The build of a first UK E-7 Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft is “nearing completion,” and the platform remains in line to “detect a range of missile threats towards” Britain once operational, despite the recent decision by the U.S. Air Force to cancel its own Wedgetail effort, a spokesperson for the UK Ministry of Defense told Breaking Defense.
China has entered a new era of ocean exploration. Its top leader, Xi Jinping, has pushed to make China a maritime power—with a world-class navy, the largest deep-sea fishing fleet, and an interest in extracting minerals from the seabed. He wants China’s research abilities to match those ambitions.
“The world recently witnessed a visceral demonstration of technological prowess, skill and courage when the U.S. Air Force dropped GBU-57 massive ordnance bombs within inches of their aiming points on Iranian nuclear facilities. As unquestionably successful as the mission was, we must be clear-eyed in how we view the implications,” writes Brig. Gen. Allen Herritage, director of public affairs for the Air Force and Space Force.
France and the U.K., Western Europe’s two nuclear powers, said on July 9 that they will now coordinate the use of their nuclear weapons and respond to any major threat to Europe together, a step seen as an effort to reassure allies who are nervous about Washington’s commitment to the continent’s security.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a new directive July 10 aimed at shaking up the Pentagon’s procurement system and quickly ramping up its arsenal of unmanned aerial systems. The memo “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance,” addressed to senior Pentagon leadership, combatant commanders, and directors of defense agencies, referred to uncrewed systems as “the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation.”
The Pentagon office that helped create the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bomb is waiting for comprehensive battle damage assessments from last month’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities to determine how well they worked. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency will then use that data to learn how to improve the 30,000-pound weapons and better design follow-on very deep penetrating bunker busters.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has ended its experiment to create a heavy cargo seaplane. The nearly three-year-old Liberty Lifter program was intended to design and build—and possibly float and fly—a long-range, low-cost seaplane that could take off and land in rough seas.
Rare earth minerals are not a technology in and of themselves, but are underlying ingredients for some of the most complex systems across the planet including military platforms and automobiles. ... That is the backdrop against which the Defense Department is taking matters into its own hands, agreeing to acquire a 15 percent stake in MP Materials and become the company’s largest shareholder.
Even as the debate over spectrum sharing between the commercial industry and the Defense Department appears temporarily settled, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency plans to transition one of its spectrum sharing projects out of the lab and into the field by next year.
France proposed to partners Germany and Spain to “rethink” the work share on the Future Combat Air System project in order to stick to a schedule that would see a future fighter enter into service from 2040 onwards, the country’s Directorate General for Armament said.
The 47th Flying Training Wing at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas runs the Air Force's largest specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training program.
