AFA‘s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies “Aerospace Advantage” podcast on Podbean
Episode 9 of the Mitchell Institute’s “Aerospace Advantage” podcast explores the future of manned-unmanned aircraft teaming—one of the biggest developments that will shape the future of air combat. Thanks to advancements in autonomy, machine learning, computer processing power, and the ability to connect and share information, unmanned aerial vehicles and traditional crewed aircraft will partner in incredibly complementary ways. Host retired Air Force Lt. Col. John Baum speaks with combat pilot Col. Don “Stryker” Haley, one of the Air Force’s top experts on the subject, retired USAF Col. Mark Gunzinger of the Mitchell team, as well as two of the leading aerospace industry experts in this realm: Steve Fendley, president of the unmanned systems division at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, and Mike Atwood, senior director for advanced programs at General Atomics.
Breaking Defense
The top-level, classified strategy laying out the US military’s new approach to decision-making in any future conflict with peer adversaries—Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)—is about to hit the desk of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley, says Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, who leads the effort as the head of the J6.
Air Force Magazine
Joint all-domain command and control is driving change throughout the Air and Space Forces. Check out our latest on the quest for greater interconnectedness across the battlefield.
SpaceNews
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to hear from the space industry about their capabilities to manufacture large structures on the moon. This is a new project that DARPA announced Feb. 5 called “Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-efficient Design.”
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Stars and Stripes
No U.S. troops have died in combat in Afghanistan for a year as of Feb. 8, but the Taliban have threatened to target them again if Washington opts to keep international forces in the country after a May withdrawal deadline.
Defense News
The Trump administration’s decision to move military responsibility for Israel from U.S. European Command to U.S. Central Command will help work toward a collective approach to security in a region where America’s main allies have traditionally been in conflict. That’s the read from Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of CENTCOM, who said Feb. 8 that “bureaucratically, it’s just the thing that makes it a little easier to work those relationships.”
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San Francisco Chronicle
For all its promise as an idyllic family oasis, a 52-acre property adjacent to Travis Air Force Base, Calif., in Solano County sits vacant. After 20 years housing hundreds of Air Force families, for the last decade the community’s 302 units have been unoccupied, a victim of the military’s decision to shut off the water and sewer lines that serve the property.
The Drive
The E-11As are in high demand, but there are so few of them, pilots may not have even seen one before jumping into the cockpit of one downrange
One More Thing
Breaking Defense
A new White House executive order appears to route all future national security space policy decisions through the National Security Council (NSC), in a move numerous experts and former officials say may signal a Biden administration decision to abandon the National Space Council.
