The Air Force’s space enterprise is busy designing, building, and delivering a healthy number of new satellite systems, but the military space enterprise is not immune to the same sorts of industrial base concerns that haunt other USAF mission areas....

The Air Force undersecretary has also served as executive agent for space, but Erin Conaton, who was nominated Nov. 10 to fill the post, is being brought in for her management expertise and does not have the same space background...

Gen. Gary North, Pacific Air Forces boss, observed Nov. 20 at AFA’s Global Warfare Symposium in California that the Pacific region includes five of the world’s largest militaries—China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and India. He said, one (not named,...

Overall space budgets will be uncertain the next few years, but USAF needs to keep pushing to make space capabilities more responsive, said Gen. Bob Kehler, head of Air Force Space Command. The nation needs operationally responsive space “as a...

The $7 billion, multi-year program to upgrade the Minuteman III ICBM through guidance and propulsion replacement programs is essentially complete, and the Air Force was recently instructed by Congress to plan on maintaining the nuclear missiles not just to 2020,...

The Pentagon’s cadre of nuclear experts grew so shallow after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of Strategic Air Command that the Joint Staff recently had to turn to the US Strategic Command staff at Offutt AFB,...

The Air Force is now flying 37 continuous remotely piloted vehicle combat air patrols in the US Central Command war zone, said Lt. Gen. Larry James, commander of 14th Air Force at Vandenburg AFB, Calif. The CAPs comprise 31 MQ-1...

USAF not only sent its new F-22 Raptors to participate in the Dubai Air Show in the United Arab Emirates, but also sent six to participate in coalition training at UAE’s Air Warfare Center from Nov. 15 to Dec. 10....

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told Politico in an interview that the program turmoil the service encountered in 2009 is not the end; he expects “continuing resource constraints and program challenges.” Defense analysts testifying Thursday before the House Armed Services...

Erin Conaton faced members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday during her confirmation hearing to be the undersecretary of the Air Force. She was nominated just last week to fill the post that has been vacant since August 2007....

Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau, kicked off the first joint conference of senior Air National Guard and Army National Guard leaders Nov. 19 in Washington, D.C., saying, “I am convinced we have the right...

The Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Georgia is hiring, in fact, according to a report by The Sun News, center commander Maj. Gen. Polly Peyer, told industry representatives at the seventh annual Requirements Symposium in Perry, Ga., “We are...

Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) and members of the Bay Defense Alliance met in Washington, D.C., with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz to sing praises of Tyndall AFB, Fla., and ensure it will continue to train F-22 pilots....

Active duty and Air Force Reserve Command airmen transported four dolphins and their handlers from the Navy’s Marine Mammals Program in San Diego to New Caledonia, where they were to help locate and dispose of more than 200 World War...

When the space shuttle Atlantis lifted off this week from Florida, it was transporting the Air Force Academy’s Miniaturized Electrostatic Analyzer, a project known as MESA and developed by the academy’s physics department to measure plasma density, temperature, and spacecraft...

Air Sorties in Southwest Asia, Nov. 16, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 28 32 60 15,042 CAS/Armed Recon 15 78 93 31,202 Airlift 167 167 43,116 Air refueling 45 45 15,349 Total 365 104,709 OIF=Operation Iraqi...