Daily Report

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is reviewing the investigation report on the Pentagon’s errant shipment of four nosecone fuses for Minuteman III ICBMs to Taiwan and, in general, how the Department of Defense oversees its nuclear-related materials. The Associated Press reported...

Assuming the current legal protest is resolved by mid June, the Air Force expects that the first of its KC-45A tanker test aircraft will be available around June 2010, the general in charge of the US military’s transportation enterprise said...

Air Force Reserve Command is modifying its air and space expeditionary force cycles. As with the changes announced May 13 for the active duty component, these tweaks are intended to provide more predictability for Reservists with skills in high demand...

Raytheon has won a $412 million contract to provide hundreds of advanced medium range air-to-air missiles to the Air Force and foreign partners, the Department of Defense announced May 28. Under the terms of the deal, the company will supply...

More than 500 Air National Guard security forces personnel have deployed to Southwest Asia or are in the process of going there in the coming weeks. CMSgt. David Obetz, ANG security forces career field manager in the National Guard Bureau,...

The Air Force has some explaining to do, contends Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. In a May 28 release, Thompson argues that USAF has yet to answer “even the most basic questions” as to why it chose Northrop Grumman’s...

The first F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing test aircraft, BF-1, has completed hover pit tests, placing it within weeks or perhaps days of its first flight. Flight reported May 28 that a Lockheed Martin spokesman confirmed that engineers ran the aircraft’s...

The Defense Department’s operationally responsive space office has chosen SpaceDev, Inc., a self-proclaimed developer of innovative space technologies headquartered in Ponway, Calif., to provide the spacecraft bus for its upcoming Jumpstart experiment. The company will provide its Trailblazer spacecraft bus as the primary payload for the Jumpstart mission, according to a May 28 release from the ORS office, which is located at Kirtland AFB, N.M. Jumpstart is designed to validate new processes and procedures for quickly placing satellites in orbit to support the needs of combatant commanders for increased space-based communications and information-gathering capability in crises or during conflict. A SpaceX Falcon 1 launch vehicle is set to carry the Trailblazer, along with several experimental ancillary payloads into space in late June from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Trailblazer will serve as a risk-reduction platform for the type of flexible, modular bus design that DOD wants to support future ORS missions.

Air Force F-15Es fired cannon-rounds and dropped 500-pound joint direct attack munitions onto enemy combatants May 28 in Bagram, Afghanistan, Air Forces Central announced May 29. Also in Afghanistan on that day, a B-1B bomber struck enemy fighting positions with...

Stereolithography modeling technology in use at Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland AFB, Tex., has enabled doctors to repair the jaw of a seriously injured soldier. Army SSgt. Terry Saffron’s jaw was shattered when an improvised explosive device went off...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaMay 27-28, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 45 27 72 4,421 CAS/Armed Recon 125 94 219 13,202 Airlift 278 278 18,989 Air refueling 88 88 6,098 Total 657 42,710...