Military

The U.S. Army is taking a hybrid next-generation tactical vehicle prototype for a spin in snowy Bavarian terrain, according to a report from the U.S. Army Europe and Africa posted to its website.
The GM Defense-developed Next Generation Tactical Vehicle-Hybrid, or NGTV-H, is a diesel-powered, electric light reconnaissance vehicle that the company unveiled at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in October.
The Army introduced the prototype to the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, which is conducting testing on the vehicle during Combined Resolve, a recurring U.S. Army exercise held at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany.
Power struggle: How the US Army is tackling the logistics of battlefield electricity
The service is sending a variety of capabilities to units globally as part of its Transformation in Contact initiative, which allows soldiers and commanders to try new technologies in real operational environments and scenarios to better co..

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be NASA’s next administrator, Jared Isaacman, said Wednesday that as the U.S. establishes more of human presence in space, it will eventually need Space Force guardians stationed in the domain to protect its economic interests.
“I think it is absolutely inevitable,” Isaacman said at the Space Force Association’s Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Florida. “If Americans are in low Earth orbit, there’s going to need to be people watching out for them for all the reasons we described before.”
Isaacman, a tech billionaire who has traveled to space twice on commercial missions, said exploration and economic ambitions will drive more commercial and civil activity in space in the coming years — from space mining to NASA discovery missions. While some of that work will be done by robotic probes or remote operators, some of it will also require human input, he said.
Isaacman is CEO of Shift4 Payments, ..

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Space Force’s rapid acquisition arm is on track to start fielding new antennas to augment its aging Satellite Control Network by the end of next year.
Kelly Hammett, who leads the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, told reporters Wednesday the service is concerned that its current antenna network wouldn’t pass muster during a conflict. The system, which is dispersed around the world, provides critical launch support, satellite tracking and control, and emergency assistance for spacecraft.
Those concerns are driving an urgency to field the first new antenna through the Space RCO’s Satellite Communications Augmentation Resource program as fast as possible and secure funding more systems in the fiscal 2025 budget.
“If we get into a conflict in space, we will need additional augmentation to command and control our assets,” Hammett said during a briefing at the Space Force Association’s Spacepower Conference here. “There&rsqu..

The United Launch Alliance, a longtime government spacelift provider, has an incremental plan to upgrade its Centaur V upper stage to fly long-duration space missions.
The Centaur V powers the company’s new Vulcan rocket, which is on the verge of being certified to fly national security missions. The upper stage of a rocket is used to propel a payload further into space after the initial booster has separated. The Centaur V was designed to be more than twice as powerful as its predecessor and to remain in orbit for as long as 12 hours.
ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters Thursday the company’s longer-term vision is for the Centaur V to eventually be able to remain in space for days or longer. The fast-moving vehicle would be highly maneuverable and could be used to relocate satellites or for counterspace missions.
In a Dec. 4 Medium post, Bruno fleshed out his concept for the Centaur V to function as an in-space mobility platform, or a “Greyhound.” In one scenario, he describ..

PARIS — Armored-vehicle makers KNDS and Rheinmetall and defense-electronics firm Thales signed the shareholder agreement for the project company that will develop a future main battle tank for Germany and France, moving a step closer to starting actual work on a program held up for years by wrangling between various partners.
KNDS Deutschland, KNDS France, Rheinmetall and Thales will each hold 25% in the new company, which will be based in Cologne, Germany, with the accord signed in Paris on Jan. 23 deemed essential in creating the joint firm, the companies said in statements. The firms announced their plan to set up the joint entity nearly nine months ago.
On a country level, the work share between France and Germany will be split 50/50. The balance between the various partners “was a little complicated” to set up, Emmanuel Chiva, the head of French armament agency DGA said in May.
The future tank, known as the Main Ground Combat System, is meant to replace the Leopa..

ORLANDO, Fla. — U.S. Space Command is updating its approach to integrating commercial systems into operations as the broader national security space community takes a more forward-leaning posture toward working with the private sector.
Gen. Stephen Whiting, who leads the command, said the new strategy, which was signed out in November, focuses on SPACECOM’s core tasks and how commercial space capabilities fit within those areas. The update follows the release of two high-level commercial integration strategies earlier this year — the first from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the second from the Space Force.
The strategies are part of a larger Defense Department push to better engage with private sector space companies, encouraging the acquisition workforce to look for off-the-shelf systems when possible and developing concepts for how it will leverage commercial technology in future conflicts.
Last year, for example, the Space Force created a Commercial Space Of..

Supernova Industries Corp has won a contract to 3D print military-grade energetic materials in a pilot program with an eye on bolstering the U.S. defense industrial base.
“Our technology has the potential to overcome the design constraints of conventional manufacturing methods to produce the next generation of military-grade energetic material components, including solid rocket motors (SRMs), explosives and pyrotechnics,” Roger Antunez, the company’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Supernova Industries launched Supernova Defense & Space in Austin, Texas, in 2024 to focus on 3D printing military-grade energetic materials.
Military-grade energetic materials “are necessary for the proper functioning of defense systems,” the statement notes. “However, traditional processing techniques limit their potential. Supernova’s new VLM processing techniques will provide key innovations crucial to enhance safety, ensure material consistency, reduce was..

Huntsville, Alabama-based Cummings Aerospace is readying its Hellhound for submission to the U.S. Army’s loitering munition competition set to kick off later this year, having recently wrapped up flight tests of its turbo-jet powered, 3D-printed kamikaze drone.
The company took its S3 version of its man-portable loitering munition out to the Pendleton Unmanned Aircraft Systems test range in Oregon this month and was able to verify and validate the system’s performance against the Army’s preliminary Low Altitude Stalking and Striking Ordnance, or LASSO, program requirements, CEO Sheila Cummings told Defense News in a Tuesday interview.
“We were able to successfully demonstrate that we could meet the range requirements for LASSO and then ultimately trying to make sure that we’re exercising the max flight speed and so we achieved that,” Cummings said. “We were also able to successfully integrate an inert warhead and conduct flights with that as we..

SpaceX on Monday night launched a secretive rapid response mission for the Space Force, flying a GPS III satellite aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
The effort, dubbed Rapid Response Trailblazer, was meant to demonstrate the ability to quickly plan and launch a mission in around six months — a process that normally takes around two years.
“The mission successfully demonstrated a complex integration effort across multiple Space Force organizations to pull an existing GPS III satellite from storage, accelerate integration and launch vehicle readiness, and rapidly process for launch,” the Space Force said in a statement.
The launch lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida around 7:52 p.m., and the first-stage booster landed on a drone ship after releasing the GPS payload.
The Space Force has proved through its Tactically Responsive Space program that it can quickly launch small payloads on commercial rockets, but this mission was the first to involve a large..

The U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that collided midair with an American Airlines passenger jet above Reagan National Airport in Washington on Wednesday night was piloted by experienced aviators that typically fly VIP missions in busy air space, according to a retired Army chief warrant officer with over 30 years of flying experience, who serves in the Headquarters Department of the Army Aviation Directorate at the Pentagon.
The two aircraft crashed in a clear night sky right as the American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 people aboard, was approaching the runway flying over the Potomac River. The Black Hawk was on a training flight from Davison Army Airfield at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, carrying three service members.
The fuselage of the aircraft broke apart in three places and was discovered inverted in waist-deep water. The helicopter wreckage was found nearby. There were no survivors found. The recovery effort is ongoing.
Until the “black box” aboard..