The Air Staff’s new A5/8 office will stand up on Oct. 1, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told an audience in National Harbor, Md., on Tuesday during his address at AFA’s Air & Space Conference. Air Force leadership announced in July plans to merge the Air Staff’s plans and requirements functions, the A5, with its strategic planning activities, the A8, into a new organization. As part of this change, financial programming formerly conducted by the A8 will shift to the service’s financial management organization. Welsh said back in July the A5/8 would be responsible for “developing, managing, and constantly assessing” the service’s strategy. Along with the A5/8 standup, the Air Staff’s operations oversight, the A3, which was formerly combined with the A5, will now stand alone.
The final version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill calls for adding $1.2 billion to the Space Force’s research and development accounts, an increase that’s mostly split between two efforts: expanding the service’s low-Earth orbit data transport network and boosting its space-based missile warning and tracking capabilities.
