The National Geospatial Agency will take over Project Maven, the Pentagon’s key artificial intelligence program designed to identify individual objects out of a massive amount of surveillance data, said NGA’s outgoing commander, Vice Adm. Robert Sharp. Referring to the Pentagon’s most recent budget request, Sharp pointed out that “NGA gains operational control of Project Maven’s [geographical intelligence] AI services and capabilities from the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence that includes responsibility for labeled data, AI algorithms, testing, [and] evaluation capabilities.”
The Air Force updated its requirement to permit transgender Airmen to skip the annual physical fitness test while they undergo gender-confirmation surgery. The policy itself is actually not new, but the update puts the information in a more commonly referenced document.
Forget what you’ve seen in movies: Flying low and slow in large fixed-wing aircraft is tough to do. It is even more difficult while flying through mountains, where the weather is unpredictable and the terrain forbidding. Now add to the picture crowded airspace where you might collide with another aircraft if you are not careful. Oh, and by the way, half the airspace is filled with smoke and there is a wildfire raging off your wingtip with flames reaching over 100 feet high.
The Space Force has unveiled a wave of bonuses to lure recruits with highly specialized tech backgrounds to become Guardians. Bonuses range from $12,000 to $20,000 for certain technology certifications that could be used for the Space Force's cyber career fields, according to a press release from the Department of the Air Force's Recruiting Service.
The Pentagon's fiscal 2023 budget request documents provide interesting details that may help add a bit of explanation to the sudden jump in unignorable testing of new features on the F-22 Raptor, all of which The War Zone was first to report on. The documents describe how the F-22 is being used as something of a test surrogate for technologies that are being developed under the Next Generation Air Dominance program, as well as adopting technologies that have been designed for NGAD but can be fielded early on the F-22 to meet emerging threats.
The United States and South Korea have agreed to cooperate on space situational awareness for military purposes. Under the agreement, Seoul and Washington will “share intelligence about outer space, nurture space experts through training and exercises, and enhance interoperability for combined space operations.”
The U.S. Air Force now wants to buy 64 fewer Boeing F-15EX aircraft than in the service’s original acquisition plan and halt procurement of the twin-engined fighter after fiscal 2024. “At this time, we are planning for [buying] 80,” an Air Force spokesperson said.
The Air Force Research Laboratory has teamed up with small business DeepMedia to advance technology capable of detecting synthetic media called deepfakes. DeepMedia provides tools for identifying videos in which a person’s likeness is replaced with somebody else’s, a type of media that poses danger to troops on and off the battlefield.
The fascinating wartime archive of an RAF airman with Japanese heritage who escaped three times from POW camps has been put up for sale by his family. Warrant Officer Percy Sekine's mother was British, and his Japanese father worked for The Mitsui Bank in London. He was a black belt in judo when he volunteered as a 19-year-old for the RAF at the outbreak of the Second World War.