New B-52 Radar Makes First Flight

Dec. 12, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

A B-52 equipped with the new Stratofortress radar flew Dec. 8, a key first step in modernizing the Cold War bomber.

The flight, from Boeing’s San Antonio, Texas, facility to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where the system will be put through the paces in testing, was a major step toward realizing the goal of a massively updated B-52J configuration, Air Force officials said in a Dec. 10 release.

The upgrade has not always been smooth flying. The program suffered a “Nunn-McCurdy breach” in May, requiring the Air Force to inform Congress of a “significant” increase in a program’s cost or schedule, defined as at least 15 percent. Now things appear on track.

“This milestone ensures our future Airmen inherit a modernized, ready Air Force,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said in the release. “The B-52 Radar Modernization Program is about more than technology, it’s about readiness, deterrence and the ability to fight and win. The B-52 remains a powerful example of how we fly, fix, and fight to sustain global strike capability.”

The B-52 modernization seeks to keep the BUFF flying until 2050 or later; the first B-52H models first flew in 1960. The bombers’ range, payload capacity, and stand-off launch capabilities are a complement to the B-21 Raider’s stealth, survivability and penetrating capability, service officials say. Along with the radar, 76 B-52s will ultimately get new Rolls-Royce engines, new crew compartments, new conventional and nuclear communication systems, and an all-new glass cockpit.

A crew from the 49th Test Evaluation Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., and the 419th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., will conduct ground and flight test activities on the aircraft throughout 2026 to meet requirements for a “production decision later in the year,” the release states.

The radar modernization effort is slated to replace the B-52’s long-obsolete, analog AN/APQ-166 radar with the Raytheon AN/APQ-188 radar. Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said Aug. 27 that the service chose a radar that is “largely an F/A-18 Hornet radar” instead of paying more to design a new radar.

The Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar is installed on a B-52 Stratofortress as part of the B-52 Radar Modernization Program. This modernized radar will enhance the bomber’s all-weather navigation and targeting capabilities, extending its operational effectiveness for years to come. (Photo courtesy of the Air Force)

The Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system was developed by Raytheon Technologies and integrated into the B-52 by Boeing. It features an upgraded, all-weather navigation and targeting capability for the workhorse bomber.

“This radar modernization ensures that the B-52 will continue to serve as a cornerstone of American airpower well into the future,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in the release. “We are committed to extending the life of this vital platform, allowing it to operate alongside next-generation fighter and bomber aircraft.”

Meanwhile, the Air Force’s second B-21 completed its first flight on Sept. 11 from Northrop Grumman’s facility in Palmdale, Calif., to Edwards AFB, nearly two years after the first aircraft flew on Nov. 10, 2023. Air Force Officials have said they want to start fielding the B-21 by the “mid-2020s,” but it’s still unclear when the first bombers will become operational.

Vice Adm. Richard Correll, the new head of U.S. Strategic Command, has voiced support for producing more than the Air Force’s original plan to buy 100 B-21 bombers.

Congress has funded an expansion of the B-21’s production capacity, indicating that an increase is coming in the bomber’s production rate and eventual production numbers.

Space Force Accepts Meadowlands SATCOM Jammers

Dec. 12, 2025 | By Courtney Albon

The Space Force has accepted the first production unit of its Meadowlands satellite communications jammer from prime contractor L3Harris and is poised to start using the system in operations next year.

The compact ground-based satellite signal jammer is designed to be easier for military units to assemble and operate than its predecessor, the Counter Communications System. L3Harris handed over the first two Meadowlands development systems in April, and the company announced Dec. 11 it has since delivered its first production unit. Jeff Hanke, president of L3Harris Space Systems, told Air & Space Forces Magazine the firm has now completed multiple production units, and is on track to hit a delivery cadence of one system per month.

L3Harris also produced the baseline CCS. The Space Force awarded the company an initial $120 million contract in 2021 to upgrade and simplify the system to make it more mobile and user-friendly. There are currently 16 CCS systems in the field, according to an L3Harris fact sheet.

L3Harris declined to provide Meadowland’s unit cost, but Hanke said the company is repurposing the original CCS hardware. The upgrade work, which is being done at L3Harris’ Palm Bay, Fla. facility, involves replacing the CCS electronics, reducing from 23 to seven the number of boxes required to transport the system, and updating the trailers used to move it in the field.

“It’s kind of a win-win for them,” he said in a Dec. 11 interview. “They get a great system that’s new, more mobile, more compact, easier to use, more updatable and more capable as far as mission goes. The part about it being mobile also makes it very survivable.”

Meadowlands is one of just a few space weapons USSF officials have acknowledged publicly. As the service grows more wary of threats from adversaries targeting U.S. space systems, it’s looking to increase its electromagnetic warfare capabilities like Meadowlands to jam enemy satellites.

Col. Angelo Fernandez, commander of the Space Force’s EW-focused Mission Delta 3, told a small group of reporters Dec. 11 that Meadowlands is particularly well suited to disrupt “long haul” communications that might be used in austere environments like the desert. Fernandez and Chief Master Sgt. Kevin Pfister, MD-3’s senior enlisted leader, said their teams have been involved throughout the Meadowlands design, development, and testing process, have had positive feedback on the system, so far.

“It requires less lift, it requires less space, it requires less external demands on any location that you would put that system to employ it,” Pfister said on the sidelines of the Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla. “It also allows you to backhaul and operate from anywhere worldwide that we have an operation center set up.”

Fernandez said mobility is key for his force, which is evolving to include both forward-deployed and U.S.-based operations centers. From a system performance perspective, Fernandez said, Meadowlands allows operators to target multiple signals at a faster rate than the previous CCS variant.

“The Meadowlands system has far exceeded anything we expected,” he said. “When you look at what we’re driving forward to the joint force in terms of combat credible capability, it’s meeting that and then some.”

As Meadowlands progresses toward a steady production cadence, the system has caught the eye of U.S. allies, Hanke said, and the Space Force is working to make it available to foreign military sales customers. The company recently cleared a key FMS milestone for the system, completing an international initial baseline review.

“It will be a very exciting time in the next, I’ll say, three to five years, how much you’ll see Meadowlands grow to other countries,” Hanke said.

The system will be among the first Space Force programs with an FMS component, according to Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Space Force’s acting acquisition executive. In a Dec. 12 media briefing, Purdy said Meadowlands provides a unique learning opportunity for the service in terms of foreign sales.

“It helps us exercise the process of FMS at a higher level than what we’ve been doing,” Purdy said. “Exercising the process and getting us all familiar with who’s got what roles in a larger system like that is very helpful.”

Requests from foreign militaries to buy U.S. space capabilities has doubled since 2023—from around 40 to nearly 80 this year. That includes both FMS cases as well as other Defense Department programs, like Building Partner Capacity and Foreign Military Financing, which are also designed to support and facilitate international access to U.S. military technology. The service expects the dollar value of such cases to grow to between $10 and $12 billion over the next three to five years.

Purdy said the Space Force needs more resources and personnel to manage the growth it’s projecting, and Meadowlands could help it prove that it’s ready to take on a heavier case load.

“Meadowlands is hugely helpful to showcase, ‘Hey, we’re learning how to do this process. We can execute it successfully,'” Purdy said.

Snakes, Sharks, and Ghosts: Space Force Reveals Themes for Naming Platforms

Dec. 11, 2025 | By Courtney Albon

ORLANDO, Fla.—In a move to better connect Guardians with the space systems they operate, the Space Force on Dec. 11 revealed a new naming scheme for its platforms.

In a keynote speech at the Spacepower Conference, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman announced the seven themes the service will use to name satellites and ground systems that it operates today and that it adds to the fleet in the future.

“Much like the Army has the Abrams tank and the Air Force has the Fighting Falcon, we needed a way to own the identity of our space systems as they enter the joint fight,” Saltzman said. “These symbols conjure the character of the systems, the importance of their mission, and the identity of the Guardians who employ them.”

Those categories, chosen by Guardians over the last year, are:

Orbital warfare: Norse pantheon

Cyber warfare: Mythological creatures

Satellite communications: Constellations

Space domain awareness: Ghosts

Electromagnetic warfare: Snakes

Missile warning: Sentinels

Navigation warfare: Sharks

Along with the seven categories, Saltzman announced names for two systems: the legacy Ultra-High Frequency Follow-on constellation, made up of communication satellites in geostationary orbit and operated by the 10th Space Operations Squadron, is now known as Ursa Major; and the Operationally Responsive Space-5 spacecraft, a space domain awareness satellite in low-Earth orbit flown by the 1st Space Operations Squadron, is dubbed Bifrost. In Norse mythology, Bifrost is a bridge that connects the human and godly realms.

The service has a separate designation system adopted in 2023 to identify spacecraft platforms. The document assigns a basic mission designator, such as “A” for attack or “M” for meteorological, that describes a system’s primary mission. It also dictates a second designator that describes what orbital regime the platform operates in; an “L” indicates low Earth orbit, “D” signifies deep space, and so on.

Speaking with reporters at the conference, Saltzman said he views the name selection process and Guardians’ involvement in it as important for the service’s still-developing culture. Saltzman first reached out to Guardians to help name Space Force systems in an October 2024 memo to the force. At the time, he said the naming conventions would only be used for systems developed after 2023, though it now appears the service will also rename older systems.

“This is just having a culture where the people responsible for the mission feel directly connected to it,” he said. “And it’s hard to get connected to a program name or some number system that works in the catalog of weapon systems.”

A Space Force spokesperson said the service will roll out additional system names and themes moving forward but hasn’t committed to a timeline for completing the process.

NORTHCOM Boss: No Plans for Military Training Grounds in US Cities

Dec. 11, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, head of U.S. Northern Command, told lawmakers that NORTHCOM has no plans to use U.S. cities as “training grounds” as President Donald Trump recently suggested to a room full of his top military leaders.

Guillot appeared Dec. 11 before the Senate Armed Services Committee with two other Pentagon officials to discuss National Guard deployments in cities such as Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Chicago; and Memphis, Tenn.

President Donald Trump and many Republican lawmakers have argued the deployments are necessary to combat violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking, and gang activity. In some cases, Guard members have been tasked with protecting federal agents or buildings; in others, they have assisted law enforcement and performed patrols.

In a Sept. 30 speech to senior U.S. military leaders, Trump said the Guard was needed to restore public safety and that he had told Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

But Guillot told lawmakers that he knew of no policy authorizing the use of civilian communities as training grounds.

“I have not been consulted nor directed to use any American cities for training,” Guillot said.

The Army National Guard has been responsible for most of the deployments thus far, but the Air National Guard has contributed Airmen as well.

In D.C., for example, the Joint Task Force in charge of the operation estimates that there are approximately 2,980 Army Guard members compared to 200 Air Guardsmen.

An Airman was one of two West Virginia National Guard members shot two weeks ago in D.C. by a lone gunman. Army Spec. Sarah Beckstrom died, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe was critically wounded the day before Thanksgiving. Since the shooting, another 560 Guard members have deployed to D.C. at Trump’s request.

During the Dec. 11 hearing, Republican lawmakers voiced support for the National Guard deployments.

“These strategic deployments are not only appropriate but essential,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said. “Current crime rates in our largest cities have become a substantial burden on local and federal law enforcement agencies, increasingly, these agencies are unable to keep our communities safe.”

But Democrats argued that deploying National Guard to cities is not a long-term solution for reducing criminal activity and should be left to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

Other lawmakers also pressed Guillot about Trump’s comments during the Sept. 30 speech where he suggested using the military against “the enemy from within.”

“The president essentially indicated that you should be prepared to conduct military operations in the United States against this enemy within. Are you doing that, sir?” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) asked Guillot.

“I do not have any indications of an enemy within,” Guillot answered. “We maintain readiness to execute the orders to defend the homeland in many ways, but I’ve not been tasked in that way.”

“We defend the United States and U.S. citizens,” Guillot said. “We do not view them as enemies.”

B-52s, Japanese Fighters Fly Together After China and Russia Fly Bomber Patrol

Dec. 11, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

Two U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers flew with Japanese fighters over the Sea of Japan after a string of Chinese provocations toward Japan—including a joint bomber patrol with Russia—in response to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments about Taiwan.

The B-52s were joined by three stealthy F-35s and three multirole F-15Js, Japan’s version of the Eagle, flown by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

“The JSDF & the U.S. Armed Forces conducted a bilateral exercise over the Sea of Japan, demonstrating our readiness and response capabilities,” Pacific Air Forces wrote in a social media post. “Training together reaffirms our commitment to the U.S.-Japan Alliance & strengthens deterrence.”

Tensions between China and Japan grew after Takaichi told the Japanese parliament on Nov. 7 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would endanger Japan’s security and might prompt a military response. China’s foreign minister responded by accusing Japan of “grossly interfering with China’s internal affairs.”

Then two Chinese H-6 and two Russian Tu-95 bombers conducted a joint patrol earlier this week near Japan, a mission that Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said in a post on X was “clearly intended as a show of force against our nation.”

Prior to that, on Dec. 6, Chinese fighters from the aircraft carrier Liaoning locked their radars onto Japanese planes that were intercepting them near Japanese airspace.

The B-52s that flew with the Japanese were assigned to the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., and featured the wing’s “LA” tail flash.

Two U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers fly alongside Japanese fighters, Dec. 10, 2025 Japanese Ministry of Defense photo

Japan’s Joint Staff said in a statement that the mission occurred “amid an increasingly severe security environment surrounding Japan” and “reaffirms the strong will between Japan and the U.S. not to tolerate unilateral changes to the status quo by force.”

China considers Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy, to be part of its territory and has increased its military pressure on Taipei in recent years, conducting mock military exercises that have mimicked an invasion or blockade. The White House’s new National Security Strategy says that deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan remains a priority and that the United States and its allies must develop the capability to thwart “any attempt to seize Taiwan.”

Koizumi also spoke via video conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Dec. 10. The two officials discussed the joint Chinese and Russian bomber flight on Dec. 9 and the targeting of Japanese aircraft by the Chinese fighters’ radars.

The B-52 flight with Japan is not the only high-profile bomber mission the U.S. has conducted recently. In the late hours of Dec. 10, at least one B-52, assigned to Minot Air Force Base, N.D., was operating off the coast of Venezuela, open-source flight tracking data shows. The bomber was visible for just under 30 minutes with its transponder on. U.S Southern Command and Air Forces Southern, which oversee forces in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Air Force to Take Back on Looking Glass Mission for Nuclear C3

Dec. 11, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

More than a quarter-century after handing over the mission to the Navy, the Air Force is making the first steps towards taking back over a critical nuclear command, control, and communications function.

In a special notice to industry released Dec. 9, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center announced it would host an industry day as part of its market research for the new “Looking Glass-Next” program.

“Looking Glass” is the nickname given to the Airborne Command Post mission—aircraft that fly with the systems and crews needed to receive and relay orders from the President and launch intercontinental ballistic missiles via the Airborne Launch Control System. It was first called Looking Glass because the airborne command post was supposed to mirror the underground command post of Strategic Air Command.

For years, the Air Force flew EC-135s for the Looking Glass mission. From 1961 to 1990, at least one Looking Glass aircraft was always in the sky, ensuring the U.S. had a way to control its nuclear forces even if its land-based control centers were attacked.

EC-135 Looking Glass. Precursor to the E-4B, an EC-135 was always kept aloft to assure nuclear command and control, serving into the 1990s. **USAF**

The service buttressed the EC-135 fleet in the 1970s with the Advanced Airborne Command Post program, which produced the E-4B Nightwatch, knowm as the National Airborne Operations Center. The E-4, which is nicknamed the “Doomsday Plane” due to its potentially grim mission, can perform the Looking Glass mission but has a larger suite of capabilities and responsibilities because it is meant to be able to host the President or Secretary of Defense in case of a national emergency. It also doubles as the Secretary of Defense’s main transport outside the U.S., and with just four aircraft total, is as hard-worked as any fleet in the service.

From 1990 to 1998, the EC-135 continued to operate, staying on 24/7 alert and regularly flying to continue the Looking Glass mission. In 1998, the mission transferred to the Navy’s E-6B Mercury, which also conducts the TACAMO mission. TACAMO, short for “Take Charge and Move Out,” is a similar nuclear communications mission focused mainly on receiving, verifying, and relaying orders to the Navy’s nuclear submarines.

For the past 27 years, the fleet of 16 E-6B aircraft has conducted both TACAMO and Looking Glass missions together, based primarily at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. But the two missions are now poised to split again—the Navy has been working on a replacement for the E-6 for years now and has said it plans to continue just the TACAMO mission using new E-130J aircraft, based on the workhorse C-130.

The Air Force, meanwhile, appears poised to take back on the Airborne Command Post mission. The notice to industry states that the Looking Glass-Next program “is aimed at recapitalizing missions currently executed on the E-6B.”

The future of the Looking Glass mission came up before Congress this past May and June after Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) asked Air Force and U.S. Strategic Command leaders about their plans. Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general who represents STRATCOM’s home of Offutt Air Force Base, asked if the Air Force would be taking back over Looking Glass, and officials including Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink, then-STRATCOM boss Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, and Deputy Chief of Staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara all said the issue was still under discussion.

“The Joint Requirements Oversight Council will take that on and they’ll make the best decision on who is the best service to do that,” Gebara said at the time. “And then if the Air Force is that service, then we will move out on that program. The commitment of the Navy has been that they are going to continue that mission until properly relieved and right.”

An Air Force spokesperson could not immediately confirm if the JROC made an official determination, but the planned Industry Day indicates the Air Force is moving ahead with the Looking Glass mission back in its portfolio.

More evidence of that move came in the National Defense Authorization bill unveiled by lawmakers this week. The annual policy bill includes a section that will limit the Secretary of the Air Force’s travel budget until he submits an acquisition strategy for the Air Force to maintain the Airborne Command Post capability—to include a consideration of whether the service can use a converted C-130J like the Navy has for TACAMO.

While the Air Force contemplates the future of the Looking Glass mission and a dedicated fleet, the service is also working on a successor to the E-4 NAOC, dubbed the E-4C Survivable Air Operations Center.

USSF to Keep Implementing Space-Focused Elements of Re-Optimization

Dec. 11, 2025 | By Courtney Albon

ORLANDO, Fla.—Weeks after senior Air Force leaders revealed the service would shed a number of the re-optimization initiatives pursued by their predecessors, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman confirmed the Space Force is retaining all of the elements of the strategy specific to his service.

Speaking with reporters Dec. 11 at the Spacepower Conference, Saltzman and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said that while the Air Force reforms included significant reorganization that Meink feared would be too disruptive, the Space Force changes aligned closely with the new service’s natural growth trajectory.

“We’re keeping all of it,” Saltzman said. “Because it’s all just a natural part of the Space Force evolution since our inception.”

The Department of the Air Force, then under the leadership of former Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, rolled out the re-optimization strategy in February 2024, detailing 24 sweeping changes to training, deployment, and acquisition. The goal was to position the Air Force and Space Force to better prepare compete with China.

In early December, Meink and Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach revealed that the Air Force has abandoned many of those new organizations and approaches, including the standup of new organizations like Integrated Capabilities Command and Airman Development Command. Only eight of 19 Air Force-specific initiatives will continue.

“I’ve always said, don’t reorganize unless something’s really broke, because it takes a long time to recover from reorganization,” Meink said in the briefing. “So, we really looked hard at where we were making changes, and what was the necessity for those changes. So, I think we finished all that.”

The Space Force, meanwhile, will continue to pursue its re-optimization priorities, which include:

redesigning career paths for high-tech operations

implementing new readiness standards and expanding exercises

formalizing the creation of Combat Units of Action and implementing a new Space Force Generation model

Creating a fourth field command, Space Futures Command, to validate concepts, lead mission area force design, and conduct experimentation and wargames.

USSF has implemented all of those priorities, Saltzman said, except for what is arguably the most significant organizational lift—establishing Space Futures Command. As originally envisioned, the field command will leverage the existing Space Warfighting Analysis Center, which was established in 2021 to flesh out the service’s force structure needs, and combine it with two new centers, a Wargaming Center and a Concepts and Technology Center.

The new command will not adopt the “futures” moniker, but Saltzman hasn’t described in detail how it would differ from the service’s original vision. With input from Meink, he said, USSF has “reframed” the command’s mission and will focus more heavily on expanding SWAC’s role.

Speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in November, Saltzman said the new field command will play a key role in crafting future versions of the objective force—a detailed vision for what platforms, support, and structure USSF will need over the next 15 years—as well as other documents meant to provide a “clearly articulated demand signal” to industry and other stakeholders.

The service is now making decisions about staffing, headquarters location, and workflows, and Saltzman expects to stand up the new command in 2026.

Air Force Leaders, Lawmakers Move to Increase Training in the Pacific

Dec. 10, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

SIMI VALLEY, Calif.—The Air Force plans to conduct more intensive training—and Congress is set to help by boosting funding for exercises and so-called “campaigning” by hundreds of millions of dollars, particularly in the Pacific.

“We have to do hard things together,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said Dec. 6 during a panel discussion at the Reagan National Defense Forum here. “We’re going to exercise, and we’re going to exercise hard.”

Wilsbach’s predecessor, Gen. David. W. Allvin, championed a return to large-scale exercises, and Wilsbach played a key role in developing and executing those exercises as head of Air Combat Command, which oversaw the first large-scale Bamboo Eagle exercise in summer 2024 across the West Coast, an offshoot of the service’s signature Red Flag combat training exercise. The Air Force then conducted a major Resolute Force Pacific exercise in the Pacific this summer in addition to Bamboo Eagle.

REFORPAC served as the anchor of a sweeping Department-Level Exercise series that stretched and stressed the Air Force in ways it hadn’t seen in years, service leaders have said.

“When we don’t meet the objectives, we’ll teach, coach, and mentor, and we’ll get better,” Wilsbach said, appearing on a panel alongside Secretary of the Navy John Phelan.

The day after Wilsbach’s remarks, House and Senate lawmakers released their compromise fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization bill, the annual legislation that guides Department of Defense policy. While the NDAA does not appropriate funds for the Pentagon, it includes spending recommendations that reflect congressional priorities—which appear to align with thinking inside the Pentagon.

The draft NDAA, which the House approved in a Dec. 10 vote, adds an extra $107.3 million for Department of the Air Force-wide “campaigning and exercises.” On top of that, lawmakers included another $182 million specifically for Air Force campaigning within U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Campaigning has a broad definition in U.S. military circles and generally refers not only to military operations, but also to presence activities, training events, and cooperation efforts with allies. Those funds were not requested by the Pentagon in its official budget but were added by lawmakers.

Referring to his efforts to improve the Air Force’s aircraft availability and flight hours, Wilsbach said that if he is successful in increasing the readiness of the service’s planes to fly training missions, “you are getting reps and sets, and your force is proficient, and you establish a deterrent value.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said the U.S. military needs to be better prepared and operate on a “wartime footing,” a message Phelan and Wilsbach appeared to broadly agree with, and Phelan emphasized readiness as well.

“I think that’s the element—that urgency to act,” Phelan said. “Look, it’s like the Mike Tyson statement: ‘It’s always easy until you get in the ring and get hit in the face.’ I don’t think we want to wait to get hit in the face. The President’s goal is for us not to get hit in the face. The President’s goal is for us not to get into the fight. And if you wait for war, a lot of people are going to get killed because we’re not prepared. So that’s why I think we need to act like we’re at that wartime footing.”

Pentagon Orders Thousands of Laser-Guided Rockets for $322 Million

Dec. 10, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

BAE Systems has received a $322 million order to kick off a contract worth up to $1.7 billion for laser-guidance kits to go on 2.75-inch rockets the Air Force relies on for a wide range of combat missions.

The company announced the order Dec. 10, a little more than three months after the Pentagon announced in late August that it had reached a deal with BAE to produce five lots of the WGU-59 A/B Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II.

The initlal $322 million order will produce “tens of thousands” of combat-proven laser-guided munitions for a five-year period, according to a BAE announcement.

The Navy is the lead service on the contract, but the APKWS guidance kits will be available for all services for upgrading unguided Hydra-70 rockets to semi-active laser-guided precision weapons, according to Sam.gov.

The original award announcement states that BAE is the “sole designer, developer, and manufacturer/supplier of the APKWS II and is the only contractor with the knowledge, experience, technical data, and computer software necessary to meet the government’s requirements.”

The APKWS guidance kit is compatible with new and existing inventories of rocket motors, warheads, and fuses and requires minimal training to use in the field, according to BAE.

The Air Force first used APKWS as an air-to-ground weapon on the F-15 Strike Eagle but then demonstrated the system could be used effectively in an air-to-air capacity on an F-16 Fighting Falcon in 2019.

More recently within the past year, the service has deployed the system on fighter aircraft in the Middle East to take out cheap drones in a cost-effective manner.

The Air Force now wants to use the versatile weapons system for targeting drone swarms from air bases and other ground positions. The service released a Nov. 19 request for information to identify firms that could build ground-based systems for using APKWS rockets against small Group 1 drones up to larger Group 3 systems.

It’s the service’s latest attempt to build an arsenal of weapons to defend air bases against a constantly evolving drone threat. The Air Force wants a wide-range of counter-drone technologies such as high-power microwave systems and low-cost missiles as alternatives to expending its expensive precision munitions on cheap unmanned aerial systems that can be easily replaced.

APWKS has already been used successfully as a ground-launched counter-drone weapon by Ukrainian forces to down one-way Russian attack drones. The laser-guided system costs less than $40,000 and has a per-shot cost of $24,900, making it much more cost-effective than expending AIM-9 air-to-air missiles that can cost more than $500,000 each.

BAE has produced APKWS laser-guidance kits for about 12 years at the firm’s manufacturing plants in Hudson, N.H. and Austin, Texas.