Two hypersonic missile development projects jointly underway between USAF and DARPA are in a “race” to see which will fly first, but DARPA’s director said he expects it will happen by the end of this year, or early next.
National Security
The Air Force’s F-35A made its combat debut in Iraq Tuesday, releasing a Joint Direct Attack Munition against an ISIS tunnel network and weapons depot in Wadi Ashai, Iraq, US Air Forces Central Command said.
Defense acquisition reform—a cottage industry in Washington for decades—is a red herring, the Air Force’s acquisition chief said Friday.
Future nuclear command, control, and communications data should pass through a network of military and commercial systems so complex that adversaries can’t figure out how to stop it, the head of US Strategic Command said this week.
US Africa Command on Tuesday pushed back against allegations of civilian casualties from US strikes in Somalia, claiming that in more than 100 strikes in that country since 2017, not a single civilian has been killed.
If the Air Force expects to execute the National Defense Strategy, it must restore readiness, which is “first and foremost about people,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in her keynote address at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla.
US Cyber Command views its existing cadre of cyber warriors as a starting point for growth as the Pentagon pivots to compete with more tech-savvy adversaries, the command’s top general told lawmakers Thursday.
The Air Force is working hard to replenish its stocks of precision-guided munitions, but the service’s chief buyer is concerned about the industrial capacity to meet USAF’s needs.
The Air Force is slated to have an operational capability with the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon by late 2020, and with a separate and more advanced capability six months after that, according to service acquisition chief Will Roper.