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.
Across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, the Pentagon will purchase 21 fewer fighter jets than originally expected for the 2025 fiscal year, dropping a planned buy of 107 to 86.
“We’re very, very fixated on being competitive with the pacing challenge [of China],” said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. “I think the budget that we’ve submitted moves us forward — not quite as fast as we would like to, but it moves us forward in the right direction while maintaining current capabilities that are essential to the nation.”
Pentagon officials say they have “high confidence” that they can return the V-22 Ospreys to flight safely, but are tight lipped on what they learned about the cause of a crash in Japan that killed eight airmen.
Despite disagreements with Boeing on pricing for the E-7A Wedgetail, Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said officials still see the radar plane “as a capability that makes sense and that we need to field in the near term.”
With apparent frustration with another program, Space Force acquisition chief Frank Calvelli asked, “What I don’t get… [is] why would somebody want to have this sort of reputation-ruining stain in the papers all the time?”
“We need a budget to be able to continue to fund this,” said Space Development Agency Director Derek Tournear. “We always assume there will be a continuing resolution for a few months, but not six to 12.”
Two international customers so far have signed on to buy Northrop’s Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite, and the company hopes more could be in the works.
“So there’s a sweet spot for where we can prime it and there’s a stretch area. … What I hope is you see the sweet spot increases and the stretch area is moving to higher” program sizes and complexities, Kratos’s Steve Fendley told Breaking Defense.
Development of the Air Force’s first two rapid prototype radar planes proved more difficult than expected, according to acquisition chief Andrew Hunter.
International partners could join in on drone development for a next round of CCA work planned for the FY25 budget, according to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.
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.
