US Transportation Command announced the release of a new strategy on Friday. The plan seeks to address the changing nature of global threats by prioritizing readiness, cyber capabilities, evolving to meet new challenges, and developing a flexible workforce. “We must anticipate and adapt to challenges that will require us to perform our missions more often in non-permissive, remote, austere, and distributed locations,” the report states. The command intends to meet these challenges, in part, through the use of “additive manufacturing to print exact working replicas of replacement parts” around the world instead of shipping them. Other solutions the report mentions include the use of “autonomous and robot-assisted ground and air refueling,” “drone delivery,” and “driverless vehicles.”
The $4.26 billion Small Business Innovation Research contracting program widely used by the Air Force went into hibernation as the government shut down Oct. 1, but unless lawmakers strike a deal on reforms, the program could reach an abrupt end.
