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.
The Space Superiority Weapons Instructor Course looks a lot different today than it did 30 years ago—a reflection of the growing importance of space to joint operations and the elevation of what was then a small cadre within the Air Force to its own separate service.