Air Force

The U.S. military requires new, high-agility interceptors and a layer of space-based sensors to defend against hypersonic threats, the presumed next defense secretary told lawmakers today, shedding new light on Defense Department thinking about elements of a hypersonic defense system.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is not expected to meet the military's goal of 80% mission-capable rates by the end of fiscal year 2019 because of supply shortages, the president's nominee to be defense secretary told Senate lawmakers today, despite confidence from military officials earlier this year.

SpaceX is pushing back on Air Force attempts to have the company's recent lawsuit dismissed, claiming in a document filed this week with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that the court has jurisdiction to hear the case.

Lawmakers have turned down a Pentagon gambit to accelerate the Space Development Agency's launch, citing concern about the sudden resignation last month of the agency's director and shifting plans for the new entity. The move signals Congress' flagging confidence in Under Secretary of Defense Mike Griffin's project to rapidly develop, acquire and field next-generation space capabilities.

The Air Force intends to add two years and $20 million to the ceiling value of a Lockheed Martin contract for global strike software, in support of U.S. Strategic Command’s mission planning and operations system.

Although the Pentagon did not ask for reprogramming authority for a key Air Force missile warning program in its recent omnibus request, the director of the Air Force's space acquisition programs confirmed today the service still intends to send a separate reprogramming to Congress in order to keep the program on schedule.

More than a dozen GOP senators last week revolted against the Trump administration's current budget negotiation strategy, which they said calls for potentially funding the federal government with a stopgap spending measure for a full year and requesting Congress provide special exemptions for new Pentagon spending.

The Air Force Research Lab's effort to rapidly field autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles enabled with artificial intelligence may soon have a formal procurement strategy and a place in the service’s fiscal year 2021 budget.

The Pentagon is seeking congressional permission to shift $2.8 billion between budget accounts as part of an annual reallocation of funds the U.S. military has in hand, a move that seeks to launch a new hit-to-kill Army artillery round, kick start the Air Force's O/A-X light-attack aircraft program and inject additional funds into a project to develop a road-mobile hypersonic strike weapon.