The Defense Department’s cloud plans are extending beyond the continental United States in 2023, according to a top IT official. The Defense Information Systems Agency wants to develop a prototype for OCONUS cloud, which could be on a ship in the middle of the ocean, on an island, or in sub-Saharan Africa, in the first half of next year, Sharon Woods, the director for the agency’s Hosting and Compute Center, told Defense One.
The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved the U.S.-proposed resolution calling on states to commit to a moratorium on testing of destructive anti-satellite missiles, with 155 countries voting yes, nine voting no, and nine nations abstaining. Unsurprisingly, Russia, China, and Iran were among the naysayers. India, another major space player, abstained. Interestingly, North Korea did not register a vote during the Dec. 7 meeting in New York—which one U.S. diplomat said was unusual as Pyongyang normally goes out of its way to vote “no” on all U.S.-sponsored resolutions.
It’s official: the United Kingdom, Japan, and Italy will team up to jointly develop a new stealth fighter jet. A new international coalition sees broad collaboration from all three countries under what is known as the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP). Its ultimate aim is to have a sixth-generation air platform in the air by 2035. A British-led stealth fighter effort, dubbed Team Tempest, was originally launched in 2018, with Leonardo’s U.K.-based division being involved from the start.
Ten years ago, Erin Kirk was in a group chat with several other female Marines when the subject of sexual harassment and sexual assault came up. Many of the women reported that they had been groped during their service; Kirk had been raped. “We were kind of comparing notes, and had said, ‘You know, we all—at the time we were serving—felt so alone, and we thought we were the only ones’,” she told Defense One. “We were just so isolated and didn’t realize that. Why did we not realize that we all went through the exact same thing?”
About 2,000 independent pharmacies will rejoin Tricare's network next month, the company in charge of administering the pharmacy benefits confirmed Dec. 9. “Since we issued the new solicitation on Dec. 1, we are pleased that more than 2,000 pharmacies have accepted the terms and will rejoin the Tricare network, and other pharmacies still have several more days to respond,” Express Scripts spokesperson Justine Sessions said in an email.
The first launch of the Space Development Agency’s constellation planned for mid-December will slip to March 2023 due to an anomaly in York Space’s satellites that was identified during tests, the agency’s director Derek Tournear said Dec. 9. The Space Development Agency, a procurement organization under the U.S. Space Force, is working with multiple vendors to build a mesh network in low Earth orbit that includes data-transport communications satellites and infrared sensor satellites that detect and track missiles in flight.
The Air Force thought it had the perfect plan: Take its older Reaper drones, which it’s been trying to get rid of for years, and send them to Ukraine, a country begging for long-range weaponry. But after months of internal wrangling, the Pentagon has yet to make a decision—even though the drones could provide a capability to Ukraine that it’s wanted since the start of the war.
“Decision superiority—the ability to assimilate, analyze, and act upon information acquired from the battlespace more rapidly than an adversary—has always been crucial. It enabled the Royal Air Force to defeat a numerically superior German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and it formed the basis for North America’s defenses during the Cold War. Now, in an era where U.S. air combat capacity is dramatically shrinking in the face of a growing Chinese threat, achieving decision superiority is more important than ever. It has also become more challenging,” writes retired USAF Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
One of the biggest themes for Air Force war stories over the past couple of years has involved trying to make the computers work. Go to social media, and tales of hour-long waits to open email or download a PDF file proliferate. Now, the Department of the Air Force is scaling up its program to try and address the problem. So far, it’s making progress. “So user perception, it’s our user satisfaction score, is up significantly from Thanksgiving a year ago. We’re seeing performance improvement on about three-quarters of the bases that we track,” Colt Whittall, the Air Force’s chief experience officer said during an event hosted by AFCEA’s northern Virginia chapter.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Dec. 9 authorized fresh $275 million in military aid for Ukraine offering new capabilities to defeat drones and strengthen air defenses, according to a memo released by the White House. The package also includes rockets for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers made by Lockheed Martin Corp, 80,000 155mm artillery rounds, Humvee military vehicles, and about 150 generators, according to the memo.
The test pilots who will be the first to fly the B-21 Raider, the Air Force’s next stealth bomber, are now working with Air Force and Northrop Grumman officials to draw up a game plan for its first flights next year. But one thing that’s not weighing on their minds, the pilots stressed to reporters before the bomber’s Dec. 2 rollout at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif.: The shape of the B-21′s windows and the field of view they will allow pilots.
The C-130 Hercules is a remarkable (some might even say legendary) military transport aircraft created by American manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. The aircraft plays a significant role in military aviation and is known for its ability to take on any mission, whenever and wherever it may be—but that’s not all the Hercules is lauded for.