The Pentagon plans to field thousands of drones in the sea, in the air, and possibly on land to counter the large size of China’s military under its new Replicator Initiative. And the Department of Defense’s No. 2 official insists the DOD needs no new ...
The Space Force is expanding its effort to be able to launch a satellite into orbit on a moment’s notice, with help from the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. The two organizations put out a solicitation to industry Aug. 24 for its next “tactically responsive space” mission, ...
Space is taking on more responsibilities for the U.S. military. Next on the agenda: cargo. A June 30 solicitation from the Defense Innovation Unit is seeking “novel commercial solutions that enable responsive and precise point-to-point delivery of cargo to, from, and through space.” If successful, ...
The House Armed Services Committee's top Democrat endorsed a new Pentagon legislative proposal designed to work around Congressional gridlock to field new technologies faster. Spearheaded by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the DOD is seeking a "rapid response" authority that would allow initial work to ...
A small Air Force team at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is working on solutions to mitigate one of U.S. Central Command’s primary issues: doing more with less. As part of a broader push in CENTCOM towards what leaders call “a culture of innovation,” ...
Sean Maday of Google moderated a discussion on "Space Innovation to the Tactical Edge" with Maj. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, Special Assistant to the Chief of Space Operations; Marc Bell CEO of Terran Orbital; Steven J. Butow of the Defense Innovation Unit; and Chris Kemp, ...
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 ...
Unlike nearly every other innovative technology throughout history, Maj. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt believes the space enterprise emerged backward. “Every other domain started with an entrepreneur who built something,” Burt, the special assistant to the Chief of Space Operations, told an audience at AFA’s Air, ...
The Pentagon has put out a call for blended wing body aircraft concepts that could be applied to future military tanker and cargo aircraft as well as commercial aircraft, according to a solicitation posted by the Defense Innovation Unit. The Pentagon wants “concepts of design ...
The Senate confirmed William LaPlante to be the Pentagon's undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment on April 7. LaPlante is a seasoned acquisition and defense professional, having served in key technology jobs in the Pentagon--where he last was Air Force acquisition executive--to industry, where he was ...
The aerospace industrial base could pose a risk to U.S. national security because of lack of parts for aging systems, inattention to the future workforce, and the uncertainty that’s historically surrounded the success of space companies. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown ...
The Defense Innovation Unit and its partnering Defense Department organizations transitioned six projects to programs of record in 2021, awarding contracts to eight companies in categories that ranged from assessing cyber threats to launching rocket payloads.