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.
While the Pentagon now expects the plane to fly until 2088, GAO found the services are planning to slash flight hours, which can help hold down the program’s topline.
“On their aircraft and their ground units, they’ll be able to talk directly to us with Link 16 to our Tranche 0 satellites that are on orbit now,” Derek Tournear said at the 2024 Space Symposium.
“Just the idea of this being more available and so people can find it and try to exploit it, that’s something we just have to bake in and understand,” Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb said of commercial services like SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.
“[W]e’ve heard proactively from the Chinese twice on two things they wanted to talk to us about with space safety related issues,” said SPACECOM Commander Gen. Stephen Whiting. “We think that is very positive … ”
A global ecosystem that shares space situational awareness data can secure a safe future for space, but much greater international coordination is needed, according to a new document from the Office of Space Commerce.
The desire for technical data rights “is one of those areas where industry and government have been at odds for a long time. And certainly Boeing on F-18 and the Navy as well,” Boeing fighters VP Mark Sears told Breaking Defense. “So being able to put that on a path to final resolution … is a really positive step.”
Older F-35 stealth fighters were slated to start getting the Technology Refresh 3 upgrade this month, but the Pentagon has postponed the retrofit plan to an unspecified date.
Discussing Israel’s protections for civilians in its bombing campaign of Gaza, Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said that after observing an Israeli strike cell in late 2023, Jerusalem’s forces were “making a bona fide effort to adhere to the law of armed conflict.”
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
