2024 USAF & USSF Almanac: Glossary of Acronyms & Abbreviations

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.

The final version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill calls for adding $1.2 billion to the Space Force’s research and development accounts, an increase that’s mostly split between two efforts: expanding the service’s low-Earth orbit data transport network and boosting its space-based missile warning and tracking capabilities.

The Space Force is requesting prototype proposals for space-based interceptors that can destroy a missile during the midcourse phase of flight, on top of its previous efforts to develop interceptors that take down missiles in their boost phase.

Lawmakers resolving differences in the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization bill want to stop cuts to the Air Force’s combat fleet by blocking scores of planned divestments of aging A-10 and F-15E fighters.

For decades, the Pentagon has viewed space as a “supporting” domain to enable operations in the land, sea, and air. But a new report from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies argues the time has come to consider how ops in those domains can now support space.