Shaun Waterman

Four satellite missions will launch in the coming year to demonstrate on-orbit refueling, servicing, and repair capabilities to extend the lives of military satellites. Funded by different Department of Defense entities, each will also entail commercial efforts. 

The Department of the Air Force is embracing the new commercial-first approach to IT ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, outsourcing networks and other infrastructure and reducing the amount of customization required from vendors, say the chief information officers for several DAF organizations.

The program executive officers for some of the Air Force’s largest acquisition management organizations are struggling to deal with an exodus of senior talent and experienced civilian staff, three of them told an industry conference. 

Creating a new military service to wage war in the cyber domain would take too long, risk creating a top-heavy bureaucracy, and create confusion about the defense of other services’ IT networks, two former leaders of U.S. Cyber Command told a congressionally chartered research committee ...

The Pentagon recently issued new rules on cybersecurity measures that commercial satellite operators must employ if their products or services are used by U.S. intelligence agencies or military services. 

In a brief email Nov. 6, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out a new Cyber Force Generation plan, meant to give U.S. Cyber Command more authority over the employment, training, and equipping of U.S. troops preparing for and waging cyber war. Former Air Force officers ...

When lawmakers and outside experts turn their attention to how the U.S. military can use of artificial intelligence, they tend to focus on weapons systems—the most consequential and risk-laden use cases—and on generative AI. But behind the scenes, the Air Force is already using machine ...

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.

When the Space Force discusses the cyber threats faced by the service or the commercial satellite providers it uses, it typically frames the issue as a nation-state one. But for cyber defenders in the commercial space sector responsible for day-to-day operations, the reality is rather ...

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth canceled the Air Force’s Cloud One Next contract earlier this year, he declared it would save taxpayers $1.4 billion—the maximum billings under the contract. But current and former Air Force personnel who are familiar with Cloud One say it’s not as ...

U.S. researchers and military contractors are working on new tools to protect space operations from cyber attackers, and one company has launched a satellite to serve as an on-orbit cyber range to test out defenses, speakers said at the AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference last ...

The Air Force should place greater emphasis on exercising and training for long range kill chains right now, rather than waiting for new technologies to make things easier, industry executives and former Air Force officers said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

Front Door, the one-stop shop for companies and contractors to introduce  themselves to Space Systems Command, is getting a rebrand and a leg-up, becoming the first point of contact for the whole service, Space Force leaders said.

After more than a year of preparation, a once-obscure Air Force program office will on Oct. 1 assume management of a key effort to network forces from every military service in near real time, culminating an expansion that has placed it at the center of ...

Now that the Air Force is starting to deploy artificial intelligence operationally, service leaders are grappling with AI’s limitations—not just what it can and cannot do, but the extensive data and technical and human infrastructure it needs to work.