Iran Damages US A-10, F-15s with Missile Attack on Air Base in Jordan
An Iranian ballistic missile attack on a key U.S. air base in Jordan damaged multiple U.S. warplanes, people familiar with the matter confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine.
General Atomics Offers First Glimpse of Wildfire Drone, Eyed as MQ-9 Successor
General Atomics has unveiled the first renderings of its Wildfire drone, which it plans to pitch for the Air Force’s hunt for a new, low-cost Massed Modular Aircraft.
Combat Weather Airmen Stressed to Their Limits in Army Competition
In the small world of Air Force weather specialists, combat weather specialists are a niche unto themselves, deploying with Army ground units to provide forecasts and, if need be, fight alongside those Soldiers. For Staff Sgt. Francisco Estrada, the hardest part of the job isn’t the possibility of ground combat, though—it’s briefing Army helicopter pilots on short notice how wind, fog, rain, and other conditions will affect a mission.
Space Command Maneuvers Satellites Across Multiple Orbits in New Exercise
U.S. Space Command maneuvered satellites across low-, medium-, and geosynchronous orbits in an exercise early this month, advancing the command’s push to master dynamic operations in space.
Hypersonic Aircraft Startup Adding Anduril’s Autonomy Software for 2027 Flight
Startups Anduril Industries and Heremus have agreed to integrate Anduril’s autonomy software onto Hermeus’ hypersonic demonstrator aircraft “Quarterhorse”—uniting two technologies that have drawn keen interest and investment from the Air Force.
Radar Sweep
Iran Is Forging a New Ring of Proxies to Threaten US Allies in the Gulf, Officials Say
The Associated Press
In July, Saudi Arabia and the United States bombed Iran-backed militias in Iraq after blaming them for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities that had been claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, another Iranian ally. Now, regional officials tell The Associated Press that the Houthis helped the Iraqi militias plan and execute the two-day swarm attack, showing a new level of coordination.
US Agencies Say Top Chinese AI Companies Systematically Copied American Models
NBC News
In an alert published Sept. 8, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said top Chinese AI companies have systematically mined cutting-edge AI models from American companies since 2024, including Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok, to build their own.
Hermeus Unveils Air-Launched Ramjet-X Test Vehicle
Aviation Week
High-speed aircraft maker Hermeus has revealed a ramjet-powered test vehicle that can be launched from under the wing of its supersonic Quarterhorse aircraft. The unveiling of the Ramjet-X concept reveals a low-cost, expendable vehicle capable of high-speed flight to complement the reusable, Pratt & Whitney F100-229-powered Quarterhorse.
Pentagon’s $1.5B Reprogramming Would Shift Money to AI Center, MV-75 Tiltrotor
Breaking Defense
The Pentagon has requested permission from Congress to reroute about $1.5 billion in funds from fiscal 2026 and 2025 to fund a “high-priority” AI initiative, keep a new Army helicopter program aloft, and shift funds related to programs affected by Iran operations.
‘Truly Concerns Me’: DAWG Director Warns Funding Lapse Could Kill ‘Momentum’
Breaking Defense
The three-star chief of the Pentagon’s ambitious drone development task force said Sept. 9 he didn’t know if his Defense Autonomous Working Group would get the nearly $54 billion the Trump administration has requested from lawmakers—and warned the program could stumble if it didn’t get “something.”
Saab Tapped to Continue Work on Sweden’s Next Flagship Fighter Jet
Defense News
Saab has received a new contract worth approximately SEK 2.9 billion (roughly $303 million) from Sweden’s Defense Materiel Administration, FMV, to continue conceptual work on the country’s future fighter system, the company announced in a statement Sept. 9.
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Marvin Test Solutions
Today’s armament maintainers are tasked with performing flightline maintenance with an assortment of legacy test sets that greatly limit the ability to quickly and efficiently verify armament system readiness, diagnose failures, and ultimately return the aircraft to full mission capable status. The widely deployed and combat proven MTS-3060A SmartCan™ Universal Armament Test Set addresses these issues and more.
Maven Is Becoming the Pentagon’s Everything App
Defense One
The Pentagon is finding ever more uses for the AI-powered command-and-control system called Maven Smart System, including logistics, force readiness, supply chain, and budgeting data, the Defense Department’s AI chief said Sept. 8.
Pentagon Pores Over Heaps of Industry Feedback on CMMC Reform
DefenseScoop
Pentagon officials are sorting through a flood of industry feedback about the controversial Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program as the department weighs next steps for reform efforts, Defense Department CIO Kirsten Davies said Sept. 9.
America Leans on Fusion Breakthroughs to Turbocharge Its Nuclear Weapon Arsenal
The Wall Street Journal
Testing with fusion reactors helps ensure America’s nuclear weapons still work after decades in storage, components are reliable and that new designs will have the desired effect, without resuming the explosive nuclear tests of decades prior.
Ukraine Carried Out Its Deepest Drone Strike on Russia Ever
The War Zone
A Russian gas plant more than 1,700 miles from the Ukrainian border was attacked by a drone on Sept. 9, Ukrainian and Russian officials said. This is reportedly the longest-distance Ukrainian strike of the war and comes as Kyiv continues to target Moscow’s energy infrastructure.
Military Accidentally Triggers Air Force One Slide Ahead of Trump's Dallas Trip: Source
ABC News
An inflatable slide deployed on President Donald Trump's Qatari-gifted Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on Sept. 9 before he was set to board it to head to the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas.
