Michael Marrow covers air warfare for Breaking Defense. He holds a BA in history from the University of Virginia and started out as a freelance reporter covering local news in Fairfax County, Virginia and policing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Michael previously reported on the Air Force and Space Force for Inside Defense, where he tracked major acquisitions, policy changes and modernization efforts.
A pair of studies, one from the Secure World Foundation and one from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, examine the state of play as nations search for ways to keep each other from dominating the heavens.
The overdue Satellite Control Network’s Life Cycle Sustainment Plan is expected to address the many ways space has changed since the last 2017 version, including the over-extension of too few antennas to communicate with too many satellites.
“I can tell you, this is going to get re-litigated in the committee and on the floor. And I just want to make sure people have the full scope of information to make the decision,” said Wittman on the F-35’s next engine.
Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, also defended the Air Force’s urge to mothball some old F-22s, citing the high cost to maintain the non-combat fighters.
If certain requirements mandated by the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act are met, the new performance-based logistics contract “could be awarded by the end of 2023,” a Joint Program Office spokesman told Breaking Defense.
In his first testimony before Congress as the F-35 Program Executive Officer, Air Force Lt. Gen. Mike Schmidt said just 53% of the US Joint Strike Fighter fleet was mission capable as of February 2023, a statistic he called “unacceptable.”
The news comes after the Air Force’s top civilian revealed Tuesday that the missile’s most recent all-up-round test “was not successful” but stopped short of saying the service wouldn’t buy it.
Following a recent disclosure by the Air Force that suggested the new hypersonic missile came up short during testing, Secretary Frank Kendall told lawmakers the service was “more committed” to another hypersonic program.
With Russian engines out of the picture, there’s a new Medium Launch Vehicle on the horizon that is US sourced with a fairing sized to launch constellations.
With Russian engines out of the picture, there’s a new Medium Launch Vehicle on the horizon that is US sourced with a fairing sized to launch constellations.
