News
Iran will help Russia build drones for Ukraine war, Western officials say
Moscow and Tehran have agreed on a plan to assemble Iranian-designed weapons on Russian soil.
Ukraine is getting nervous about Elon Musk
Kyiv is looking for alternatives to Musk’s Starlink internet terminals and worrying about rising misinformation on Twitter.
Ukraine’s Kherson win reshapes entire front with Russia
Kyiv’s recent recapture of the southern city enables it to target Russian supply lines running to the Crimean Peninsula, while Moscow strives to redeploy withdrawn troops to Donbas.
Business
F-35 costs have been declining. That’s about to change.
Inside Air Force Plant 4, where Lockheed Martin builds F-35 fighters and tries to recover from the pandemic.
Raytheon tests information-sharing technology with JADC2 in mind
A subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, the world’s second largest defense contractor, said it successfully tested software that allows for tailored access to information streams despite intermittent connectivity and other challenges expected on future battlefields.
DARPA is playing both sides of the ball with both offensive and defensive hypersonics
HAWC and Glide Breaker are DARPA’s offensive and defensive hypersonic programs, respectively, and their program managers discuss what’s been done and what’s next.
US approves arms sales to Switzerland, Lithuania and Belgium
The U.S. State Department cleared $700 million in a possible foreign military sale to Switzerland, along with other sales to Lithuania and Belgium, as the neutral European country works to modernize its Air Force by 2030.
Defense
Navy hopes new funding model can cut sub maintenance delays by 2026
The U.S. Navy has nearly twice as many submarines sidelined for maintenance than it should, and those boats in maintenance ultimately require three times more unplanned work than they should, the program executive officer for attacks subs has said.
Army’s Project Convergence tested space links for TITAN targeting system
Northrop Grumman’s TITAN “pre-prototype” was designed to test only the ability of a ground station to rapidly tap into and disseminate satellite imagery.
Football-sized device could transform how Air Force collects F-35 data
An Air Force test and evaluation squadron hopes a football-sized device mounted in an F-35 fighter?s weapons bay might revolutionize how it collects in-flight data on operational fighter jets.
Air Force touts unity of effort in push toward new collaborative combat aircraft
The Air Force will make a “significant investment” in uncrewed, collaborative combat aircraft, or CCAs, in the fiscal 2024 budget, a quartet of generals announced at the Pentagon.
Veterans
Retired officer guilty for entering Senate in military gear on Jan. 6 (militarytimes.com)
A Texas Air Force veteran was convicted in federal court this week after he entered the Senate chamber wearing military gear during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the Department of Justice.
15 Republican attorneys general warn of legal challenge to VA abortion policy
Fifteen Republican state attorneys general are warning the Department of Veterans Affairs they will “act decisively” if department doctors perform abortions that violate state law.