A new lab building at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., will house some of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s “irreplaceable” equipment for testing how electronic spacecraft parts will likely stand up against radiation in space. Also this year at Kirtland, AFRL opened the Skywave Technology ...
AFRL
The Air Force is considering making aerodynamic retrofits to one of its flagship cargo planes in an effort to save on fuel and be kinder to the environment. As part of a project that has been in the works for years, the Air Force Research ...
Fifth AF without F-15s; Collaborative Combat Aircraft; Layered missile defense in Guam.
Air Force leaders today are making significant decisions about the future force, betting on the promise of autonomous collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) as a means to increase the Air Force’s combat capacity.
A cubesat sent to blaze a trail for NASA’s next space station arrived in lunar orbit Nov. 13—the first cubesat known to ever have done so—after a voyage that proved tense at times. Meanwhile the small company that created the tiny spacecraft secured a new ...
The use of digital engineering and modeling to design, develop, and sustain new systems is not a passing fad, but a change that is here to stay.
The Air Force plans to complete testing of a full-scale blended wing body cargo/tanker aircraft within four years, according to the department’s new Climate Action Plan. The demonstrator could be a prototype for a future operational mobility aircraft or family of aircraft, and the plan ...
Half of the Air Force’s billets that call for advanced academic degrees in science, technology, engineering, or math are either unfilled or filled by someone who doesn’t hold the degree. At the same time, the Air Force has the fewest general officers with advanced STEM ...
Skyborg, the Air Force’s effort to develop an artificial intelligence-enabled system to control unmanned aircraft, is ready to “graduate” and contribute to key programs such as the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, a top program executive officer said. But while the so-called “Vanguard” ...
A new cubesat built and operated in house at the Air Force Research Laboratory is set to demonstrate cognitive, beyond-line-of-sight radio networking via satellite while also giving AFRL’s researchers “intimate knowledge” of how the satellite works to apply in the future. Its name Recurve refers ...
The Air Force has nine major commands and two Air Reserve Components. (Air Force Reserve Command is both a majcom and an ARC.) In late 2019, Air Force Space Command was redesignated U.S. Space Force, a separate military branch under the Department of the Air ...
The Next-Generation Air Dominance family of systems remains highly classified. But some details are beginning to emerge.
