Space Force Looks Beyond Earth’s Orbits By Courtney Albon The Space Force’s small size has limited its capacity to consider what role it will play in future operations on and around the moon. That needs to change, according to Vice...
DIU
The Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s commercial technology hub, plans to demonstrate low-cost, commercially derived missile defense sensors on orbit within the next two years, according to a new notice to industry.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
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.
Amid growing concern about supply chain issues, the Pentagon’s commercial innovation hub is seeking companies with advanced manufacturing expertise to help bolster the space industrial base.
The competing House and Senate versions of the 2026 defense policy bill advancing through each chamber both contains provisions aimed at expanding or speeding up efforts to get new software and technology into the hands of warfighters.
By the end of this decade, the Air Force could begin equipping up to nine bases with self-sufficient nuclear microreactors as part of an effort to unplug from local commercial power grids and satisfy a growing demand for secure, reliable power sources that are more ...
Sustained Munitions Production and Lower-Cost Designs By John A. Tirpak Munitions have long been a bill-payer in the Air Force budget—staples of warfare that, in peacetime, can be neglected or shortchanged to pay for more pressing needs—but after more than...
For three years now, the Pentagon has dug into its arsenal and spent massive sums backing Ukraine against Russia’s invasion; now it may see a return on that investment by embracing the post-Soviet country’s battle-tested way of drone warfare.
The first iteration of the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative should achieve its goals of providing thousands of cheap, autonomous platforms in all combat domains by July 2025, the deputy director of the Defense Innovation Unit said Dec. 12.
Four companies will explore rapidly- and mass-produced drone concepts under the Enterprise Test Vehicle program being conducted by the Air Force’s Armament Directorate and the Defense Innovation Unit. The concepts, which are to fly this summer, are to make use of commercial, off-the-shelf, or easy-to-obtain ...
There is no real guidebook for aircrews on how to adjust their body clock and their circadian rhythm to perform on a different shift. Each individual is trying to navigate that on their own without guidance.
