Tag Archives: Air Force

Experts from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission urge lawmakers to take action as China continues to advance its space-related activities, Space News reported Thursday. Members of the commission, which was established in 2000 to analyze the national security impacts of U.S. trade relations with China, testified before Congress on the actions the government must take to address China’s space achievements and growing anti-satellite arsenal.

Heather Wilson, secretary of the U.S. Air Force and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, spoke about the service branch's space strategy during a recent event in London. She spoke in front of 200 stakeholders from government, commercial and academic communities at U.K.-based think tank Policy Exchange, USAF said Tuesday. “We all prefer that space remains peaceful, because if war extends into space everyone loses,” she stated.

The U.S. Air Force is partnering with Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana to expand its testing facilities for future hypersonic technologies, Military.com reported Tuesday. Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said the universities will build “quiet wind tunnels” to reduce free stream disturbances and for more accurate aerothermodynamics predictions.

The U.S. Air Force tapped Austrian tech company Frequentis to provide virtual air traffic control systems by October, National Defense reported Thursday. Mark Robinson, head of air traffic management at Frequentis, said at the Avalon Airshow in Australia that the company will deliver a total of four fixed and deployable smartVISION tower systems consisting of cameras, high-fidelity monitors and surveillance technologies designed for aircraft identification.

Department of Defense officials said the U.S. Air Force developed the first iteration of a cyber platform designed to help cyber forces perform mission planning, share information and deliver command-and-control systems to support cyber missions, Fifth Domain reported Monday. A spokesman for the Air Force said the service handed over to U.S. Cyber Command the first increment of the Unified Platform April 9. Increment 1 features capabilities for interoperability and defensive cyber operations.

The U.S. Air Force continues to implement a new process that reduces the time required for securing authority to operate information technology tools from a year to just weeks, FedScoop reported Monday. The service is using Fast Track ATO that Matt Donovan, undersecretary for the branch, unveiled in March to allow officials to speed up deployment and assessment of new software and systems. 

The U.S. Air Force intends to choose between Boeing and Northrop Grumman for the engineering and manufacturing phase of the service’s ground based strategic deterrent program that will begin in 2020, Defense News reported Thursday. The successful bidder will produce intercontinental ballistic missiles and related systems that are slated to be operational by the late 2020s.

Air Force Secretary and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Heather Wilson announced a new strategy for the service to identify, build and deploy technology platforms for the next 10 years and beyond as well as expand its tech superiority amid peer-to-peer threats, the Air Force reported Wednesday. "The Science and Technology Strategy isn’t just a list of technologies. Our approach will be to predict where adversaries cannot easily go and make sure the Air Force gets there first,” said Wilson.

The U.S. Air Force released the results of a cross-functional team effort testing approaches to gain and maintain superiority in the electromagnetic spectrum. USAF commenced the effort in January 2018 and announced the results in January 2019 during the Weapons and Tactics Conference at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, the service branch said Tuesday.

U.S. Air Force officials noted that the nation is prepared to demonstrate space capabilities to adversaries to show readiness to react to threats, Defense News reported Wednesday. “That capability needs to be one that’s understood by your adversary. They need to know that there are certain things we can do, at least at some broad level,” said Air Force Secretary and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Heather Wilson during the recent Space Symposium in Colorado.