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.
The $883.7 billion bill makes several major changes to President Joe Biden’s FY25 budget request, including a more narrow approach to transferring Air National Guard units into the Space Force. But budgetary matters will ultimately be decided by congressional appropriators.
“Requirements in the market are changing dramatically thanks to Elon Musk and SpaceX,” Aaron Brosnan, president of Thales subsidiary Tampa Microwave, said in an interview.
“I’m not looking in any way, shape, or form to re-litigate how we got here, where to place blame. I don’t care. At this point, I don’t care,” said Rep. Rob Wittman.
“So this is kind of walking us back towards this model that we had during the Cold War, where we know each other, we train together, we’re building the team in peacetime and in preparation for deployment,” a senior Air Force official said.
According to a SOCOM official, the Army included feedback from the command that led to design changes like hardware for a refueling probe and features that will enable special operators to make unique modifications.
“We already expanded production ahead of Replicator, and irrespective of Replicator, because we know where this is going,” AeroVironment CEO Wahid Nawabi told Breaking Defense.
The command carried out steps like hydrostatic and wind tunnel tests, but is now “kind of hitting a pause” on implementing a water landing capability due to budget concerns.
“We haven’t seen … the arrival of that many different, I would call ecosystems or capabilities, going that fast together in quite some time,” SOCOM Commander Gen. Bryan Fenton said of new technologies changing the nature of warfare.
Company executives claimed the Pulsar system can use AI tools to quickly identify new threats and devise defenses against them, compressing the timeline for responding to rapidly-evolving electronic warfare.
![The sights of SOF Week 2024 [Photos]](https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/05/kraken-k4-manta-scaled-e1715287601503.jpg)
![The sights of SOF Week 2024 [Photos]](https://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/05/kraken-k4-manta-scaled-e1715287601503-225x150.jpg)
