Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink announced this week that the service will purchase “at least 500” pilotless fighter jets — known as Combat Collaborative Aircraft, or CCA — built by California-based defense companies.

The platforms, officially called the FQ-44 Fury and FQ-42 Vengeance, are being built by Anduril Technologies and General Atomics, respectively, and are designed to be low cost and attritable. “The ability to bring low-cost mass is a driver here,” said Mr. Meink, who emphasized that autonomy is a key technology enabling cost-effective combat power.

Representatives from General Atomics and Anduril say they’re already producing early stage models of the Fury and Vengeance CCA and will be able to produce more than the Air Force is requesting. The platforms use autonomous AI-pilots to fly. However, both have plans to include a capability in which a human-piloted fighter jet can control the CCA as a “wingman.” Testing for that capability is expected to occur over the next six months.

Gen. Caine said Wednesday the U.S. military must adapt to “win in global contested environments, from the seabed to cislunar space.”

The zone of space stretching from the Earth to the orbit of the moon has become a contested environment for the military, with both defense industry sources and military leadership telling Threat Status that adversaries are pushing the pace on what Gen. Caine called “space superiority.”

Recent developments by China and Russia in counter-satellite space weapons have pushed the U.S. military to be prepared for a fight in space, especially when there are active operations on Earth. “We have to assume from now on that our forces will be hunted by autonomous systems, jammed across the spectrum and tracked in real time,” Gen. Caine said.

Threat Status goes inside one of the world’s largest space rocket manufacturing facilities with an exclusive sponsored video filmed at the 2.4-million-square-foot Decatur, Alabama, factory where the United Launch Alliance produces its massive Vulcan Centaur next-generation, heavy-lift launch vehicles that are critical to a range of U.S. Space Force missions in orbit.

ULA, created in 2006 as a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is increasing production at the factory. While roughly eight Vulcan Centaurs were built at the Decatur facility in 2025, ULA representatives say they aim to deliver 20 to 25 of the launch vehicles annually in coming years. The uptick in production comes as the U.S. government dramatically expands its space goals. Mr. Trump last month signed a national security presidential memorandum calling for the U.S. to have the capability for more than 1,000 launches and reentries on American soil annually by 2030. 

Gary Wentz, who oversees ULA’s Atlas and Vulcan programs, tells Threat Status the company is managing “launch services for everything from our commercial launches, human spaceflight, to the most exquisite national security payloads from the Space Force, as well as the National Reconnaissance Office.” The exclusive video project was sponsored by ULA.

Lockheed Martin has taken another step toward manufacturing components for its PAC-3 MSE Patriot interceptor with Polish state-owned defense companies. That was one of the major developments at Poland’s largest defense exhibition — the annual Miedzynarodowy Salon Przemyslu Obronnego arms fair — that played out last week in the Polish city of Kielce.

Threat Status Special Ukraine Correspondent Guillaume Ptak was on the ground for MSPO, reporting on the Lockheed developments, as well as an agreement that California-based drone maker Shield AI inked to explore producing its autonomous X-BAT combat aircraft in Poland. Anduril, meanwhile, is already working with Poland’s state-owned defense conglomerate PGZ toward local production of its Barracuda-500M cruise missile.

For years, Poland’s military buildup has been defined by the sheer volume of weapons Warsaw has bought from abroad. Now, after becoming one of the world’s biggest defense spenders, Warsaw is attempting something more difficult: using that buying power to transform itself into one of NATO’s major weapons manufacturers.

Mr. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, acknowledged the need for “guardrails” on AI this past weekend, a move that Cal Thomas describes in a column for The Washington Times as the response “to these latest ‘Chicken Little’ warnings” about the technology.

“As with so many other things — such as fire and guns — AI can be used for good or evil,” writes Mr. Thomas, a syndicated columnist. “History suggests we should not put much stock in the latest disaster prediction, though caution appears warranted when it comes to AI.

“AI should be taken seriously,” he writes, “But we probably do not need to panic as we did with so many other doomsday predictions.”

• Sept. 17 — AUKUS at Five: Progress, Challenges and the Way Forward, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Sept. 22-23 — Nuclear Energy Policy Summit 2026, Atlantic Council

• Sept. 24 — 2026 Intel Summit, Potomac Officers Club

• Oct. 12-14 — AUSA Annual Meeting and Expo, Association of the U.S. Army

• Nov. 20-22 — Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada, HFX