PENTAGON: Polar bears. Wind chill of 20 below. Ice floes drifting faster than ever thanks to global warming. Cutting holes in the ice big enough to drop unmanned mini-subs through. Keeping mini-drones aloft in the frigid winds to watch out for the aforementioned bears. Those are just some of the issues — many of them… Keep reading →

AFA WINTER: The third experiment in how the Intelligence Community and the Pentagon should fight together in space gets underway next week, says Gen. John Hyten, head of Space Command, A fourth will be held in May. After the first two tests — all details of which are classified — one lesson has become absolutely clear, Hyten made… Keep reading →

AFA WINTER: Boeing Defense, fresh off its loss of the Long Range Strike Bomber contract, is getting new leadership. Chris Chadwick, who led the $30 billion Boeing, Defense, Space and Security Division to its most profitable year ever, is retiring and will be replaced as president and CEO of BDS by Leanne Caret on March 1. Caret… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: It’s not officially official, but the head of Pentagon acquisition, Frank Kendall, says the Treasury Department has not found any reason for sanctions to be applied against the United Launch Alliance. “The preliminary indications from Treasury (Department) are that they do not apply,” Kendall told reporters after a lunch address to the Washington Space… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: After a decade of improvements to space acquisition after more than a decade of disasters, the most troubled program being built by the US Air Force is again a space program. So said the man who should know: Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves, head of the amazing but often-reluctant-to-speak folks at Air Force Space and… Keep reading →

Ted Cruz now leads Donald Trump in at least some national polls. So when the senator offered a fairly detailed military blueprint for his presidency on Tuesday, CSIS defense budget analyst Mark Cancan jumped on it. He ran Cruz’s assumptions and numbers through CSIS’ Force Cost Calculator. What did he find? Read on. The Editor. In… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The war ground on today between San. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and his colleague Sen. Richard Shelby on the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. Shelby, knowing he had a policy friend in Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, asked her about the Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine essential to US satellite launches… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The Pentagon says it wants a revolution and the 2017 budget to be unveiled today funds a host of high-tech weapons, from arsenal planes to Hyper Velocity Projectiles to robots. But for Deputy Defense Secretary  Bob Work, the real bleeding edge of innovation is not a weapon, no matter how impressive. It’s a secretive command… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Arsenal plane. It’s a great name, no? And the Hyper Velocity Projectile. Whoa. Fast flying swarming micro drones. Neat! There’s much more being developed, but it’s classified. Where is all this coming from? The Strategic Capabilities Office, or SCO for short. Defense Secretary Ash Carter talked up the new office in his 2017 budget preview speech… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Sen. John McCain continued his crusade to stop the Pentagon from using Russia’s highly reliable and cheap RD-180 rocket engines to launch American military satellites during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today. The Arizona senator and the House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, introduced a bill today designed to overturn language in… Keep reading →