Sentinel ICBM to Have First Launch in 2027, Go Operational by Early 2030s

Feb. 17, 2026 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force will finish restructuring the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program by the end of this year, achieve its first test launch of the ICBM by 2027, and reach initial operational capability by the early 2030s.

The service announced the new plan in a Feb. 17 release. Breaking Defense first reported the timeline based on an interview with Gen. Dale R. White, the new czar for the Air Force’s biggest programs.

Those new dates are sooner than officials had estimated after Sentinel’s massive cost and schedule overruns triggered a congressional notification and a Pentagon review under the Nunn-McCurdy Act.

The review concluded in July 2024 with then-Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante announcing that the program’s projected cost had spiked to $140.9 billion and its schedule had slipped “several years” from its projected initial operational capability of 2029—though no firm timeline was given.

LaPlante certified that Sentinel was critical for national defense and could continue. He did, however, rescind the program’s “Milestone B” certification allowing officials to work on engineering and manufacturing development and directed officials to restructure the program. Air Force budget documents estimated that that process would last into 2027.

Timing for the first launch had also been in flux. Before the Nunn-McCurdy breach, officials were hoping to hold the test in early 2026. But by 2025, the Government Accountability Office was projecting it no earlier than March 2028 and the Air Force itself said it had no timeline.

The Air Force originally reached Milestone B in 2020 when it selected Northrop Grumman to build Sentinel. At the time, it hoped to achieve first flight in 2023 and initial operational capability in 2029.

Sentinel is meant to serve as the land leg of America’s nuclear triad and replace the Minuteman III, which has been in service since the 1970s despite having an original design life of 10 years.

Officials have said the Sentinel program is one of the most complex modernization efforts the Air Force has ever undertaken. The biggest challenge they have identified is the sheer scale of the infrastructure needed—there are 450 missile silos spread across five states, connected by thousands of miles of cables and wires, and those structures date all the way back to the original Minuteman program in the early 1960s.

Originally, the Air Force planned to refurbish those silos for Sentinel. But during the restructure process, officials determined that the extent of work needed was so great that it would actually be faster to build new facilities.

“The restructured program incorporates key lessons learned to ensure maximum efficiency,” the Air Force release states. “The decision to build new silos, for example, avoids the unpredictable costs and safety hazards of excavating and retrofitting 450 unique structures built over 50 years ago, and is a prime example of choosing a path that delivers capability with greater speed and less risk.”

During the restructuring process, the Air Force briefly ordered Northrop Grumman to halt all work on the design and construction of launch facilities. After about eight months, however, work resumed, and the service and contractor claim they’ve managed to make significant progress even during the restructure.

That progress includes qualification tests on both the first and second stages of the Sentinel’s solid rocket motor, plus a design review of the “Launch Support System,” the digital backbone for testing the new intercontinental ballistic missile over its entire lifespan.

More milestones are coming before the restructure is complete: The Air Force release states that construction on a new prototype missile silo will start this month at Northrop’s Promontory, Utah, facility. Then this summer, the Air Force will start prototyping “utility corridor construction methods” at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., to support the cabling needed for the new silos.

“The Sentinel program is moving forward with purpose and momentum,” White said in a statement. “We have the right strategy, we are proving the technology, and we will deliver on our promise to provide our Airmen with the modern, credible system they need to deliver the unwavering deterrence our nation requires.”

Space Force Surveys Industry For Refueling Tech

Feb. 17, 2026 | By Courtney Albon

As the Space Force continues to weigh the military utility and economic viability of refueling satellites in orbit, it’s asking industry for systems that could start doing so by 2030.

The Feb. 13 request for information, which will help inform Space Force decisions on how and if to take advantage of commercial refueling capabilities, is geared toward companies with satellite servicing vehicles already equipped with one of the two standard interfaces Space Systems Command’s System Engineering Review Board has approved in recent years—Orbit Fab’s Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface and Northrop Grumman’s Passive Refueling Module.

“Industry solutions for refueling of national security space assets equipped with these SERB-approved interfaces are sought to meet sustained space maneuver needs by 2030,” the notice states.

The service is particularly interested in vehicles that have achieved the equivalent of a preliminary design review, which means it’s ready to be demonstrated in a representative environment. The notice also requests information about the system’s supporting ground architecture and any demonstrations planned over the next three years.

The 2030 timeline matches the service’s schedule for delivering its first fleet of satellites that could potentially be designed with the option to be refueled in orbit—a space domain awareness program called RG-XX. The service is weighing whether to make refuelability a requirement for those spacecraft, which will augment capabilities provided by Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program. GSSAP satellites provide a neighborhood watch capability but have limited ability to maneuver or change orbits due to thrust and fuel constraints.

The program will likely be the Space Force’s first operational application of on-orbit refueling, but the Space Force’s long-term vision for the capability is unclear. U.S. Space Command has argued that future spacecraft, particularly those performing the space domain awareness mission, need to be able to perform “dynamic space operations,” meaning they can more freely move to observe or avoid potential threats. A report last year from AFA’s Mitchell Institute argued that the Space Force should take more decisive steps to cultivate the technology needed to enable DSO, which could include refueling as well as other logistics capabilities.

“The potential inclusion of in-space logistics, like refueling, is not only about increasing the lifespan of a GSSAP vehicle, but also its ability to conduct more operations to significantly increase mission utility,” the report argued. “But without a steady and reliable growth in resources to support DSO, systems like GSSAP will continue to operate more like blimps than F-35s.”

For now, the Space Force is still wrestling with questions about whether refueling is the answer to Space Command’s need for more maneuverable satellites. Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Shawn Bratton said last month the debate over refueling is still an active one. On one hand, topping off a space domain awareness satellite at the start of a conflict could ensure that spacecraft will be available longer and for more dynamic operations. However, he said, it’s not clear yet whether that added service life is worth the investment.

“We have a really good handle on the cost curve of when it becomes economically beneficial to start refueling a constellation,” Bratton said during a Jan. 21 event at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. “It has to do with the size of the constellation and the cost of each spacecraft. And so we’re getting really good information on sort of when it makes sense for economic reasons. I don’t know that that’s the exact same thing as military advantage.”

As the service moves forward with RG-XX, it also has several demonstrations planned for the next few years, which it says will help inform the way ahead for refueling and in-space servicing writ large. Some of those will involve refueling satellites, like the Tetra-5 mission slated to launch later this year. During this demonstration—sponsored by the Space Force and Air Force Research Laboratory—a satellite fitted with Orbit Fab’s interface will dock with an on-orbit fuel depot.

The Space Force has also contracted with Northrop Grumman to develop a satellite “tanker” called GAS-T. The company announced the award last year, but hasn’t shared details about the timing of the mission.

Other missions will showcase solutions to augment the propulsion systems of satellites that don’t have a refueling port. Under a DARPA-funded mission slated for later this year, Northrop’s Mission Extension Vehicle will use a robotic arm to move a satellite and install an external pod to serve as a “jetpack” meant to provide the satellite with additional thrust.

Earlier this month, the Space Force awarded Starfish Space a $54 million contract to deliver one of the company’s Otter servicing spacecraft by 2028. Otter is designed to attach to a satellite that’s not equipped with a servicing interface and provide maneuver capabilities. The company in January won a separate contract from the Space Development Agency to use Otter spacecraft to dispose of defunct satellites in low Earth orbit.

“Otter addresses a critical need for sustained space operations and maximizes the capabilities national security assets can deliver to the Warfighter,” the company said in a Feb. 7 statement. “The award underscores a broader shift toward on-orbit servicing as a core element of national space architecture and represents Otter’s transition into a sustained, operational capability.”

USAFA Board Seeks More Cadets, New Facilities

Feb. 17, 2026 | By Greg Hadley

The U.S. Air Force Academy should grow its cadet corps by 10 percent and build a “home” for the U.S. Space Force on site, rather than create an entirely new service academy, a congressionally mandated oversight committee writes in a new report.

USAFA’s Board of Visitors—comprised both of members appointed by the President and multiple members of Congress—briefed its conclusions to Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink on Feb. 5. Board Chair Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), a member of USAFA’s class of 2000, said the report calls for a “generational investment” in all the military service academies to modernize facilities and enhance programs.

The Air Force Academy’s ’s 1950s-era infrastructure is in dire need of upgrades and modernization, the report says, and includes in its recommendations a proposed “tri-complex” of buildings to house a new “Air, Space, and Cyber Education Center.”

The goal is to encourage Meink and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to begin implementing recommendations in the fiscal 2027 budget request, due to Congress this spring.

“I am immensely proud that the U.S. Air Force Academy Board of Visitors has completed a forward-focused, comprehensive report for Secretary Hegseth outlining concrete recommendations to strengthen the Academy’s institutional effectiveness,” said Pfluger, a former F-22 pilot, in a statement. “At a time when global operations continue to highlight the decisive role of airpower, these recommendations reflect our commitment to ensuring the Academy remains focused on and equipped to develop the warfighters and leaders needed for future complex, multi-domain conflict. I look forward to working with Secretary Hegseth and Secretary Meink to turn these recommendations into lasting improvements for the Academy and our Air Force and Space Force.”

The Academy’s cadet wing has hovered around 4,000 members in recent years, down from more than 4,300 a decade ago and consistently fewer than the 4,300-4,400-member corps at the U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Military Academy.

The Board of Visitors blamed the shortfall on budget cuts dating back to sequestration, rather than lack of interest, and the implications of smaller graduating classes have grown greater as the school’s mission has expanded to serve two services, rather than one.

“Restoring the Air Force Academy cadet wing to its pre-sequestration level of 4,400 is a strategic necessity,” the board report stated. “This increase is critical to compensate for the graduates who now commission into the newly formed Space Force, ensuring the Air Force’s officer production numbers remain robust. Furthermore, this action would re-establish parity with our sister service academies, reinforcing the Air Force Academy’s standing as a premier institution for developing future military leaders.”

A 10 percent increase in the cadet wing would essentially match the share of USAFA graduates who commissioned into the Space Force over the past four years, which has stood between 9.5 percent and 10.2 percent in that time. By comparison, the Naval Academy—which also feeds into two services—contributes about a quarter of its graduates to the Marine Corps.

The Marine Corps, of course, is far larger than the Space Force, but as USSF leaders pursue an aggressive expansion plan in the years ahead, its appetite for new officers will continue to grow. In 2021, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a former Auburn University football coach, suggested the Space Force may one day need its own service academy, but he is now a member of the Board of Visitors, which concluded in its report that such an idea is off the table.

“The cost of land acquisition and construction of academic, housing, and training facilities for a standalone institution would be substantial,” the board wrote. “By leveraging the existing infrastructure of the Air Force Academy, we can provide world-class facilities for our [future] Guardians at a fraction of the cost, ensuring responsible stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars.”

Instead, the board proposes a new complex of three buildings:

A “home” for the Space Force: The plan would provide future Guardians a “dedicated center for professional development and esprit de corps,” the report states.

An Unmanned Aerial Systems Center of Excellence: Noting that both the Naval Academy and West Point already have drone programs, the board asserts that “the Air Force Academy should be leading the other Service Academies in drone research, tactics, techniques and procedures, and adaptation for future warfare.” The Air Force did have an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Center of Excellence at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., 21 years ago, but closed it to make way for a Joint Center. USAFA, the board argues, is a perfect location for a new Air Force center, because of its ample airspace.

Multi-Domain Operations: Co-locating different departments in the complex will “enable the convergence of effects by physically and organizationally integrating cadets and faculty from disparate fields,” the report states, encouraging them to think of ways to use air, space, and cyber effects holistically, instead of in stovepipes.

“The United States cannot meet tomorrow’s national security threats with yesterday’s constraints,” said Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) in a statement. “Restoring the Air Force Academy to 4,400 cadets, addressing our aging infrastructure, and providing Space Force Guardians with a permanent home are mission-critical to maintaining American dominance in air and space.”

Increasing enrollment and building new buildings means overcoming challenges. Faculty cuts imposed by sequestration was a driving factor in reduced admissions, and USAFA’s faculty is in the midst of another transition following a wave of faculty resignations in 2025 in response to the Department of Government Efficiency’s Deferred Resignation Program. In addition, the academy is in the midst of a leadership overhaul in which its top positions will all change this year.

The board notes that the ratio of civilian to military instructors grew over the past decade, and wants the Air Force Manpower Analysis Center to review faculty requirements to determine the best possible blend of civilian and military instructors. “The audit should [also] include an assessment of the number of faculty and staff required if cadet end strength was increased to 4,400,” the report states.

The recent leadership overhaul, in which Superintendent Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind and Commandant of Cadets Brig. Gen. Gavin Marks will both retire this year presents a separate challenge. The school is also getting a new Dean of Faculty; following a months-long vacancy, Col. James Valpiani has been nominated for that job.

Meanwhile, investing in new buildings will come up against pressing needs for other infrastructure work for a facility approaching 70 years old. “The majority of … infrastructure, built in the late 1950s, has far exceeded its expected lifespan,” the report states. “This has led to significant life-health-safety concerns, with degraded conditions causing health incidents among cadets.”

The board called on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to “prioritize robust and sustained funding” for USAFA infrastructure improvements beginning with the 2027 National Defense Authorization bill. More broadly, the report argues that “reinvesting in [all] our nation’s Military Service Academies” should be a major theme of the 2027 NDAA, akin to past focuses on acquisition reform or service member quality of life. It seeks a congressionally directed commission to study the issues facing the nation’s service academies, including admissions, accreditation, and athletics.

The board’s report also seeks:

A review of discipline procedures at USAFA after questions about due process and transparency in how each academy disciplines cadets and midshipmen

More support and communication from Academy and Pentagon leadership with the Board of Visitors, and

Air Force funding for five board focus groups to study major issues facing the Academy

The USAFA Board of Visitors currently includes:

Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), chair

Retired Col. Doug “Stoli” Nikolai, vice chair

Sen. Tommy Tuberville

Dan Clark

Dina Powell

Robert Bigelow

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.)

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.)

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.)

Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.)

Rep. Jeff Crank (R-Colo.)

Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.)

Members in bold are USAFA graduates

El Paso Airspace Shutdown Is ‘Case Study’ in Complexity of Counter-Drone Ops: Experts

Feb. 14, 2026 | By Matthew Cox

The use of a military counter-drone laser on the southwest border this week—which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas—will be a “case study” on the complex web of authorities needed to employ such weapons near civilian areas and the consequences of agencies failing to coordinate properly, experts say.

The FAA ordered a 10-day shutdown of all flight traffic over El Paso after U.S. military units operating on the U.S.-Mexico border allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to use a military laser designed for counter-drone operations, according to a report by the Associated Press confirmed by Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The shutdown wound up lasting only a few hours before airspace was reopened, but the abrupt disruption to air traffic caused confusion and panic and quickly led to lawmakers and public officials demanding answers.

Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has called for answers, questioning whether proper safety protocols were followed, and why public communications “appear to have been inconsistent” about what occurred over El Paso.

“The airspace closure over El Paso triggered immediate chaos and confusion and cannot be dismissed as a minor misunderstanding, Reed wrote in a Feb. 11 statement. “The conflicting accounts coming from different parts of the federal government only deepen public concern and raise serious questions about coordination and decision-making.”

U.S. officials have provided few official details about the incident except to say it involved Mexican drug cartels flying drones at the border. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA and the Pentagon “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” according to Feb. 11 post on X.

U.S. Northern Commander’s Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot told lawmakers in March 2024 that roughly 1,000 incursions by unmanned aircraft systems occur daily along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The incident is the latest high-profile example of the threats drones—even small, cheap ones—present to the U.S. homeland. While this threat was at the border near the Army’s Fort Bliss, the Air Force has been dealing with the issue since December 2023, when unidentified drone swarms flew unchecked over Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., for several days. Other drone incursions followed over air bases in Ohio, Utah, and other locations, compelling the Air Force and its sister services to place a top priority on finding ways to detect, identify, track and, if necessary, bring down these small, inexpensive drones.

Last year, the Pentagon began scrambling to buy low-collateral counter-drone technology that’s safe to use near populated areas, and the Air Force and other services have been investing hundreds of millions on counter-drone weapons.

Experts that have followed the government’s counter-drone effort have warned that using such weapons will require coordination with the FAA and other agencies. Now, those same experts are cringing at the apparent lack of coordination between the Pentagon and FAA.

“In terms of interagency coordination, this is a pretty bad scenario. … There was a failure to communicate between the military, CBP—which was actually using the laser, I understand—and the FAA,” said Henry Ziemer, an associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This is a case study in how not to do it.”

Zeimer, who has focused on criminal organizations in Latin America, recently wrote a CSIS commentary on the need for a “drone wall” to counter drone usage by drug cartels on the southwest border.

“Criminal organizations are nothing if not adaptable, and so when you see a crackdown in one area, like we’ve seen on sort of land crossings along the border, they adapt,” Zeimer said. “Drones have been super useful in that regard and allow cartels to survey large stretches of the border to try and identify where the border patrol presence is and reorient their routes and figure out where to go next.”

“Most of the incursions don’t cross into U.S. airspace, but they’re hovering right just outside, observing the border patrols … and figuring out where they are,” he added.

A key challenge of countering the drone threat over military installations has been ensuring military commanders have the proper authorities they need to bring down potentially hostile drones if necessary. While details are still emerging, the Feb. 11 incident occurred in the area of Fort Bliss, Texas, which now sits adjacent to a new “National Defense Area” that runs between Bliss and the Southwest border for the purpose of “denying illegal activity along the southern border,” according to a May 2025 NORTHCOM announcement.

The Pentagon’s Joint Inter-Agency Task Force 401, which focuses on finding counter-drone solutions, recently published updated guidance designed to empower “installation commanders to take decisive action to protect military facilities, assets, and personnel within the homeland.”

The new guidance is designed to streamline policies for counter-drone operations under authority of U.S. law governing the protection of certain facilities and assets from drones, by providing commanders with more options such as allowing drone-defense activities to go beyond an installation’s fenceline, according to the document.

Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, acknowledged the efforts the Pentagon has undertaken to counter drones over the U.S., but she said the incident in El Paso points to a lack of coordination and “shows how ill-prepared the U.S. Government writ large is for the small drone threat.”

“In trying to strip away some of the red tape, they’ve moved fast and haven’t necessarily ensured that the level of coordination that’s needed for some of these weapons to be employed,” Pettyjohn said, adding that she questions the decision to allow CBP members to employ counter-drone laser near a heavily traveled air corridor.

“Can you imagine if a laser hit a civilian airliner?” said Pettyjohn, who recently co-authored a CNAS report on protecting the joint force in the drone age. “It’s not just that the laser would damage an aircraft, it could blind the pilots and just cause an accident.”

It’s still unclear what laser technology was used in the El Paso drone incident. Reuters reported that the Army had deployed AeroVironment Inc’s LOCUST laser counter-drone weapon system near El Paso International Airport. AeroVironment delivered two Joint Light Tactical Vehicle equipped with 20 kilowatt laser systems to the Army in December as part of the second increment of the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser prototyping effort. The Army has conducted numerous tests of its Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense, or DE M-SHORAD, that’s equipped with a 50-kilowatt laser for counter-drone operations.

Air & Space Forces Magazine reached out to the Pentagon and NORTHCOM for this story. NORTHCOM deferred to the Pentagon, which did not respond to the query by press time.

Pettyjohn questions the amount of training CBP members received before being cleared to use such as weapon. Military air defense units have “deep expertise” in the capabilities of counter-drone laser weapons, which has come through years of testing, she said.

“I think this does highlight the risks of transferring advanced weapons system to Customs and Border Pretection agents, who are not trained on it necessarily and might not be as aware of some of the potential risks of employing these,” Pettyjohn said.

Pettyjohn said she thinks it’s appropriate for Pentagon officials to accept risk in trying to change some of the restrictions on using counter-drone systems in the U.S., “but they’re accepting a lot of risk by transferring them to someone else to use.”

“I think this does highlight questions about the appropriate roles of missions between the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon for this … and I think there needs to be clear guardrails for employing different types of counter-drone defeat systems in the U.S.,” Pettyjohn said. “Is the laser the appropriate system to be using on the border or for a base? I think there are questions about that and so, and if they are going to employ it, they need to make sure that they do so safely and deconflict with commercial traffic.”

Air Force Working with Collins, Shield AI to Build Autonomy Software for CCAs

Feb. 13, 2026 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force is working with Collins Aerospace and Shield AI to develop the software Collaborative Combat Aircraft will use to fly missions alongside manned fighters, the service revealed Feb. 12—and drone-maker General Atomics was quick to announce it has already flown its YFQ-42A aircraft with Collins’ system.

Shield AI, meanwhile, said Feb. 13 it expects to start flight testing its software on Anduril Industries’ YFQ-44A drone “in the coming months.”

The two companies are developing “mission” autonomy software, which will allow CCAs to take complex action when given basic directions from a pilot in a manned aircraft. Shield AI, for example, noted in a release that its system allows aircraft to “reroute around no-fly zones, avoid or engage obstacles, respond to unexpected conditions, and complete missions safely and effectively without human intervention.”

That’s separate from but related to the flight autonomy software responsible for executing basic or preplanned operations, like taking off, sticking to a flight path, or landing.

Anduril and General Atomics have been publicly competing to build the first aircraft for the CCA program since April 2024, and the Air Force has announced milestones like first flights and designations.

By comparison, the competition to build the software that will enable the drones to operate semi-autonomously had been kept largely secret until now. Back in July 2024, officials revealed that five companies were working on the “mission” software side of the program but declined to name them citing security concerns. Then, in September 2025, Aviation Week reported that Collins and Shield had been selected to move forward, but no official announcement followed.

Now, nearly six months later, the Air Force has confirmed the two firms’ selection. The service release touted the integration of both into the Autonomy Government Reference Architecture—the open, universal standard the government has set for mission autonomy software that all contractors must build their systems to comply with.

“Verifying A-GRA across multiple partners is critical to our acquisition strategy,” Col. Timothy Helfrich, portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft, said in a statement. “It proves that we are not locked into a single solution or a single vendor. We are instead building a competitive ecosystem where the best algorithms can be deployed rapidly to the warfighter on any A-GRA compliant platform, regardless of the vendor providing the algorithm.”

Collins is paired with General Atomics, while Shield AI is working with Anduril—feeding into the dynamic of “established Pentagon supplier vs. Silicon Valley startup” that has defined the GA-Anduril competition. Collins has gone through various mergers and acquisitions but traces its roots back decades, while Shield AI was founded in 2015 and quickly expanded with backing from venture capital firms.

Shortly after the Air Force made its announcement, General Atomics published its own release with additional details on how it has already started flight testing Collins’ software on the YFQ-42A.

YFQ-42 aircraft sit on the flightline at a California test location as part of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft flight test campaign. Courtesy photo

Testing began earlier this month, GA’s release states, and Collins’ software, dubbed “Sidekick,” controlled the drone for more than four hours. During that time, a human operator on the ground provided “various commands” to the drone and the software interpreted those commands and directed the aircraft to execute them “with high accuracy,” the release states.

GA’s release also notes that since the YFQ-42A made its first flight in August 2025, the company has built and flown “multiple” aircraft, including instances of “push-button autonomous takeoffs and landings”—using flight autonomy software separate from the mission software. An image accompanying the release shows three YFQ-42s on a flightline.

Ryan Bunge, vice president and general manager for strategic defense solutions at Collins, said in a statement that “the rapid integration of Sidekick onto this platform to perform various combat-relevant tasks highlight the strength and adaptability of Collins’ open systems approach. The autonomy capabilities showcased in this flight highlight nearly a decade of dedicated investment and close collaboration with our customers to advance collaborative mission autonomy.”

Anduril and Shield AI, meanwhile, released their own statements promising flight tests with Shield’s “Hivemind” autonomy software in the near future—Shield’s release states that flight demonstrations are expected “in the coming months,” while Anduril’s says the firm is looking forward to a first flight “very soon.”

Shield noted in its release that Hivemind has already operated on multiple other aircraft, including General Atomics’ MQ-20 Avenger drone, the U.S. Navy’s BQM-177 target drone, and Airbus’ H145 helicopter.

YFQ-44 aircraft are parked on the flightline at a California test location for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. Courtesy photo

“Shield AI is proud to be named a mission autonomy provider supporting the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program,” Gary Steele, the firm’s CEO, said in a statement. “The Air Force is moving with urgency to explore how autonomy can reshape air combat, and we have spent years preparing for this—building, testing, and flying mission autonomy in the real world. We will work relentlessly to deliver and to help advance the next era of airpower alongside the Air Force and its industry partners.”

Anduril, meanwhile, emphasized the YFQ-44A’s modularity.

“The aircraft’s simple design, external weapons stores, and open hardware and software architectures ensure that the aircraft can easily be configured with a range of mission systems, software suites, and payloads to support a wide variety of missions,” Jason Levin, senior vice president of engineering, said.

How the Space Force Is Managing Growth at Its Busiest Launch Range

Feb. 13, 2026 | By Courtney Albon

If the forecast holds, the world’s busiest spaceport is poised to get even busier.

The Space Force’s latest projections show that its Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida could be supporting as many as 500 launches annually by 2036—a fivefold increase over the next 10 years.

That forecast is based on business projections from each of the major launch companies who have pads at the spaceport, including SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin, as well as newcomers like Firefly, Stoke, and Relativity. Their backlogs are filled with commercial and government customers making plans for proliferated constellations with hundreds to thousands of satellites. They’re also seeing demand from the Pentagon itself, which is growing increasingly dependent on space for things like navigation and communication and wants more spacecraft to track and even intercept threats.

Rapid growth is nothing new for the range, which is home to both Cape Canaveral and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Over the last decade, SpaceX’s mastery of reusable rocketry and its prolific launch rate—combined with the rise of proliferated satellite constellations and demand for space-enabled services—has spiked the spaceport’s annual launch rate from around 18 missions in 2016 to 109 last year.

The Space Force in recent years been managing that growth by rethinking the way it operates its ranges, running them more like commercial spaceports than government launch facilities. That means streamlining processes, introducing more automation, relocating office buildings to increase efficiency, and pushing for policy changes that allow it to collect more fees from the companies that use its facilities and reinvest them in infrastructure improvement projects. Congress has allocated $1.3 billion between fiscal 2024 to 2028 for the service to make those improvements at the Cape and its West Coast range at Vandenberg Space Force in California, part of an effort called “Spaceport of the Future.”

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket rolls to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, before the USSF-87 mission. (Photo credit: United Launch Alliance)

Col. Brian Chatman, who oversees operations at the Cape as commander of Space Launch Delta 45, said that funding is helping reshape the landscape at the range, but there’s more work to be done and more resources needed to meet an annual cadence of 500 launches—a milestone he thinks could come much sooner than 2036.

Chatman’s instinct to be prepared for launch rates to grow faster than expected is based on past experience. In 2017, the Space Force projected the Eastern Range would hit the century mark—100 launchs per year—by 2030. The service reached that cadence in 2025.

“We’re laying in plans now for 500 in ‘36, but I would not be at all surprised if we saw that happen sooner,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an interview. “Right now, 500 by 2030 is really what I’m pushing the team to build the plans to.”

Spaceport of the Future

With funding in hand for the first phase of the Spaceport of the Future infrastructure overhaul, SLD 45 has spent much of the last two years in design mode, finalizing building plans and relocating offices to ensure it’s making the most of its limited footprint.

One such project involves relocating government workspaces that are currently scattered throughout what’s known as the “industrial area,” where launch service providers assemble and test their rockets and prepare hardware to be transported. By consolidating the government functions in another area of the range, Chatman said, companies can expand and use that space more efficiently.

Another project will move some of the range’s weather balloon release stations that are currently situated within one of the launch complex’s blast damage assessment areas, which can cause schedule issues that Chatman said have led to launches being scrubbed.

“Relocating the weather balloon release facility more inland to decouple it from the blast damage assessment area of one of the launch complexes allows us then to be able to continue to support weather balloon releases while, simultaneously, launches are happening, and allows people to access the weather balloon location to release those weather balloons while we’re doing hazardous operations in and around the launch sites,” he said.

Construction on these and other phase one projects will start early this year and continue for the next three years or so, Chatman said.

Spaceport 2036

But the work won’t stop after that. As the SLD 45 team completes the first round of projects, it’s also making plans for upgrades it will need to support the growth it expects by 2036, if not sooner—projects it didn’t account for as part of the Spaceport of the Future initiative. The service is still finalizing its strategy in partnership with NASA and its launch providers, and Chatman said the goal is to have it finalized this summer and then included as part of the Space Force’s fiscal 2028 budget request.

Through its meetings with industry, the Eastern Range team identified five broad focus areas it needs to address to support a higher launch cadence:

infrastructure and utilities

transportation and access limitations

commodity supply chains

process and organizational alignment

expanded launch support facilities

Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicle rolled out and upended for the first time to undergo a series of tanking and mechanical system tests on Feb. 21, 2024. Credit: Blue Origin

One major need, Chatman said, is for a transport lane dedicated to moving rocket boosters across the range. Today, the base relies on one main travel route to get on and off the Cape. Launch vendors use that same lane to transport rockets to the pad and—as more companies transition to reusable vehicles—to bring spent boosters back to their processing facilities.

That wasn’t an issue when the range was supporting 10 or 20 launches a year, but today, it presents a real challenge. Chatman said the issue was on full display last November after Blue Origin’s New Glenn made its second flight and the company recovered its booster. Getting the booster from the wharf to the company’s processing facility took more than four hours and caused major disruption to traffic flow.

“That was four and a half hours that we had to come up with alternate means for personnel just to get to work,” Chatman said. “I’ve got to have dedicated routes for those transports to happen, again, to maximize efficiency for all operations happening now on the Eastern Range.

The range is also considering changes to the way it provides utilities and delivers commodities, like fuel, to launch sites. Today, it moves fuel via hundreds of trucks and is seeing a growing demand for power and wastewater treatment, Chatman said.

“As we look to increase the amount of launches, that increases the amount of wastewater that is being produced,” he said. “A wastewater treatment facility that can grow and stay on par with the requirements to be able to handle that wastewater coming off those launch vehicles is something we didn’t account for in the first Spaceport of the Future.”

Near-Term Needs

While the bulk of these projects will be included in future budget requests, Chatman said the range is hopeful it might be able to secure funding for a few more pressing needs in the fiscal 2027 budget, due for release this spring. That includes the booster transport lane and some of the commodity distribution needs.

Chatman said he’s also trying to make a case for more near-term funding to fill personnel gaps. SLD 45 has 3,000 personnel, about 2,000 of them government civilians. The range has never fully recovered from cuts made during sequestration in 2012 and then took an additional hit last year as civilian employees left via the government’s deferred resignation program.

U.S. Space Force Capt. Erin Davis, 1st Range Operations Squadron range operations commander, maintains situational awareness during the Falcon 9 Starlink 6-78 mission, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, Nov. 20, 2025. U.S. Space Force photo by Gwendolyn Kurzen

Today, the range has 450 approved but unfilled manpower billets that Chatman said he lacks the funding to fill. Those positions are crucial during what could be five to 10 years of construction at the Eastern Range, providing everything from legal support to navigate environmental regulations to maintaining day-to-day operations.

“The team is absolutely getting after it, but one of the conversations we’re having within Space Systems Command and across the Air Force and Space Force is, I need some additional bodies to be able to meet that cadence we have going forward,” Chatman said. “We are methodically going through and executing as fast and as hard as we can, but within the constraints that we have, just from a limited manpower and resourcing perspective.”

Pentagon Brings ChatGPT into Its Official AI Tool Set

Feb. 13, 2026 | By Todd South

The Pentagon’s adoption of generative artificial intelligence tools—including the recent addition of the world’s most popular model, ChatGPT—holds promise for more efficient work for Department of Defense personnel but also poses risks unless users remain vigilant, experts told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The department announced Feb. 9 it was adding OpenAI’s ChatGPT to its GenAI.mil platform, which uses machine learning on large data sets to function as a chatbot and produce text, images, or software code based on unclassified information.

GenAI.mil launched in December, using Google’s Gemini for Government GPT and later adding xAI’s government suite, based on its Grok model. Already, the platform has surpassed one million unique users.

The addition of ChatGPT may fuel further interest and growth. OpenAI is largely credited with launching a boom in generative AI, and ChatGPT remains the most popular version of the technology. According to a January study of web traffic, ChatGPT accounted for nearly 65 percent of generative AI chatbot site visits among the general public, triple that of Google’s Gemini.

Gregory Touhill, a retired Air Force brigadier general who now serves as the director of cybersecurity at Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that expanded access to AI is important because Airmen and Guardians need it to be competitive.

“I think it’s important for our Airmen today, we want our Airmen to be well prepared for the future, and the future is racing toward us now,” Touhill said. “AI is a tool that our Airmen and our Guardians can use to obtain decisive capabilities in the cyber domain.”

Touhill and SEI are currently working with the Pentagon and other agencies to develop risk management processes for using AI in government settings, he said.

Touhill added that he’s confident AI can help service members automate and eliminate tasks to do more faster. But more importantly, AI can potentially free Airmen and Guardians from lesser tasks so they can apply more time to higher-order work.

Caleb Withers, a research assistant in the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, foresees AI benefiting prototyping, wargaming, research, and bureaucratic paper-pushing. “With wide adoption, I imagine these tools will quickly become some of the most used,” Withers said.

But Touhill and Withers cautioned that AI also poses real risks as its use grows. “The security challenge is the fusion of hardware, software, and wetware,” Touhill said, the last term referring to the humans using AI. “We don’t want our Airmen and Guardians disclosing information into a system not designed to process that information. Once it’s in, it’s part of the system; it’s not like you can back away and wipe it clean.”

Using official defense applications and not open commercial solutions is one step to protecting information loss. Good training, common sense, and protocols will also help, Withers said, as does a skeptical approach to AI use.

“These systems are not yet fully reliable, and in some cases can be quite unreliable or fail,” Withers said. “There’s a risk of overconfidence in them.”

In June 2024, the Air Force Research Laboratory rolled out its own generative AI for the Air Force, called NIPRGPT. NIPR stands for Non-secure Internet Protocol Router network, or the unclassified Internet for the military. Adoption was swift: 80,000 users in NIPRGPT’s first three months and 700,000 users before the pathfinder program was shut down in December to make way for GenAI.mil.

The Army had also developed its own generative AI tool, known as CamoGPT. The two services briefly clashed last April when the Army blocked NIPRGPT from its networks, citing cybersecurity and data concerns. Chief Technology Officer Gabriel Chiulli of the Army’s Enterprise Cloud Management Agency told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the time that blocking NIPRGPT was part of a wider move by the Army to shift from experimentation with AI tools to full implementation.

“The block was focused on getting us to a governance framework for AI used in a production state,” he said. “We were trying to make sure we had the guardrails in place for how we’re doing AI for real.”

Now the Pentagon-wide GenAI.mil platform is the only approved AI platform, enabling the military to absorb the latest models, tailored for government use at a uniform location.

Touhill called NIPRGPT a “bold initiative,” an early effort to get a specific large language model in the hands of Airmen and Guardians. “It’s like training on a simulator that actually has some live data,” Touhill said. “It was a good first step in getting Airmen and Guardians comfortable using AI.”

GenAI.mil is likely to expand to include other AI tools, Withers predicts, just as it has recently added ChatGPT. Different generative AIs excel at different tasks, he said, and no one single solution will enable DOD to maximize AI’s potential to tackle different problems.

Pentagon to Restock Massive Ordnance Penetrator Bombs Dropped by B-2s on Iran

Feb. 12, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. military is moving to restock its supply of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bombs it used against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities last June, according to Air Force documents.

The Air Force is finalizing a deal with Boeing worth over $100 million to replace the bombs it used to pummel Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites.

In partially redacted documents released on a government website Feb. 12, the service said the acquisition is “critically needed to replenish the inventory of GBU-57s expended during Operation Midnight Hammer.”

The service is also continuing its competition for the next-generation weapons to take out deeply buried targets.

U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped 14 weapons on the sites in the operation on June 22, 2025. Each of the B-2s carried two MOPs. Six of the bombs were dropped on Fordow and two were dropped on Natanz. Operation Midnight Hammer was the first time the 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs were used operationally.

A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit is prepared for operations ahead of Operation Midnight Hammer at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, June 2025. USAF photo

The redacted documents are intended to provide a justification for not awarding a fully competitive contract for the specially designed munition.

“This action is essential to restore operational readiness … and ensure Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) possesses the necessary assets to support strategic contingency war plans for all Combatant Commands (COCOMs),” according to the document.

The documents do not say how many MOPs the U.S. government is purchasing in the forthcoming deal, which is set to be the last lot of GBU-57s purchased by the U.S. military before moving on to its new Next-Generation Penetrator, or NGP.

Even before the release of the documents, there were signs that the Pentagon was repurposing funds so it could buy more of the bombs. A reprogramming request in August of last year for $123 million stated that funds were needed to replace the MOPs used in Operation Midnight Hammer.

The newly released documents indicate that the Air Force is seeking full MOP weapon systems. The document states that the weapon’s tailkits are projected to be delivered starting on Jan. 10, 2028, to “replace expended units.” Components for all-up rounds—the bombs themselves—are also being purchased.

The exact number of MOPs being purchased, along with other delivery dates appear to be part of the redacted portions of the document.

Operation Midnight Hammer involved 125 aircraft, including F-35s, F-22s, F-16s, refueling aircraft, and the bomb-dropping B-2s. The U.S. also struck a third facility at Isfahan with more than two dozen Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles.

The MOP has a hardened casing that can slice through layers of rock, concrete, and steel. Inside the bomb, sensors are designed to detect the area the bomb is passing through before detonating at a chosen depth.

“The weapons functioned as designed, meaning they exploded,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told reporters after the strikes.

The weapons traveled down ventilation shafts at the facilities at over 1,000 feet per second, according to Caine.

“A bomb has three effects that causes damage: blast, fragmentation, and overpressure,” he said. “In this case, the primary kill mechanism in the mission space was a mix of overpressure and blast ripping through the open tunnels and destroying critical hardware.”

The Air Force, in coordination with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, conducts testing of a GBU-57 Massive Ordinance Penetrator, Dec. 11, 2020. DOD video.

It is unclear how many MOPs have been built in previous years and precisely how many remain.

The MOP was initially tested from a B-52. But it was always intended to be dropped by the B-2, since the heavily protected targets the bomb was designed to hit were expected to be defended by top-tier air defense systems that the stealth bomber could penetrate. The weapon achieved initial operational capability in 2011.

The Air Force performed test drops from B-2s from 2014 to 2016 followed by further tests in 2017 to validate enhancements. The most recent upgrade to the bomb is the Large Penetrator Smart Fuse modification, which was tested in 2020 against a tunnel target. Three more tests were conducted between 2021 and 2022. Two full-scale tests were performed in 2024 to verify its integration on the B-2.

The military appears set to move on to MOP’s successor after this new buy.

“The MOP program production is concluding after these procurement efforts conclude,” the document states.

Last September, the Air Force issued a prototype contract for NGP development. That followed a March 2024 request for information from industry for the weapon, seeking concepts for “a prototype penetrator warhead design capable of defeating Hard and Deeply Buried Targets.”

The 2024 document said the design should not exceed 22,000 pounds, roughly two-thirds the weight of the MOP.

The new B-21 Raider bomber is known to be smaller than the B-2, at roughly two-thirds the size, with less payload capacity. It is unclear if the MOP could fit in a B-21, which is expected to enter service within the next couple of years.

Defense Threat Reduction Agency test personnel offload a GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator for a static test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. DTRA photo

The Air Force document refers to the Next-Generation Penetrator as “a similar MOP-like capability” that will have “superior technology.”

The government appears to be pursuing a more competitive approach to the NGP than the GBU-57, as Boeing has control over much of the weapon’s intellectual property and software.

For NGP, the Pentagon is seeking contracts that allow “independent development, modification, and improvement of all hardware, software algorithms, and logical interfaces related to NGP and subsequent MOP weapon systems,” according to the recently released documents. “This approach will empower a diverse supplier base to compete on innovation, performance, and cost, driving technological advancements.”

Space Force, Aiming to Double in Size, Blows Past Recruiting Goal

Feb. 12, 2026 | By Courtney Albon and Chris Gordon

To meet growing demand for national security space capabilities, the Space Force’s top enlisted leader says it needs to double in size.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna told lawmakers Feb. 11 that the service’s current force of 10,000 uniformed Guardians isn’t enough to meet the Space Force’s evolving mission requirements and to confront increasing threats from adversaries like China and Russia.

“To effectively fulfill our national mandate, we must increase our infrastructure and double our size,” he said during a Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee hearing. “This critical expansion is not only necessary, but entirely achievable.”

The Space Force has already surpassed its recruiting goals for fiscal 2026, Bentivegna said, and was at 125 percent of its goal after just five months. That includes 912 recruits who either have already entered basic military training or were enrolled in the delayed entry program as of Feb. 11, a service spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The Space Force’s recruiting goal is a small fraction of that of the other military services: just 730 recruits in 2026, down from 800 new recruits in fiscal 2025, which the service successfully met last year. By contrast, the Air Force’s goal for 2026 is nearly 33,000. But the Air Force also has more than 30 times as many Airmen as the Space Force has Guardians, so proportionately, the difference is small.

A variety of factors go into setting baseline recruiting goals, the most important being needs of the service. Other factors, including recruiting and training capacity and propensity to serve are also factors. The Space Force has met or exceeded its recruiting goals every year since its establishment in late 2019.

“We’ll keep building on this momentum as America’s Space Force continues to grow into the future,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman wrote in a social media post.

Were Congress to authorize more personnel, Bentivegna said, there are ample qualified recruits to fill those spots.

The Space Force established its own recruiting squadron for the first time in 2025, to help accelerate its growth. The Air Force Accessions Center continues to manage recruiting for both the Air Force and Space Force, but until then, there was not a dedicated Space Force unit.

“Recruitment for the Space Force has been phenomenal,” Bentivegna said. “We have more individuals who want to commission and/or enlist into the Space Force than we can take in right now, which is why doubling the size is something I think is absolutely achievable.”

Bentivegna’s call for a larger Space Force echoes that of other service leaders in recent months. Speaking in January at an event hosted by Space News and Johns Hopkins University, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Shawn N. Bratton said he expects that in the next five to 10 years, the Space Force’s active duty and civilian forces will at least double. The service currently has 5,000 civilians, but lost a lot of talent last year as a result of job cuts imposed by the Trump administration.

Space Force budgets have increased substantially, along with its missions, since its first independent budget in fiscal 2021. That first budget was $15.4 billion, but spending has grown to nearly $40 billion in fiscal 2026, including the baseline budget request and additional funds in the reconciliation bill known as the Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress approved last summer.

If President Donald Trump’s vision for a $1.5 trillion defense budget in fiscal 2027 comes to fruition, that budget will grow even more. While Bratton and the service believe there’s a case for doubling or tripling the Space Force budget, he said some of that money should be invested in building out the infrastructure to sustain new and existing missions.

“I worry more now about the people and the infrastructure side of that equation than I do just how much is in the appropriations bill,” Bratton said Jan. 22. “We’re bringing on a lot of work. Do I have the program offices on the acquisition side to develop those capabilities and field them? Do we have the test and training infrastructure to really wring those capabilities out? Do I have … not only the number of Guardians, but do I have the places to operate from?”