The U.S. National Security Agency is running an experiment designed to test whether the growing number of military and civilian satellites in lower earth orbit have been compromised. The focus, using artificial intelligence technology, is on trying to find out whether orbits have changed and what countermeasures are possible.

The MQ-25 Stingray air-to-air refuelling drone developed by Boeing for the U.S. Navy has completed its maiden flight. Expected to be the first carrier-launched platform of its kind, the drone was remotely controlled by Boeing test pilots after an autonomous taxi and takeoff.

The U.S. Senate’s latest military appropriations bill calls on the Department of Defense to study strategic port locations in the Arctic even as witnesses at House of Representatives’ hearings highlighted significant challenges.

Saudi Arabia says it can prove Iran’s complicity in the recent drone attack on two major Saudi petroleum facilities. Even so, the kingdom is expected to wait until a UN inspection team completes its investigation.

The Stockholm International Peace and Security Institute says that although the security implications of climate change have increasingly been debated by the UN Security Council, there are growing concerns about the UN’s overall response. In a new policy brief, SIPRI looks at how the climate security debate has evolved and highlights three priorities for action.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival, Benny Gantz, are jostling over the prospect of a unity government after the second general election in five months failed to give either leader’s party enough seats to set up a coalition government.

The head of the U.S. Air Force mobility command, Gen. Maryanne Miller, says that an array of design and development problems means the USAF’s fleet of Boeing KC-46 tankers will not be combat-ready until at least 2022. That would be some 11 years after Boeing was chosen over Airbus to replace 1960s-era tankers.

The U.S. Air Force has “indefinitely barred” passengers on its fleet of Boeing KC-46 Pegasus transports. The decision followed a recent incident in which cargo locks released in-inflight during a multi-stop deployment, albeit with no injuries or damages reported.

The Department of Defense has until next January to submit final findings and recommendations on the proposed cleanup of carcinogenic fluoroalkyls which have been confirmed in the water supplies of at least 297 U.S. military bases. A task force set up by Defense Secretary Mark Esper in July has completed initial research.

National polling from the first week of Canada’s 43^rdgeneral election indicate that the Liberals and Conservatives are in a virtue tie in terms of stated public support. The New Democratic Party and Greens evidently are running a distant third.

Kelvin Droegemeier, the new science advisor to President Donald Trump is moving to bolster U.S. policies on research security. Recent U.S.-China political has spilled into the research community which has been pushing back against federal agencies investigating foreign-born scientists.

It has been disclosed that a retired member of the U.S. Marine Corps and now a security industry executive, has been detained in Russia on espionage charges since last December. The Kremlin has rebuffed diplomatic efforts to have a doctor see Paul Whelan and now members of Congress are demanding his release, saying there are no grounds for the charges.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says “the time is right” for reconciliation between the European Union and Russia. His suggestion comes just as the U.S. Congress prepares to resume consideration of sanctions against Russia, which could heighten tensions between the EU and the U.S.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Dane who has been Secretary General of NATO since 2014, worries about Middle East tensions rising after the weekend drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s main oil-processing facility. While there’s an ongoing argument about who was responsible, Stoltenberg said Iran is “destabilizing” the region.

The U.S. Air Force hopes that a new approach could yield to initial production of its next generation of fighters within five years of a contract being awarded. The stated goal is to develop small batches of aircraft with multiple companies.

Sylvie Goulard, who served for five weeks in 2017 as France’s Minister of the Armed Forces, has been nominated to run a new European Commission directorate tasked with coordinating European Union defence research and development. Her nomination is expected to be endorsed by European Parliament, setting her up to take office Nov. 1.

The U.S. Army is turning to LLAMAs in an attempt to lighten the loads its troops often have to carry in-theatre. Not the four-footed Andean camelid, the acronym means Legged Locomotion and Movement Adaptation, a battery-powered quadruped which the Army says combines advanced vision, intelligence and autonomy.

Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for all F-35 fighter components except the Pratt & Whitney engine, has told the U.S. it is prepared to guarantee a fixed price and assume most of the risk for maintaining a fleet-wide state of readiness higher than 80 per cent by 2025. It has proposed that the Department of Defense transition to a performance-based logistics approach in which contractors are incented to reduce costs.

Australia, Britain, France and the U.S., Canada’s partners in the Five Eyes intelligence community, are raising questions about the type of information accessible to Cameron Ortis as the director of an intelligence unit within the RCMP. Diplomatic sources say the alliance is concerned that Ortis, who has been arrested and charged, had access to their intelligence information.

Gen. David Goldfein, the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, says the military has much to learn from Apple’s “unleashing” of open-source technologies, which became a core in which other companies were founded and have flourished. He writes that the engineering and business lessons are important for the defence sector which he says has too often procured systems which cannot communicate with each other and are difficult to update.

The U.S. Army is reaching out to post-secondary institutions new concepts and designs for a new generation of drones. Up to $35,000 could be available and colleges and universities have until mid-October to express an interest. 

Patria, a Finnish armoured vehicle company, is teaming up with Aselsan, a Turkish manufacturer of remote-controlled weapons systems, to market the vehicles in South America, the Middle East and Asia. 

The U.S. and Iran are locked in a war of words after a devastating weekend attack on Saudi Arabia’s largest petroleum processing facility. Yemeni rebels claimed responsibility for the use of drones, but the U.S. says it has evidence that Iran was responsible. Iran is decrying that as “maximum lies.”

Cameron Ortis, a civilian RCMP director general, is facing charges arising from alleged intelligence breaches which have prompted concerns about whether there are implications not only domestically but also with Canada’s allies. He has been charged under the Security of Information Act which deals with communicating or confirming special operational information.

The U.S. State Department has cleared Morocco to procure nearly $1 billion worth of various munitions and other hardware. They included missiles, bombs and other materiel for its F-16 fighters as well as TOW missiles.

A U.S. Army proposal to not purchase more Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters is being stymied in Congress. Members of a committee which drafts spending legislation want to fund an advanced Chinook model despite the Army’s resistance.

A U.S. Navy explosive ordnance disposal group has deployed unmanned underwater vehicles as part of the the USN’s first Arctic Expedition Capabilities Exercise, held off western Alaska. The group’s commodore says the exercise underscored the need to do more testing if the USN is to sustain combat operations in extreme environments.

Decades-old U.S. policies requiring all federal agencies’ Internet traffic flow through a central facility are about to updated to enable them migrate to the cloud while maintaining cybersecurity. The update is being pushed by the Office of Budget Management as part of a broader modernization initiative.

A U.S. Senate committee has scuttled Democrats’ attempts to block the diversion of more Department of Defense funds for construction of a wall along the border with Mexico. Senate Republican plan to pass as many bills as they can by the end of the fiscal year in an attempt to prevent another government shutdown.

The cost of dealing with “forever chemical” contamination leaching into watersheds from U.S. military facilities is expected to surpass a initial estimate of $2 billion. The admission comes as Congress prepares to discussion draft budget legislation.

Even as it continues efforts to more capable autonomous robots, the U.S. Navy is shying away from anything suggestive of the “Terminator” killer-robots central to several blockbuster movies. A USN official concedes that “trust is something that is difficult to come by with a computer.”

MBDA Missile Systems, a joint venture of Airbus Defence and Space, Leonardo s.P.a, and BAE Systems, has been contracted by the British Ministry of Defence to demonstrate an electronic warfare version of the company’s Spear missile. The warhead would be replaced with a miniaturized Leonardo payload which MBDA says could be used to “swarm” enemy defenses ahead of traditional strike weapons.

In an bid to end a western blockade against its 5G technology, Huawei is offering to sell its software to a western company which then could rewrite problematic code. The U.S. has been urging its allies not to permit 5G over concerns that alleged “backdoors” would enable the Chinese government to spy on telecom systems.

Congress is prepared to give the Department of Defense more money that it had requested for development of hypersonic weapons and countermeasures. The DoD had asked for $1.4 billion but a summary of a spending bill making its way through the Senate bumps up the potential appropriation to nearly $2 billion.