Air Force technology innovation hub AFWERX wants to help bring the “base of the future” to life as its flagship effort of 2020. The Air Force has seized on the opportunity to modernize Tyndall AFB, Fla., after a Category 5 hurricane nearly destroyed the installation in 2018, and now AFWERX is taking on the challenge, making base of the future the theme for its 2020 Fusion showcase. "Approximately 200 teams will present their innovative solutions as part of an open showcase to attendees, including top Air Force leadership and other military decision-makers and operations," the organization said on its website.
An airman deployed to Antarctica for Operation Deep Freeze died earlier this month because of natural causes, the Air Force announced. SSgt. George Girtler, an aircraft electrical and environmental specialist with the New York Air National Guard’s 139th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, died Jan. 11 at McMurdo Station. The 139th EAS is part of the NY Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing based at Schenectady.
More than two weeks after the most severe in an ongoing series of earthquakes rocked Puerto Rico, 1,386 troops are on the ground assisting in the US territory’s recovery. The troop presence includes more than 800 Puerto Rico Army and Air National Guard members, approximately 150 Army Reservists, and more than 200 members of the Puerto Rico State Guard—a Title 5 force that can be activated by its governor to supplement the territory’s National Guard in limited capacities—Maj. Gen. José Reyes, the territory’s adjutant general, told Air Force Magazine in a Jan. 22 interview at San Juan Army National Guard Aviation Support Station in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
Military research on how to protect against threatening unmanned aircraft has so far focused on two ends of the drone spectrum—store-bought products like small quadcopters and large, advanced aircraft akin to the MQ-9 Reaper. But Evan Hunt, high-energy laser business development lead at Raytheon, argues there’s more to know about those that fall in the middle.
The Air Force wants its Wi-Fi in the sky to keep flying, awarding Northrop Grumman a $217 million extension to its contract for the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node. The contract extension covers one year, with work expected to be completed by Jan. 23, 2021. Work will be focused largely at “undisclosed overseas locations,” along with Northrop’s San Diego facility, according to a Defense Department contract announcement. The award brings the total value of the BACN contract to $570 million.
