Air Force Materiel Command’s Arnold Engineering Development Center is running tests on the F118-100 GE engine—the power plant for the Air Force’s B-2 bomber fleet—to ensure the new components of a service life extension program have no detrimental effect on the engine. The engine performance, say officials, should be the same as it has been, but the revamped engines should have improved sustainability and supportability. So far, so good, they say, noting that they met more objectives on the first run than anticipated. They expect to complete 90 hours of run time through the end of March. AEDC ran similar tests on a refurbished U-2 engine, completing tests ahead of schedule.
The Space Force has accepted an upgrade to its Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance telescope for operations, bringing increased visibility into orbit to its Maui Space Surveillance Complex in Hawaii. The modernized variant, called the Ground-Based Optical Sensor System, has double the field of view of the older version, a…