The Air Force science and technology community has begun work to demonstrate a high-velocity penetrating weapon, reusable space-access system, and new cyber capability under a promising new initiative, said Stephen Walker, USAF’s deputy assistant secretary of science, technology, and engineering, Tuesday. These projects are part of the service’s new “flagship capability concepts,” under which the Air Force Research Lab is pursuing capabilities that address the service’s highest priority needs, Walker told the House Armed Services Committee’s emerging threats and capabilities panel in testimony on the service’s Fiscal 2012 S&T funding request. “These are large-scale, integrated demonstrations of technology,” explained Walker. The goal has been to line up these activities so that they could smoothly feed into potential future programs of record for fielding the capabilities, he said.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.