There’s a new X-plane in the Air Force’s fleet. The Air Force Test Pilot School in June redesignated the NF-16D Variable In-flight Simulator Aircraft as the X-62A, allowing the aircraft to be used for testing the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Skyborg program. The aircraft, originally ...
In a multi-faceted test, six bombs that were dropped from two F-16s over White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, set up their own communications network, received new targets in-flight, and struck the targets collaboratively in a synchronized fashion, the Air Force Research Laboratory announced. The ...
Having successfully used “digital twinning” to design and prototype its latest jet trainer aircraft, the Air Force is moving to use the new technology to develop and test weapons, too—building an online Colosseum in which vendors’ systems can virtually fight each other. Col. Garry A. ...
The Air Force’s “Golden Horde” weapon swarming project overcame its earlier technical difficulties in a second flight test last month, the service said March 5. The Feb. 19 event featured four Small Diameter Bombs equipped with systems that let them work as a team, two ...
The Air Force Research Laboratory is kicking off 2021 with plans to forge closer ties with the fledgling Space Force and a new focus on digital engineering. AFRL boss Brig. Gen. Heather L. Pringle laid out the lab’s priorities in a Feb. 4 talk with ...
A group of networked bombs failed to hit the right target in the Air Force’s first flight test of its nascent weapon-swarming technology last month, posing a new obstacle as the service tries to speed the concept to the battlefield. On Dec. 15, the Air ...
Three companies will move on to flight experiments as part of the Air Force’s Skyborg drone program, the service said Dec. 7. Kratos earned $37.8 million, Boeing earned $25.7 million, and General Atomics earned $14.3 million to continue on in the program, the Air Force ...
Air Force science advisers will meet Dec. 17 to discuss the findings of their recent space research as they close out this year’s deep-dive studies. In 2020, the board considered emerging space technologies, military communications, and autonomous systems behavior. As the year comes to a ...
Air Force researchers in October will test whether a software version of the service’s developmental weapons swarm can make its way through a combat mission and reroute itself as conditions change. The demonstration is part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Golden Horde initiative, a ...
A promising experimental Air Force satellite is one step closer to being ready to launch. The Air Force Research Laboratory on July 30 said the service’s Navigation Technology Satellite-3 passed a critical design milestone in June that lets the contractor, L3Harris Technologies, start to build ...
The Air Force is getting its Skyborg wingman drone program underway, reaching out to industry for technology that could head to a future experimentation campaign. Multiple companies could each win $400 million to contribute technology toward a best-of-breed Skyborg drone, the service said in a ...