Congress passed a continuing resolution Sept. 30 to keep the Pentagon and the rest of the government funded through Dec. 3, avoiding a shutdown with just hours to spare. The stopgap measure, approved 65-35 in the Senate and 254-175 in the House, means the Defense Department will start the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, under a continuing resolution for the 12th time in 13 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.

North Korea tested a missile it called the Hwasong-8 “strategic weapon” Sept. 28, suggesting later that it was a hypersonic missile—but the Pentagon said it’s unclear exactly what Pyongyang flew and that it doesn’t change U.S. military posture in the Western Pacific. Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, said Sept. 30 that the U.S. Intelligence Community is “still making an assessment” of what was tested, which he said North Korea has claimed was a hypersonic missile.

The Space Force has selected it second tranche of interservice transfers, the service announced Sept. 30. All told, 603 Soldiers, 49 Sailors, and 18 Marines will be transferring during fiscal 2022.

The Government Accountability Office expects to report findings in the spring of 2022 in its investigation into the Defense Department’s choice of Alabama as the likely permanent home of U.S. Space Command. Members of Colorado's congressional delegation registered their latest complaint Sept. 30 in the form of a letter to Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall calling the selection process for the headquarters of DOD’s 11th combatant command a “significant departure” from the norm and alleging, as in past letters, that political angling played a role. The members want Kendall to halt any work on moving the command from its temporary home in Colorado to Alabama.

Five hundred and eighty service members died by suicide in 2020, the Pentagon announced Sept. 30, when the Defense Department released its annual suicide report. Those 580 deaths mark the most the DOD has recorded in at least five years, with the Active-duty component accounting for 384, the Reserve for 77, and the National Guard for 119. In the Air Force, 81 Active-duty members, 12 Reservists, and 16 Air National Guard members took their own lives in calendar year 2020, according to the report.

The 92nd Air Refueling Wing at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., simultaneously launched 20 KC-135s on Sept. 29, marking the base's largest-ever minimum interval takeoff event, "an impressive feat," according to a Fairchild press release. "Today we launched more Refuelers than are owned by whole countries."