Shaun Waterman

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.

The key to the longest-range kill chains is to shorten the distance data has to travel by collating and processing it as close as possible to the place it is generated, a panel of industry experts and executives said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber ...

The Pentagon needs a Digital Command and a Digital Warfare Corps, along with other changes, to take advantage of critical new technologies, according to a think tank founded by former Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt. 

U.S. Space Force contractors are building an AI-powered tool to detect cyberattacks on satellites by directly monitoring the behavior and telemetry outputs of satellite systems in orbit, executives said this week. 

The U.S. military is doubling down on non-space-based alternatives to GPS, the ubiquitous position, navigation, and timing service provided by the U.S. Space Force, with new funding for the development and testing of operational prototypes of quantum-based devices that don’t depend on easily jammable signals ...

The Air Force is finally poised to deal with the “Valley of Death” problem—the gulf between the invention of an innovative new technology and its deployment at scale to warfighters— leaders of the department’s science and technology enterprise told defense industry executives Aug 27. 

The Pentagon’s cutting-edge technology research agency awarded cash prizes worth $8.5 million at hacker conference DEFCON last week as part of a contest to build open-source generative AI tools that can help find and patch software vulnerabilities.