A C-130 cargo plane assigned to the 914th Airlift Wing out of Niagara Falls ARS, N.Y., has collided with a remotely piloted aircraft in Afghanistan, reported the Wall Street Journal. Air Force Capt. Justin Brockhoff told the newspaper the plane made an emergency landing Aug. 15 at a forward operation base in eastern Afghanistan, but the aircrew was “unharmed.” The RQ-7 Shadow—a shorter-range tactical aircraft typically operated by the Army or Marine Corps—was on a surveillance mission at the time. It was not armed. “The C-130 received light damage during the incident,” Brockhoff told the paper. He added that there are “no reports at this time to indicate any injuries or damages were caused when [the Shadow] impacted the ground.” (WSJ report; requires subscription)
The launch last month of Orbital Watch, the new Space Force program to share declassified U.S. government threat intelligence with private sector satellite operators and other commercial space companies, comes amid increasing concern about Chinese and Russian development of anti-satellite weapons.