The Oct. 5 revision adds jets damaged in a September Iranian strike on a base in Jordan, helicopter losses drawn from a Pentagon inspector general report and a sharply higher count of lost Reaper drones.

CRS cautions that the total is not a count of destroyed aircraft, noting, “Some damaged aircraft may have been returned to active service.”

The research service works from public information, drawing on news reports and statements from the Defense Department and U.S. Central Command. This version also draws on the inspector general report published Sept. 14. CRS said its count “may remain subject to revision due to multiple factors, which may include classification, ongoing combat activity, and attribution.”

The deadliest loss on the list remains the March 12 crash of a KC-135 Stratotanker. Two of the seven KC-135s in the report were involved in an incident over friendly airspace. One crashed in western Iraq, killing all six crew members. The other made an emergency landing at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, Defense News reported. Central Command said the loss was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

A Navy squadron commander was lost when one of the newly listed aircraft went down. An MH-60S Sea Hawk from the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush made an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea on July 1. The Navy said there was no indication of hostile action.

Three of the four crew members aboard were recovered. The Navy identified the fourth as Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards, commanding officer of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5, and suspended its search for him July 5 after more than 102 hours. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao directed that Edwards be posthumously promoted to captain.

Several of the aircraft on the list trace to the April mission to recover the two-person crew of an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down over Iran. Both crew members were rescued in separate search-and-rescue operations. That jet is one of 12 Strike Eagles on the list.

An A-10 Thunderbolt II supporting the rescue mission crashed after taking enemy fire, Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine said. The pilot flew the damaged jet out of Iran and ejected over friendly territory, where he was quickly recovered.

An HH-60W Jolly Green II combat rescue helicopter in the same task force was damaged by small-arms fire, Caine said.

The second crew member was rescued nearly two days later in a separate special operations mission. Two MC-130J Commando II transports that had flown the commandos into Iran suffered a mechanical failure and could not take off, Reuters reported.

U.S. troops pulled the rescue force out in stages and destroyed the two transports and four helicopters rather than leave sensitive equipment behind. The inspector general later said U.S. forces destroyed four AH-6 Little Bird helicopters during rescue operations, likely those four. The May version listed no Little Birds, a gap Defense News noted at the time.

Iranian strikes on two air bases account for 15 of the aircraft on the list, all damaged on the ground.

An Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, damaged five KC-135s on the ground in mid-March, Defense News reported, citing two U.S. officials who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. Iran hit the base again on March 27, damaging an E-3 Sentry in what the CRS report, citing a September article, described as “a direct hit.”

The seven KC-135s on the list come from a fleet that was already stretched thin. As of March, the Air Force had 373 KC-135s and 103 KC-46As, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said in a June report. GAO found the fleet fell short of the Air Force’s own readiness goals every year from fiscal 2019 through 2025.

The E-3 fleet is far smaller. The Air Force operated only 16 E-3s before the war began, and six had deployed to Prince Sultan. CRS cites the E-3 as an example of aging, scarce aircraft where losses could leave the military short elsewhere in the world, and suggests Congress may want to weigh that risk.

The other base struck by Iran, Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, came under ballistic missile attack Sept. 8-9. The second A-10 on the list lost a wing, and eight F-15Es took light damage and were returned to service, a U.S. official told Reuters.

The official said U.S. forces fired roughly 30 Patriot interceptors to defend the base. Three Army soldiers were killed there in a separate missile attack in July.

Drones account for most of the increase since May. The report now counts 45 MQ-9 Reapers lost, citing an Aug. 13 article in which three U.S. officials said the military had lost “at least 45.” That is up from as many as 30 destroyed through June 30, according to the inspector general report.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach has called the Reaper perhaps the most valuable player of Operation Epic Fury. The Air Force had 135 MQ-9As as of May, down from 351 in fiscal 2022 as the service retired older models and lost aircraft to accidents and combat, according to a separate Sept. 23 CRS report.

The service had already stopped buying the drone in favor of a planned successor, and its fiscal 2027 request included no money for new Reapers, Military Times reported.

The remaining three of the 12 Strike Eagles on the list were the war’s first aircraft losses. A Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet mistakenly shot them down over Kuwait on March 1-2, Defense News reported. All six aircrew ejected and were recovered, Central Command said.

The list also includes an Army AH-64 Apache that the inspector general said was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials said a Navy drone boat rescued its two-person crew after the June 8 crash, calling it the first rescue of its kind.

Iranian ground fire also damaged an F-35A Lightning II during a combat mission over Iran on March 19, forcing an emergency landing at a U.S. air base in the region. The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot was in stable condition, Central Command spokesman Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said at the time.

The report also counts three MQ-1 drones downed by Iran, one confirmed by Central Command in May and at least two more reported by U.S. officials in September. Central Command has not specified which variant was lost. The Air Force retired its MQ-1 Predators in 2018, but the Army still flies the related MQ-1C Gray Eagle.

A Navy MQ-4C Triton surveillance drone crashed April 9 at an undisclosed location, according to Naval Safety Command data, which did not give a cause.

The revision leaves unresolved two discrepancies Defense News flagged in May.

The report still lists the E-3 as damaged. Multiple outlets reported the aircraft was destroyed. Photos published by The War Zone purportedly show tail 81-0005 with its rear fuselage burned through, and Air & Space Forces Magazine reported the damage likely renders the aircraft unrepairable.

The report also still counts one damaged HH-60W. At an April 6 news conference, Caine described two helicopters in the rescue flight taking fire, with a crew member on the trailing aircraft suffering a minor injury.

The war’s cost has also climbed significantly since May. Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst told House appropriators on May 12 that it was closer to $29 billion. The Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, estimated in September that the war had cost the Pentagon about $38 billion through Aug. 1.

That total includes the cost of replacing equipment lost in battle, which CBO put at $1.9 billion, or as much as $3.3 billion if the Pentagon sought emergency funding to replace all of it. Among that equipment is a THAAD missile defense radar Iran destroyed. CBO said its estimate relied on government databases and public reports because the Defense Department did not respond to its requests for information.

The White House asked Congress in June for $87.6 billion in emergency funding, including $67.1 billion for the Pentagon. Congress has not approved the request.

The announcement comes during a busy week for Boeing. On Tuesday, the U.S. Navy selected the company to build its F/A-XX sixth-generation carrier-based fighter under a development contract worth more than $20 billion. The same day, the Air Force signed a $2.38 billion order for 22 more F-15EX Eagle II fighters.

The Grey Wolf contract, worth roughly $85 million and including some sustainment work, was awarded Sept. 25, a Boeing spokesperson told Defense News. The company expects to deliver the four helicopters in 2028 or 2029.

The order brings the total number under contract to 42, with 27 already delivered. Six of the earlier helicopters were test aircraft, and the rest came from production lots ordered before this first full-rate lot.

“This milestone validates key readiness levels for Grey Wolf and supports the service’s fielding plans to secure vital national assets across the country’s strategic missile fields,” Kathleen Jolivette, vice president and general manager of Vertical Lift Programs at Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said in the company release.

Air Force Global Strike Command announced Aug. 31 that the Grey Wolf reached initial operational capability, or IOC, Aug. 10, meaning the first crews and helicopters are cleared to fly real-world missions.

The IOC declaration allows the Grey Wolf to begin taking over intercontinental ballistic missile security from the aging UH-1N Huey, which it will replace at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming; and Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.

The MH-139A is a militarized version of Leonardo’s commercial AW139. Global Strike Command says it is nearly 50% faster than the Huey, carries twice as many troops and has improved defensive systems.

Two helicopters from the 40th Helicopter Squadron flew the Grey Wolf’s first operational mission Jan. 8 at Malmstrom. During the six-hour mission, they escorted missile maintenance and armored security vehicles to and from a launch facility more than 100 miles east of the base without refueling.

“For more than half a century, the UH-1N Huey has been a key element of our Intercontinental Ballistic Missile security, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the crews who flew and maintained it over all these years,” said Gen. S.L. Davis, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command. “Securing these missiles demands our best efforts and the MH-139 will significantly improve our capabilities.”

IOC comes years late. The Air Force picked Boeing for the $2.4 billion Huey replacement contract in September 2018, and officials expected to reach the milestone in 2021. Testing delays, FAA certification setbacks and integration problems stretched the timeline, Military Times reported in January.

The program has shrunk over the years. The Air Force once planned to buy as many as 84 Grey Wolves, with some intended to shuttle officials around Washington. To meet spending caps in the 2023 debt-ceiling deal, the Air Force dropped that VIP mission in its fiscal 2025 budget and cut the buy to 42.

With fewer helicopters sharing the program’s costs, the unit cost rose past the critical threshold under the Nunn-McCurdy law, which forces the Pentagon to justify or cancel programs whose unit costs climb too high. The Pentagon later raised the buy to at least 56, bringing the price back under the critical threshold, according to a Selected Acquisition Report released in late August 2024.

For fiscal 2027, the Air Force asked for four more. The House-passed defense policy bill and the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version would allow eight, double the request, but neither has become law. The House appropriators’ spending bill, which actually provides the money, covers only four.

HH-60W combat rescue helicopters will take over the VIP mission instead of Grey Wolves, replacing Hueys that the Air Force says lack the speed, range and lift to provide cost-effective support.

The five-year contract, which includes two option years, is part of the Pentagon’s Arsenal of Freedom campaign to bolster weapons production. The department awarded it Sept. 25 and announced it Monday with RTX, Raytheon’s parent company.

The department said the award is a joint buy by the Air Force, the Navy and allies.

“We are working across the defense industry to ramp production and build the Arsenal of Freedom,” said Michael Duffey, the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, in a statement. “This award strengthens our ability to equip the Joint Force and our allies with a proven air-to-air capability, ensuring our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage.”

The $20.7 billion ceiling dwarfs the Pentagon’s previous record AMRAAM award, a $3.5 billion contract issued in July 2025. That deal covered missiles for the Air Force, the Navy and allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The department thanked Congress for multiyear procurement authority, which lets the Pentagon commit to buying missiles over several years instead of one at a time. It said it hopes lawmakers will provide more authority and funding to sustain production.

Congress hasn’t yet funded the full deal, according to Reuters, which called the award provisional. Industry executives have warned that defense contractors may hold off on big investments in parts and factories until lawmakers act, Reuters reported.

The award comes as the Pentagon works to rebuild munitions stockpiles drawn down by the war with Iran.

The contract follows five framework agreements Raytheon signed with the department in February, which set long-term production targets ahead of formal contracts. Under those deals, RTX committed to raising annual output to more than 1,000 Tomahawks, at least 1,900 AMRAAMs and more than 500 Standard Missile-6 interceptors.

Neither the Pentagon nor RTX specified how many missiles the new contract buys or an associated annual production rate.

Raytheon President Phil Jasper said in a statement that the company continues to invest in its workforce, supply chain and facilities to “rapidly scale production capacity and meet surging demand” from the Air Force, Navy and international customers.

RTX said it nearly doubled production of AMRAAM and other munitions in 2025 compared with 2024 and is now exploring international co-production.

According to RTX, AMRAAM is the world’s most widely deployed air-to-air missile, fielded by 44 countries, and the primary interceptor for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System. Reuters reported that the ground-based air defense system defends the Washington area and is used by more than a dozen other countries.

The Pentagon is also preparing to build AMRAAM’s successor. Earlier this month, the department signed a framework deal with Lockheed Martin to boost production of the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, which is being developed for the Air Force and Navy to outrange and eventually replace AMRAAM.

“As a part of the ongoing civilian restructure within Air Education and Training Command, civilian positions will no longer be assigned to China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI),” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to Defense News on Tuesday. “The CASI mission continues, with the organization leveraging assigned military service members to accomplish its objectives.”

Civilians affected by the restructuring will stay in their current positions until further notice and will be evaluated for reassignment, the spokesperson said.

CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney described the fallout differently. All of the institute’s civilian billets are being eliminated, “effectively ending CASI,” he said Tuesday. No military positions are affected, he said, noting the institute has two master sergeant billets and a deputy position that has remained unfilled for over a year.

Asked how the cut would impact the institute’s research, Mulvaney said, “All of the research has always been done by the civilian personnel.”

According to Mulvaney, the decision was made by the previous Air University commander and forwarded by AETC under a requirement to cut civilian jobs across the Department of the Air Force. The quota originated with the Air Force’s manpower and reserve affairs office, he said.

The cut “had nothing to do with CASI’s mission,” Mulvaney said, but due to the fact that the institute does not produce professional military education students, which is Air University’s primary mission.

Asked whether another organization would take on CASI’s China aerospace research, Mulvaney said, “Nothing has been identified.” It is also unknown whether CASI’s reports, translations and course materials will remain publicly available, or whether its website will remain online, he said.

The cuts became public Monday, when a note from a CASI civilian circulated on social media. The employee wrote that every CASI civilian position would be unfunded as of Oct. 1 and that the staff would become “surplus federal employees,” a federal personnel term for workers whose positions are being eliminated.

The note described CASI’s future as “uncertain,” adding that “CASI punched above its weight given our small team and budget.”

Will Yale, a Navy surface warfare officer who posted the note on X, wrote that it was “extremely unfortunate and regrettable” that the Department of the Air Force “has decided to shutter” CASI. He described the institute as one of the most prominent in its field and wrote that it had “measurably increased knowledge about the PLA” inside the U.S. government and outside it.

Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College professor and CASI associate, noted that the news is “specific to CASI only.” Mulvaney said the action does not affect the Navy’s China Maritime Studies Institute, the Army War College’s China Landpower Studies Center or the Marine Corps War College’s China Warfighting Initiative.

CASI was established in 2017 and formally chartered on June 15, 2021, by then-Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. The charter tasked the institute with studying “everything that flies” in China, calling CASI the Air Force’s leading center for the study of China and its aerospace capabilities. It has offices at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, and Fort McNair in Washington.

The institute’s research was unclassified by design, according to its charter, which directed CASI to use publicly available native-language sources and publish its findings. CASI translated PLA textbooks and doctrine, published reference primers and ran a free three-day PLA Fundamentals course that required no security clearance.

Its biennial CASI Conference, held in May at National Defense University, drew more than 250 attendees and featured the release of the fifth edition of its “PLA Aerospace Power” primer, CASI said.

In 2025, nearly 80,000 people visited CASI’s website and downloaded more than 50,000 reports, according to the institute. The site remains live and posted a new paper on Sept. 21, “From Vision to Vigilance: How Beijing’s Space-Science Roadmap Builds a Real-Time Kill Web.”

CASI had already lost staff a year ago. In an October 2025 quarterly update, the institute said a Defense Department efficiency drive had eliminated its director of education and education program manager positions as the Department of the Air Force was “reorganizing, inactivating, and realigning organizations.” CASI said things were “in flux” and it would provide a status update once it knew more.

Ryan Fedasiuk, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, called the move “a devastating loss for the analytic community” and an “incomprehensible decision.”

The Air Force said CASI’s mission will continue, with military members carrying on the work Mulvaney said civilians have always done.

The wing said the deployment, in support of the Air Force Weapons Instructor Course, produced “a historical milestone, dropping live bombs from operational F-15EXs for the first time.”

The images show jets on the ramp and in the air on Aug. 27, some carrying a live 500-pound Mk-82 on the centerline station and others carrying an AN/AAQ-33 Sniper targeting pod. The Air Force has not said how many bombs were dropped.

The unit first dropped inert bombs in May at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The wing announced in July it dropped 24 BDU-50s in the 500-pound class and 12 BDU-56s in the 2,000-pound class, all concrete-filled practice bombs, across 10 missions.

The Mountain Home drops were the first of any kind by an operational F-15EX unit.

The 142nd flew the F-15C, an air-superiority fighter, before receiving the Air Force’s first operational F-15EX in June 2024. Three of the unit’s pilots already had air-to-ground experience and built a compressed syllabus for the rest of the wing’s pilots.

A small group of loaders with prior bomb-loading experience became certified to load bombs on F-15Es at Nellis earlier this year, then trained the loaders who went to Mountain Home.

The wing’s July statement said live-bombing at Nellis would follow as the next step toward the unit becoming air-to-ground mission capable.

“It’s about building a dynamic and versatile organization, and we are just getting started,” Col. Joshua Hovanas, commander of the 142nd Operations Group, said in a statement.

The Eagle II is rated for a 29,500-pound payload and can carry up to a dozen air-to-air missiles. The jets photographed at Nellis flew without conformal fuel tanks, which carry additional weapons stations.

The planned F-15EX fleet has grown since a fiscal 2023 budget request proposed capping the buy at 80 aircraft. In April, the service said it now plans a fleet of 267.

Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the Air Force’s chief modernization officer, told reporters at the Pentagon that a follow-on was already under discussion as the MQ-9 aged out.

“Although we have plenty of MQ-9As today, we are going through them at a rate that is concerning to us,” he said, according to Breaking Defense, which covered the briefing.

Defense Daily reported that Air Force Secretary Troy Meink directed the acceleration, and that the fiscal 2031 target of 20 mission-ready aircraft could be pulled forward by about two years.

In May, Lt. Gen. David Tabor told the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland the fleet was down to about 135 aircraft, roughly 54 below the service’s 189-aircraft floor. Niemi did not update the inventory.

Backfilling the fleet is difficult. General Atomics shut down MQ-9A production in 2025, and Tabor said the service was pursuing a short-term buy of existing MQ-9A airframes in fiscal 2026. Niemi said Sept. 3 that budget constraints make buying a large number of upgraded MQ-9B SkyGuardians unrealistic. It is a misconception, he said, that the Air Force could write a check and take delivery of 100 aircraft.

A Congressional Research Service Insight updated May 13 cited an April 9 news report of 24 Reapers lost since military operations against Iran began in February, and said it was unclear whether the Pentagon had given Congress an accounting. The Washington Post reported Aug. 13, citing three U.S. officials, that at least 45 had been lost, roughly 25% of the fleet.

Niemi signed requirements in May for a cheaper, modular, mass-producible aircraft.

That program, Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMA, opened as a Defense Innovation Unit competition July 7 with the Air Force as partner. The solicitation, which closed July 23, asked for a drone that could fly Reaper-class strike, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare and communications-relay missions cheaply enough to absorb losses. It called for at least 2,800 pounds of payload and an 8,000-nautical-mile one-way ferry range.

That is the aircraft Niemi now prices against Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA. He put CCA air vehicles near $20 million and MMA at about half that, Defense Daily reported.

An Air Force spokesperson said those figures are for the air vehicle only, not a fully missionized aircraft, according to Breaking Defense. In May, Niemi told senators a Reaper with a full sensor package can cost up to $50 million. At the Sept. 3 briefing, he said the Air Force will probably field at least 180 MMA drones.

Niemi argued the Reaper’s value is not the airframe.

“What makes the MQ-9 special has nothing to do with the aircraft itself,” he said, calling its speed, altitude and range decades-old technology.

Initial MMA versions, he said, will rely on proven technology rather than new systems to hit the price. He described a long-aspect-wing turboprop in the “4,000 miles-type class,” farther and heavier than a CCA but slower. Officials did not say how that class relates to the 8,000-nautical-mile ferry range in the July notice.

General Atomics is bidding a design it calls Wildfire, first reported by Aviation Week in August. Spokesman C. Mark Brinkley told Air & Space Forces Magazine it “meets every wish on the [MMA] list and exceeds most of them,” but declined to give capabilities or cost. The company has not released images.

Brinkley told The War Zone in August that treating MMA as a Reaper replacement misses the immediate need for a backfill. Wildfire does not depend on winning the competition, he said, and “we can deliver Wildfires years earlier than the current schedule.”

He framed the design targets as considerations rather than specs, among them a 10,000-nautical-mile ferry range, four Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles and 100 aircraft under semi-autonomous control.

Col. Todd Dye, senior materiel leader in the Air Force’s medium-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance division, said awards for MMA concept refinement were expected in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Breaking Defense reported.

Officials did not announce a new date at the Sept. 3 briefing.

The study, “Breaking Glass, Missing Hands,” asks how quickly the country could replace satellites and supporting systems lost early in a protracted conflict. It sets the benchmark for reconstitution, the term for restoring lost capability, at 12 to 24 months, a pace much more demanding than the decade or so the report says it typically takes to replace an aging satellite.

The study examines whether the space defense industrial base could meet that timeline between 2027 and 2032. The authors argue that existing workforce gaps could take years to close, putting a 12-to-24-month timeline out of reach.

Gen. Michael Guetlein, now the Golden Dome director, sponsored the study while serving as vice chief of space operations. RAND Project AIR FORCE conducted it as part of a fiscal 2024 project titled “In Emergency, Break Glass,” with Alexandra Gerber as lead author.

Researchers analyzed federal labor and education statistics from October 2024 through March 2025, and interviewed industry representatives and education administrators from May through July 2025.

The report divides the space-supporting workforce into three categories.

The first is engineers who design and test space systems. Nearly 3 million Americans work as engineers in jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher, but only about 3% of them work in industries RAND counted as supporting space: satellite communications, semiconductors and nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing that produces optical glass. RAND calls that grouping a subset of the space industrial base. Aerospace manufacturing was not included.

RAND estimates that those three counted industries account for only about 7,000 of 208,000 annual engineering job openings, noting that the space sector has little leverage against employers in the artificial intelligence, software and data analytics sectors that pay more and offer more flexible work environments.

The second category is “skilled touch labor,” the technicians and assemblers who physically build spacecraft. Using 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, researchers estimated about 30,000 annual openings for technicians, while only about 11,000 people earn the necessary qualifications each year.

For assemblers, including cleanroom technicians, they found about 244,000 annual openings with just 13,000 credentialed workers each year, a gap of 19 to 1. The space industry accounts for a small share of that demand, but it competes for the same pool as semiconductor manufacturers.

The third category takes the longest to build: specialists who advance infrared and electro-optical detection, and engineers who design systems to survive natural and man-made radiation. Qualified candidates hold master’s or doctoral degrees, and the expertise can take 15 years or more to develop.

Few schools offer advanced degrees in laser and optical engineering, and most specialists come up through electrical or computer engineering programs instead. Of recent doctorates in those fields, 70% went to foreign nationals, the report says, shrinking the pool eligible for classified work.

Security clearances slow hiring even further. In fiscal 2024, initial Secret investigations averaged more than 87 days while Top Secret cases took nearly six months, according to a Trusted Workforce 2.0 progress report RAND cites.

Separately, interviewees said even fully credentialed workers can take up to a year to become productive, and the report notes that cleanrooms and secure work areas cap how fast plants can absorb new hires.

Those interviewed described the central problem as “surging from zero.” Without steady production between contracts, specialized skills atrophy and experienced workers leave, taking with them the institutional knowledge needed to scale. RAND says writing surge-planning requirements into future contracts would help companies prepare to expand before a crisis.

Researchers found no consensus that emergency mobilization would work. Defense Production Act authorities could pull workers from other industries, but interviewees questioned whether that is feasible given security clearances, certifications and domain expertise.

RAND recommends roughly $5 million a year for scholarships, internships and academic outreach, plus an $800,000 study on whether workers from other fields could be retrained for surge production.

The report also suggests advocating for the expansion of the National Imperative for Industrial Skills program and evaluating the Navy’s Talent Pipeline Program as a model for the trades.

Another proposal would let Reserve Officers’ Training Corps graduates satisfy service obligations by working at qualifying space firms, and would extend the same option to SMART scholarship recipients now committed to civilian Defense Department jobs.

RAND assigns the policy lead to the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, arguing workforce capacity is a supply-chain and production risk, not an internal Space Force staffing issue.

Interviewees pointed to hiring pipelines and faster clearances, rarely mentioning robotics, process automation or AI as a way to cut the labor hours per satellite. RAND did not independently assess whether automation is feasible, but flags that absence as a gap in reconstitution planning.

Most space producers run at volumes too low to justify the investment in automation, though RAND argues a reconstitution surge could change that math.

Designated F-15 Eagle Crest, the Aug. 24 award lets the Air Force place orders over time rather than buying a fixed number of aircraft at signing. Orders may run through Aug. 24, 2031, with an option to extend to 2036. The framework rolls new production, upgrades, retrofits, sustainment and depot support into a single contract for the Air Force, the Air National Guard and foreign buyers.

The contract also covers work to stand up organic depot maintenance, so Air Force depots can perform their own heavy overhauls instead of relying solely on Boeing. Boeing will perform the work in St. Louis. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity.

The award does not commit the government to spend the entire $131.23 billion; it caps what the Air Force may order over the life of the contract. Only $343,740 in fiscal 2026 for research, development, test and evaluation funds was obligated at award.

The notice does not include an order for any jets. For comparison, when the same office awarded Lockheed Martin a 10-year, $62 billion contract for new F-16 exports in August 2020, it issued a $4.94 billion order for 90 jets the same day.

The Aug. 24 notice says the contract involves foreign military sales to Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and Poland. Indonesia and Poland do not currently fly the F-15.

Israel is already buying F-15s from the same St. Louis line. The F-15EX Modernized Selected Acquisition Report issued with the fiscal 2027 budget says a Dec. 29, 2025, agreement covers 25 F-15IA aircraft, with an option for 25 more, at $8.58 billion. The report says that the buy “stabilizes the lower-tier supply chain and extends the active manufacturing life of the F-15EX production line.”

The same report raises the U.S. F-15EX buy to 268 aircraft through fiscal 2031, up from a baseline of 98, and says the larger buy will force a refresh of the radar, mission computer, electronic warfare suite and engines.

The report also says the program will miss its July 2027 full operational capability date, or FOC, after a 15-week strike at Boeing’s St. Louis plant from Aug. 4 to Nov. 17, 2025, “compounded by the prime contractor’s subsequent failure to meet production recovery goals.”

The mitigation steps include “a re-evaluation of the FOC definition,” meaning the service is weighing a change to how it measures the milestone it is about to miss.

The U.S. payload rode a Japanese H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center. It is the second and final sensor in the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System-Hosted Payload program, the first national security space partnership of its kind between the United States and Japan, according to a recent release.

The new payload will deliver near-real-time data to the Space Surveillance Network, improving the U.S. Space Force’s understanding of activities within geosynchronous orbit above the Indo-Pacific. Geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles up, is where a satellite matches Earth’s rotation and remains over the same spot.

Combat Forces Command’s Mission Delta 2 will operate the sensor to identify and track objects in orbit and help operators understand potential threats or opportunities.

The Japanese QZS-7, built by Mitsubishi Electric in Kamakura, Japan, is part of a constellation that primarily augments GPS signals over Japan and the surrounding region.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory designed and built both U.S. payloads for the program. Space Force and laboratory teams worked with Japanese partners for two years to integrate and test the second sensor with its host satellite.

“The successful launch of QZS-7 is a powerful testament to the enduring strength and rapid modernization of the U.S.-Japan alliance,” Col. Bryon McClain, Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for Space Combat Power, said in the release.

“By continuing to merge our capabilities in space modernization and satellite communications, we are maintaining security in a contested space domain and fortifying our shared deterrence capabilities across the Indo-Pacific region,” he continued.

Col. Gina Peterson, deputy commander of Mission Delta 2, said the program helps the Space Force meet threats from peer adversaries and build “resilient capabilities to detect, understand, and maintain custody of objects in deep space.”

The first sensor launched in February 2025 on QZS-6. Mission Delta 2 runs both payloads through the Multi-Mission Space Operations Center/Enterprise Command and Control-Schriever enclave in Colorado.

The U.S.-Japan partnership on this program began with a December 2020 agreement between the Space Force and Japan’s National Space Policy Secretariat.

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro, commander of U.S. Space Forces Pacific, called the alliance one of the nation’s greatest strategic advantages in the Pacific and said the program demonstrates how the two countries enhance security across the region through collaboration from design through launch.

Installed in the nose of a missile or bomb, the seeker locates the target and guides the weapon toward it. Seekers are among the most expensive parts of a guided weapon, and Boeing’s argument is that their cost is what limits how many the military can buy.

Boeing’s Ultra Low-Cost Seeker, or ULCS, is an active seeker, meaning it emits its own radar signal rather than relying on one from an aircraft or a ground station. Boeing built it largely from commercial parts adapted for military use, and it is still in development.

The company said it is looking at using the ULCS in its air and missile defense interceptors, its guided bombs and its cruise missiles, because its design allows for reuse across all three rather than requiring a different seeker for each weapon.

Boeing said the seeker is designed for strikes from the air, land or at sea, in any weather and against moving targets. The company ran several tests on the ULCS earlier this summer.

Engineers checked the sensor design in an anechoic chamber, which absorbs stray signal reflections. The seeker also flew aboard a Beechcraft 1900 over land and water, where Boeing said it found and tracked targets as expected.

At Spaceport America in New Mexico, the seeker tracked a passing drone from a fixed position on the ground. Boeing then mounted it on a rocket standing in for a missile and launched it at a second drone carrying a reflector, which bounced radar back as a full-size target would. Boeing said the seeker survived the acceleration and vibration of every test, and detected and tracked its targets each time.

Reuse across weapons is the major selling point, according to Boeing.

“We are developing ULCS with the goal of sharing a common sensor architecture across several of our programs,” said Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems. He said the seeker is modular and built to an open standard so Boeing can fit it to different weapons and change it later without redesigning it.

Boeing already builds seekers for other weapons, some of them for competitors. The company makes the active radar seeker for the Lockheed Martin PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptor and said it drew on that work for ULCS while aiming to build something cheaper for use against less sophisticated threats.

Steve Wright, Boeing’s senior manager for weapon sensors and advanced guidance, said work remains to be done.

“We still have more work to do, but the rapid testing our teams have completed prove[s] that this capability is real and will fundamentally change how we look at seeker affordability across our programs,” he said.

Boeing said its teams are studying the test data and using the results to shape the next round of work, including several flight tests in 2027 that will attempt to more closely replicate real-world scenarios.

Boeing is not alone in its attempts to exploit modularity. On Aug. 10, Lockheed Martin announced Strigo, a line of radio-frequency sensors, missile datalinks and seeker technologies built around the same modular premise, designed to serve a variety of weapons.

Boeing did not say whether its ULCS is being funded internally or attached to any existing funded weapons program. Nor did it say just how ultra-low the cost of its new seeker will be.