Lawmakers want the Air Force to study whether it could buy multiple years’ worth of Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range at once to save money. The service looks to boost that stockpile for potential conflict with faraway and advanced enemies like Russia and ...
Congress


Congress
Congressional appropriators raised a red flag about the future of missile defense and related satellites in the joint fiscal 2020 spending bill, saying the multiple Pentagon offices working on those problems need to do a better job of bringing their ideas together. Central to their ...
The Senate on Dec. 17 approved the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 86-8, sending the bill to the White House where President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law. Also on Dec. 17, the House approved a $1.4 ...
Lawmakers on Dec. 16 struck a deal for a $1.4 trillion bipartisan, bicameral spending plan to fund the government through fiscal 2020, including $695.1 billion for the Defense Department.
The draft 2020 defense policy bill prohibits the Air Force from transferring any low-rate initial production F-35 strike fighters to the adversary air role until the Chief of Staff submits a report to Congress detailing the service’s plan for modernizing its organic aggressor fleet. “It ...
Two US Air Force legends will be promoted, one posthumously, under the draft fiscal 2020 defense policy bill. The bill includes language honorarily promoting retired Lt. Col. Dick Cole, the last living Doolittle Raider who died earlier this year, to colonel. It also honorarily promotes ...
Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center boss Lt. Gen. John Thompson appeared optimistic about the future of acquisition under the Space Force, despite industry's concerns about changes foreshadowed in the draft fiscal 2020 defense policy bill. Bipartisan, bicameral language would create a space acquisition ...
Two Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft escaped the chopping block in the joint, draft fiscal 2020 defense policy bill, but the aircraft are still under congressional scrutiny. At issue are the RC-135, a small fleet with multiple varieties of planes used to gather ...
Lawmakers have slowly gotten on board with the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System concept, which is intended to replace the E-8C Joint STARS aircraft, but they still want more information. ABMS will piece together airborne and ground sensors with space systems to better understand ...