April 24, 1986

The Space Development Agency is set to launch 21 Tranche 1 data transport satellites on Oct. 5—its fourth Tranche 1 mission since last fall and the first to carry Northrop Grumman-built satellites.

After a two-year experiment that created F-16 “Super Squadrons” at Osan Air Base just 50 miles away from North Korea, the U.S. Air Force has returned some of the fighters to its other base on the peninsula.

Some lawmakers in the Senate are advocating for a more bipartisan approach to paying for the Pentagon’s $185 billion Golden Dome missile defense project, arguing that the effort’s goal of bolstering homeland defenses has support across ideological lines but the process for funding it has been politically charged—leaving the program’s…

The Air Force will officially kick off a major overhaul of maintenance career field next year with a pilot program, but the plan for the revamp is still evolving—while officials once intended to condense 50 aircraft maintenance specialties down to just seven, now they are targeting 14 Air Force Specialty…

Three T-7A Red Hawk trainer jets flew together at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, on Sept. 16—one physical aircraft in the air and two virtual ones controlled from simulators on the ground, all sharing one common operating picture.