allowed the government to avoid spending $700 million to develop the same capability using traditional acquisition practices, according to a senior MDA official.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s fiscal year 2021 defense policy bill largely rejects the Air Force's divest-to-invest budget strategy, calling on the service to maintain certain legacy fleets it had wanted to retire and sustain a minimum wartime aircraft capacity level for each of its mission sets.

The Senate Armed Services Committee's fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill would bar the Pentagon from complying with the Federal Communications Commission's decision to approve Ligado Networks' L-band network until the Defense Department submits cost estimates associated with potential GPS interference.

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 25-2 Wednesday evening to approve its version of the fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill, including billions of dollars in new U.S. military investments focused on deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Funding for U.S. military modernization priorities touted by the Trump administration's 2018 National Defense Strategy, projects that enjoyed growth across five consecutive annual budgets, is now forecast to be feeble in the Pentagon's future years spending program, according to data-science company Govini.