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New York Times
On the last day of August, when President Biden called the airlift of refugees from Kabul an “extraordinary success,” senior diplomats and military officers in Doha, Qatar, emailed out a daily situation report marked “sensitive but unclassified.” The conditions in Doha, according to their description, were getting worse. Almost 15,000 Afghan refugees were packed into airplane hangars and wedding-style tents at Al Udeid Air Base and nearby Camp As Sayliyah.
Navy Times
The Navy has identified five sailors who died when their helicopter crashed into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday. The MH-60S Knighthawk, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 8, was operating off the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln 60 nautical miles from San Diego when it crashed at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. A sixth, unidentified crew member was rescued later that day.
Military.com
House lawmakers have backed legislation prohibiting dishonorable discharges for troops who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Mark Green, an Army veteran, requires only honorable discharges for anyone who is separated from the military over refusing to be vaccinated. It was added to the fiscal 2022 defense authorization bill, passed by the House Armed Services Committee on Sept. 2.
Virginia Business
Alexandria-based national security contractor DCS Corp. has won a $164 million contract to support the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Directorate and Bombers Directorate. Under the four-year prime contract, DCS will assist with the acquisition, fielding, and sustainment for part of the Air Force fighter and bomber fleet, along with supporting foreign military sales to partner nations.
PBS AEROSPACE
The PBS AEROSPACE portfolio of turbojet engines continues to grow in response to the DOD’s requirement for a wider variety of propulsion system options for small Unmanned Air Systems (sUAS), target drones, and missiles. PBS AEROSPACE is quickly becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of small jet turbines and other gas turbine engine products for a broad spectrum of commercial and military applications.
Air Force release
Air Vice Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari, Indian Air Force, assistant chief of air staff for plans, and Brig. Gen. Brian R. Bruckbauer, director of the Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, signed a landmark agreement recently to co-develop air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles.
Newsweek
European Union officials have given the Taliban a set of conditions, including rule of law and press freedom, to ensure interaction with the 27-nation bloc. Though foreign diplomats from EU member countries were evacuated after the Taliban took over Afghanistan last month, officials have said they are willing to cooperate with the Taliban and Afghanistan.
Space News
The U.S. military’s narrowband communications satellites are oversubscribed, and capacity is insufficient to meet the needs of users, says a new report by the Government Accountability Office. The report released Sept. 2 focuses on the Mobile User Objective System, a network of five geosynchronous satellites operated by the Navy. The system was conceived nearly two decades ago as a satellite-based cellular voice and data network for mobile forces.
Breaking Defense
The Defense Department’s joint effort with Australia to develop an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile took a step forward Sept. 1, with the Air Force issuing Round 2 contract options to Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The program, called Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE), is aimed at maturing “a solid-rocket boosted, air-breathing, hypersonic conventional cruise missile, air-launched from existing fighter/bomber aircraft, through the completion of a preliminary design review.”
Defense One
The largest emergency airlift ever handled by the U.S. military started slowly and built to a torrent—in five charts, track the day-by-day flow of Americans, Afghans, and third-party nationals out of Hamid Karzai International Airport from Aug. 16 to 29.
Defense News
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has agreed to restart 16 defense advisory boards after halting activity by all the panels in February and essentially purging a number of members who were appointed in the final days of the Trump administration.
Air Force Magazine
Cloud technologies are accelerating change at every level of the Air Force—and the Space Force. Whether it's pure computational power to enable autonomy or advanced encryption to ensure mission-grade security, the future of IT is here and now.
Lawfire
“Ending a ‘forever war?’ Forget it. It seems we are now embarking upon a new conflict, and one that—even if successful—will be difficult, long, and costly: the Over-the-Horizon (OTH) War of 2021. In this second installment of our series analyzing the Afghanistan disaster, let’s unpack the implications of some of President Biden’s recent statements about his intention to use OTH capabilities against terrorists,” writes Charles J. Dunlap Jr., the former deputy judge advocate general of the United States Air Force.
One More Thing
The Gazette (Colorado Springs)
Linebacker Demonte Meeks remembers two moments that allowed his path at the Air Force Academy to take shape in his mind. And, no, this part of the story has nothing to do with football. The first took place at the Air Force prep school while Meeks was taking a course on math applications and found a zone while working out problems on truss analysis, tension, and compression loads.
