The new eight-year deal, dubbed by London in a statement today as a “Unity” contract, will enhance the UK’s continuous at sea deterrent (CASD) and strengthen the AUKUS trilateral partnership.
The investment in transitioning Rocket Cargo "is focused on utilizing vehicles that traverse from or through space to transport DoD materiel anywhere around the world within tactically responsive timelines," the Space Force's FY25 budget request says.
Zero Trust is the Pentagon’s foundation for its modern cybersecurity strategy.
"The win for the research lab, and for our acquirers is that we get to see the cutting edge technologies that are out there," said AFRL Director Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle.
"I won't say that it's not achievable" to transition Skyborg to a program of record, said AFLMC's Brig. Gen. Dale White. "I will just say that it has to be balanced with all of the other requirements we have across the portfolio to be able to do that."
"Future Skyborg experimentation events will explore direct manned-unmanned teaming between manned aircraft and multiple ACS-controlled unmanned aircraft," AFRL said today.
If industry can "turn this into a human transport mechanism -- which some of the companies are talking about doing -- sure the DoD would be interested in exploring options for that, just as we do with the airlines, and the shipping industries today,"AFRL's Program Manager Greg Spanjers said.
Reducing cognitive overload on warfighters while improving “time to trust” for autonomous systems is a matter of design.
UPDATED: To explain that LCASD program is done with flight tests. WASHINGTON: The Air Force’s low-cost XQ-58A Valkyrie drone has tested a new capability — launching its own drone — designed to boost its abilities to counter enemy air defense missiles and protect higher-value aircraft such as fighters and tankers. The Air Force Research Laboratory […]
The new simulation environment will use 'digital twins' to rapidly test and iterate "collaborative autonomous networked technologies," AFRL explains.
The Air Force is "driving toward" 2023 for initial operating capability for Skyborg, says AFRL Director Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle.
Boeing, General Atomics, and Kratos the winners for first Skyborg prototypes.
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
Lockheed Martin's award means that all three big defense primes with deep ties to the Air Force now are in the running for Skyborg.
"If you look at the orbits of the stuff that's going around the Moon, It looks like a drunken sailor wandering around as compared to the orbits that we're used to describing closer to the Earth," AFRL's Col. Eric Felt says.
"It's gonna hurt a little bit," said new AFRL Commander Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle. "We can't do everything -- we don't have the budget to do everything under the sun."
The drone's mission set "could be anything from base defense to communications to sensing," said AFLCMC's Brig. Gen. Dale White.