After a heated partisan fight over the Pentagon's nuclear modernization efforts, House and Senate authorizers agreed to let the Air Force's key strategic programs move forward relatively unscathed.
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Congressional authorizers have agreed to reform how the Pentagon develops and buys space systems, including adding a counterpart to Air Force acquisition boss Will Roper.
Congressional authorizers are offering the Air Force less money in most areas than the service asked for in fiscal 2020, but want to put nearly $19 billion toward aircraft procurement, according to the bipartisan, bicameral defense policy bill, which passed the House on Dec. 11.
Many factors combined to slow the creation of an independent armed force for space before it took off this year: politics, higher legislative priorities, military officials trying to protect the piece of the pie they already had. But none proved more challenging than the Air ...
Congressional authorizers are urging the Air Force to find common ground between its regular and special-operations forces as the service experiments with light attack aircraft.
The NDAA funded 60 F-35As for the Air Force—12 more than the service originally requested. However, it also the Air Force to provide an aviation force structure acquisition plan by March 1 of 2020.
Lawmakers backed the Air Force’s plan to begin buying the F-15EX fighter jet from Boeing but want to restrict funding until the service provides more information about the model.
Congress green-lit a new Space Force in its joint fiscal 2020 defense policy bill, under a proposal that would elevate Air Force Space Command to become the Pentagon’s sixth military service under the Department of the Air Force.
The Air Force has a “war room” of space experts that have been preparing for the go ahead from lawmakers, which could come as early as Dec. 11, to create the new Space Force.
