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The U.S. Defense Department has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract for a system that would knock threatening missiles out of the sky. A company called Aerojet Rocketdyne was awarded $19.6 million to develop “enabling technologies” for the system, which will be known as Glide Breaker, it said earlier this month. “Advancing hypersonic technology is a national security imperative,” Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president, said in a statement. “Our team is proud to apply our decades of experience developing hypersonic and missile propulsion technologies to the Glide Breaker program.” The Glide Breaker program is part of America’s efforts to counteract...

The Pentagon confirmed Thursday hundreds of U.S troops are being sent to the southern border with Mexico in order to stop a Central American caravan that has swelled to 10,000 people. BREAKING: U.S. official says hundreds more U.S. troops expected to deploy to southern border as caravan continues journey north— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) October 25, 2018 UPDATE: At least 800 U.S. military active-duty forces expected to deploy to southern border, troops largely engineers, doctors and lawyers: U.S. official— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) October 25, 2018 Earlier this week President Trump threatened to send the military to the border and administration officials...

For the first time ever, a private company has permission to land on the moon. The U.S. government has officially approved the planned 2017 robotic lunar landing of California-based Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to Earth's nearest neighbor and help exploit its resources, company representatives announced today (Aug. 3). ... Previously, companies had been able to operate only on or around Earth. The new approval, while exclusive to Moon Express, could therefore serve as an important regulatory guide for deep-space commercial activity in general, Richards said. "Nobody's had a deep-sea voyage yet. We're still charting those waters,"...

Yesterday, the United Nations released a startling report that concludes that “world leaders” only have a few years to drastically curb carbon emissions, else the world will face debilitating warming, which would lead to a rise in sea level that would dramatically change human life and natural habitats. The report also argues that the world is already beginning to see the effects of climate change: a higher level of disease spread in Africa, an increase in the number and severity of wildfires in North America, and the decrease of food production in South America. According to Kelly Levin, a climate...

"Never make an enemy by accident," housemaid Anna Bates warned her husband in the third season premiere of "Downton Abbey" Sunday night. That's what the housemaid's mother always told her. If his mother ever gave him the same advice, former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel -- now President Barack Obama's pick to serve as secretary of defense -- seems to have ignored it. Biographically, the former U.S. senator from Nebraska and decorated Vietnam War hero makes a great choice. As the president noted, "he'd be the first person of enlisted rank to serve as secretary of defense, one of the few...

Air power stands as a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s recent decision to prioritize defense efforts in the Asia-Pacific region. To make this strategy successful, the administration and Congress must ensure the nation has the necessary capabilities and capacity to secure national interests in an area defined by vast distances, limited basing options, and a pronounced threat to assured access. This means real investments—not budgeting sleights of hand that dilute America’s presence in other vital areas around the globe—and the ability to maintain strength across the national security portfolio. Though the United States currently dominates the skies, this will not...

The X-35 Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator performs flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base, California (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The tortured path of the Pentagon’s biggest weapon program is beginning to look like a case study in poor management. The problem isn’t the F-35 fighter, which is making steady progress towards becoming the best tactical aircraft ever built. The problem is a federal acquisition culture that has grown so risk-averse it no longer cares about long-term consequences. That bureaucratic myopia will be in abundant display next month, when the Department of Defense releases updated cost estimates for the fighter program. The...

Brain research and associated advances such as brain-machine interfaces that are funded by the U.S. military and intelligence communities raise profound ethical concerns, caution researchers who cite the potentially lethal applications of such work and other consequences. Rapid advances in neuroscience made over the last decade have many dual-use applications of both military and civilian interest. Researchers who receive military funding — with the U.S. Department of Defense spending more than $350 million on neuroscience in 2011 — may not fully realize how dangerous their work might be, say scientists in an essay published online today (March 20) in the...

The U.S. administration has quietly forged ahead with a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia despite lawmakers' worries of its affect on relations with Israel. The U.S. Department of Defense presented the sale in late October, requiring 30 days for Congress to either block or change terms of the $60 billion transaction. The sale aims to bolster Saudi Arabia's defenses from any prospect of an attack from Iran. The massive arms deal marks the single largest sale of weapons to a foreign nation in the history of the United States and supplies the Saudi Arabian kingdom with a fully modernized...

Pentagon acquisition boss Ashton Carter today once again defended the Defense Department’s choice to forgo competition for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter engine program while delivering a speech on how the Pentagon can buy smart in a time of flat defense budgets. “We can’t afford to buy two of everything,” said Carter during a speech at the Center for American Progress in Washington today. He added that the push to compete the GE-Rolls Royce F136 alternate JSF engine against Pratt & Whitney’s F135 will not result in “real competition.” Instead, the effort will result in two manufactures receiving...

As Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., plant prepares to begin building the 187th—and last—F-22 super-fighter, the military is already dreaming of its successor. In a query to the aerospace industry earlier this month, the Air Force laid out its wish list, and it wants everything: a plane that can win dogfights, demolish air-defense missile networks, support ground troops, and run surveillance missions; a partial prototype would be ready by 2020, with entry into service by 2030. This may be wishful thinking, given the saga of the current wondercraft, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. With a development and production price tag of...

After over a century of squabbling, the U.S. Army, under pressure from the Department of Defense, is surrendering the last of its fleet to the U.S. Navy. The army still has 119 ships, manned by 2,300 soldiers and civilians. While six of them are large amphibious landing ships, most are tugboats and barges for work in or near ports. The army isn't new to owning its own transports. Back during World War II, the U.S. Army actually had a larger fleet (but only 1,225 seagoing ships), than the U.S. Navy, but one that was almost entirely support vessels. The navy...

U.S. Air Force and Navy officials are set to deliver the Air-Sea Battle concept to Pentagon leaders within a month, a senior Air Force official said today. Representatives from both services have already briefed Defense Department brass on the topics to appear in the classified document meant to help the two services figure out how to defeat defenses aimed at holding U.S. ships and planes at bay, according to Lt. Gen. Philip Breedlove, the Air Force’s chief of operations, plans and requirements. The plan “will be a tool for our president” and other leaders to use in case country must...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will reportedly be told in a Tuesday meeting that the Joint Strike Fighter program will need $2.5 to $5 billion more than currently budgeted and also faces significant schedule delays. The meeting is to discuss the Technical Baseline Review, which will feed into the November 22 Defense Acquisition Board meeting. THe TBR covers the current SDD phase of the largest conventional defense acquisition program in U.S. history. The preliminary information about the meeting comes from Winslow Wheeler, a longtime congressional defense budget expert now with the Center for Defense Information. Wheeler would only say that his...

The U.S. Department of Defense recently ordered modification kits (for $5,700 each) for M2 12.7mm (.50 caliber) machine-guns. These kits upgrade existing weapons to the M2E2 standard and allow for quick barrel changes. Each barrel weighs 10.9 kg/24 pounds. There is also a mounting rail for scopes and a flash suppressor. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense also bought 8,000 more M2 machine-gun barrels (for $850 each). This M2E2 version is the best upgrade delivered for the M2 so far. There are others in the works. It was two years ago that the U.S. Department of Defense gave General...

For those unfamiliar, a 'hash' is a computed summary of a longer piece of text. For instance, this entire article could be hashed to a simple 32-byte hash which can be used to guarantee that the text is unchanged as modifying a single character in the text would yield a totally different hash. The article from The Age infers the solution, without actually revealing it, noting that it is connected with the organisation's mission statement: "USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and...

The 2006 QDR called for the Air Force to develop a next generation bomber to be ready by 2018; an initiative that promptly went nowhere. Now, the very term “next generation bomber” is “dead” in the halls of the Pentagon, reports John Tirpak, citing comments made yesterday by Air Force Lt. Gen. Philip Breedlove, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans, and requirements. Breedlove says what is being discussed is something much smaller than the NGB would have been, and though stealthy, it will not be designed to penetrate dense SAM belts like the NGB. It will be more of...

Despite an ongoing Defense Department review of potential follow-on options for the Air Force's premiere intercontinental ballistic missile program, development of a new ICBM system will not be one of those options, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said today. While the final results and subsequent recommendations from the Minuteman III ICBM review are not due for months, the service is not ready to dedicate funding or other resources toward the development of a new nuclear missile, Donley said during a breakfast in Washington. “We have already taken steps to get [the Minuteman III] to 2020; now we are focused on...

The proposed cancellation of NASA’s Constellation manned spacecraft program could foster a stronger bond between the civilian space agency and the Air Force, a senior service official said this week. “This is going to drive us to work together,” Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Howie Chandler at an April 28 Air Force Association breakfast in Arlington, VA, when asked if cancellation of Constellation could impact the Air Force. “I think you’ll see us start to do that even more than we have in the past.” To that end, the Air Force is participating in a forum to discuss...

Defense budgets are not declining and will remain stable through 2015. Defense spending will remain at about 21 percent of total federal outlays, or around 4.7 percent of GDP, according to an analysis of the 2011 defense budget by business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. However, in a big change to business as usual, the defense budget will no longer be evenly divided between the three services as it has for around the past forty years. The ground forces will be the big winners in future years; the Army’s slice of the budget pie will grow as mountains of equipment...