#STRATDELA

A sounding rocket flight test is giving engineers at Sandia National Laboratories real-world reentry vibration data they can use to improve modeling and help drive nonnuclear component designs for the United States’ first new nuclear weapon under development in nearly 30 years.

“The Atrax sounding rocket flight test is helping us improve credibility and confidence in our modeling and simulation tools in preparation for the W93 warhead,” said Ross Wagnild, an aerospace engineer at Sandia. “Getting confidence in our toolset earlier allows more time to inform the design of components.”

Guetlein spelled out the first details of the program’s two-phase approach to delivering capabilities. The first phase, which he called Epic 1, will be delivered in 2028. Epic 2 will follow by 2035 with the full capabilities of the Golden Dome architecture.

A key to delivering Epic 1 within the next 27 months is repackaging existing capabilities to defeat a decapitation strike or an attack by a rogue nation with a limited stockpile of nuclear warheads.
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The Golden Dome architecture’s Epic 2 strategy will introduce a new batch of capabilities based on advanced technologies that are not immediately available, Guetlein said.

Whiting also highlighted longstanding challenges around tying together the sensors that collect and process information, the C2 systems that analyze it, and the “effectors” that act on that intelligence. Combined, that string of systems makes up what’s called a “space kill chain,” and the Space Force has been focused on closing gaps in key parts of that architecture—many of them classified—for the past few years.

“We really need the acquisition organizations in the services who are delivering space domain awareness sensors, command and control systems, and effectors to work horizontally to make sure that we’re closing the kill chain by providing the space domain awareness target-quality track that the command and control systems and the effectors require to be effective,” he said. “We must be able to reach across all of these vertical program offices to make sure they deliver as an intact kill chain.”

The Space Force plans to begin launching a new satellite constellation that can track ground targets from orbit by 2028, according to a top service official.

Speaking with reporters at the Air & Space Forces Association conference here, Space Force Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon revealed that the Resilient Radar System-Ground, or RRS-G, program will go up “in the next two years.” The satellite system is built by Northrop Grumman, the general said.

Isaacman described a division of labor in which NASA establishes a sustained American presence beyond Earth while the Space Force and Pentagon protect U.S. interests and work with the civilian agency on technologies and infrastructure useful to both.
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China has announced plans to send astronauts to the moon before 2030 and is working with Russia and other countries on an International Lunar Research Station. Isaacman has framed that effort as a direct challenge to NASA’s plans for an enduring U.S.-led presence at the lunar south pole.

Aires Tide combined the generative power of AI with additive manufacturing, or “3D printing,” a process increasingly used to produce components for the nuclear stockpile. As a paradigm for responding to new deterrence requirements, our scientists and engineers are showing that this combination can develop solutions at a fraction of the time and expense of traditional programs.
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Aires Tide and initiatives to prototype new weapons signal the United States’ capacity to respond to such actions even if it has no wish for an arms race. Although critics might argue that these investments are ripe for misinterpretation, to be genuinely threatening the programs would have to be accompanied by other signs of an appetite for arms racing that simply do not exist. Rather, our focus is to ensure the superiority of America’s weapons science and manufacturing competencies, and in this we are moving with haste.

Today, acceleration is more than a catchphrase within America’s nuclear weapons complex. It is the lodestar guiding everything from weapon design to materials production. For the nuclear enterprise, the holy grail is the means to field systems to fit niche deterrence requirements almost as soon as they are identified.

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. – Sept. 14, 2026 – America’s next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile moved another step closer to defending the nation when Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) and the U.S. Air Force fully assembled the Sentinel missile in its operational orientation. The vertical assembly demonstrates the design and integration of the missile and is a major step toward the Sentinel missile’s design and suitability evaluation for flight test in 2027.

TORRANCE, Calif. — September 14, 2026 — Castelion today announced a production delivery order from the U.S. Navy, with a total value of up to $200 million, to manufacture, assemble, test, and deliver an initial lot of Blackbeard Hypersonic Weapons to the fleet. Awarded by Portfolio Acquisition Executive Aviation (PAE(A)) through its Future Capability Development and Integration Aviation Rapid Capabilities Cell, these rounds will follow the 50 Early Operational Capability (EOC) weapons ordered in June of this year.

Blackbeard’s rapid transition to production is a result of the U.S. Navy’s embrace of commercial innovation and private investment to accelerate carrier-based long-range hypersonic strike.

U.S. and international space leaders gathered in Tucson for the first Space Doctrine Conference Aug. 31 through Sept. 3, working to transform shared security requirements into partner-led space capabilities across the Western Hemisphere.

Hosted by U.S. Space Forces Southern with the University of Arizona’s Kyl Institute for National Security, the conference brought together military leaders and representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, along with participants joining virtually from Chile, Uruguay, Angola and Nigeria. Representatives from the U.S. government, academia and commercial space industry also contributed expertise and resource perspectives.

The four-day working-level engagement focused on three objectives: developing concepts for regional space Centers of Excellence, advancing partner-nation space doctrine and synchronizing future activities with national space development plans.