News
Senate confirms Trump’s pick for chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Senate confirmed retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, filling the position almost two months after President Donald Trump fired his predecessor.
How far will DOD take privatization on military bases?
The Defense Department is taking steps to begin the Trump administration’s promise to overhaul the department’s civilian workforce, and new DOD guidance has left some military advocates wondering just how far officials will go with privatizing programs and services on installations.
Space Force commander fired after email DOD says ‘undermined’ JD Vance
The commander of a Space Force base in Greenland was fired Thursday, hours after the revelation that she had sent an email distancing the base from Vice President JD Vance’s comments during a recent visit.
Army enlisted academy bars students from writing about women and minorities
The Army’s premier institution for training its most senior noncommissioned officers has barred its students from writing academic essays on topics such as women, minorities and other issues related to diversity.
Trump considering buying foreign ships to make up gap with China
Upset by the pace of domestic shipbuilding, President Donald Trump said he may look to foreign companies to produce vessels for the U.S. His comments came after his sweeping executive order seeking to revamp the American shipbuilding industry that pales in comparison to China’s, which has been assessed to have a whopping 200-times larger capacity than the United States. Trump
Air Force
KC-10 extender tankers are up for auction
The U.S. government is offering for sale 10 of the KC-10 Extender tanker and cargo aircraft, which the Air Force retired the last operational example of in September of 2024.
Air Force using generative AI to help modernize legacy software
Military software developers are using generative AI-powered coding assistants to help them modernize decades-old legacy codebases, officials said this week.
Airman, Marine arrested on Okinawa ahead of joint patrol relaunch
Japanese police arrested two U.S. service members on Okinawa over the weekend in separate incidents — one on suspicion of breaking into a retirement home and the other of assaulting a Japanese man.
Space Force
Space Force picks up pace of on-orbit refueling experiments
The Space Force has stepped up the pace of experiments aimed at proving the technical feasibility of on-orbit satellite refueling, even as it continues to consider the “business case” for such capabilities both in the near- and medium-term.
Space Force, intelligence community say they’re breaking through on data sharing
After months of debate and sometimes public tension, the Space Force and Intelligence Community are making progress on establishing ways to work together, officials said this week—with one predicting there will soon be “a sharing of data like we’ve never seen before.”
Defense
Cummings Aerospace ready to manufacture Hellhound munition
Cummings Aerospace is now ready to manufacture its Hellhound loitering munition at what equates to low-rate production, CEO Sheila Cummings told Defense News in a recent interview at its new production facility near Huntsville, Alabama.
Indonesia eyes joining Turkish 5th-generation fighter jet program KAAN
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said his nation is interested in joining Turkey’s 5th-generation combat aircraft program KAAN, after meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday.
Switzerland to buy 4 or 5 IRIS-T air-defense systems from Diehl
Switzerland plans to buy four or five IRIS-T SLM medium-range air-defense systems from Germany’s Diehl Defence, with negotiations in an advanced phase, the country’s defense procurement office, Armasuisse, said on Friday.
Dutch F-35s provide targeting for rocket artillery
Dutch F-35 stealth fighters have, for the first time in Europe, used a data exchange system to transmit targeting coordinates to rocket artillery. The system, developed by Lockheed Martin and known as Keystone, doesn’t appear to have previously been reported, at least under this name.
Dassault CEO strikes dark tone on Europe’s sixth-gen fighter progress
Dassault Aviation CEO Éric Trappier slammed the cooperation with Airbus on developing a European sixth-generation fighter jet, telling French lawmakers that working together is “very, very difficult” amid continued bickering over work share.
