Alex Hollings

On Friday, the U.S. Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC) tracked a scheduled Russian rocket launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Western Russia. The rocket was slated to deliver a payload of three new communications satellites, and as it roared into the sky, everything appeared to be going exactly as anticipated… but once the rocket reached […]

Mankind has always harbored a macabre fascination with the end of the world. Doomsday predictions litter humanity’s history, and for each new prophet promising the end of days you could find a disappointed congregation, maligning the world’s existential persistence when his promises of fire and brimstone have failed to manifest. For a long time, doomsday […]

Back in 2012, police arrived at a Kentucky homeless shelter to arrest a relatively unassuming-looking middle-aged man. Samuel Little was no stranger to run-ins with the law — having been previously arrested for crimes ranging from shoplifting to fraud — so he offered no resistance as local police turned him over to California law enforcement, […]

NASA’s high success rates when it comes to Martian exploration missions might misconstrue just how hard it is to land on the Red Planet. In fact, of the 56 or so total missions mankind has launched toward Mars, thirty of them have been characterized as “partial failures” or worse. Between the United States, Russia, and […]

Col. Thomas Jackman, former head of the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing, left his post after just one year in command back in 2015. Now, a new report alleges that his rapid dismissal came as a result of the combat veteran’s abuse of his rank and privileges. Namely, Jackman is accused of taking […]

As previously reported on Fighter Sweep, Hill Air Force Base in Utah was the scene of a spectacular display of technology and air power earlier this week, with a whopping 35 U.S. Air Force F-35As taking to the sky in rapid succession. This training exercise, commonly referred to as an “elephant walk,” is intended to […]

Google employees made headlines this week, when 11 staffers signed a petition calling on the search giant to cut ties with its ongoing Dragonfly program, which would create a censored version of Google for Chinese internet use by filtering out any content the Chinese government deems inappropriate. This petition follows a previous letter signed by more […]

The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that a coordinated criminal investigation across multiple military law enforcement organizations has resulted in a series of arrests tied to a sexual extortion ring that targeted some 442 American service members. “Too many service members from throughout the armed services have fallen victim to this scam, and these actions detract […]

The F-35B has the distinction of being the only existing fifth-generation fighter in the world that’s capable of executing a vertical landing. While technically capable of vertical takeoffs under extremely limited circumstances, the F-35B needs very little space to take off even with a full combat load — making it uniquely suited for operations aboard […]

When it comes to the general public, stealth technology is among the most widely acknowledged but least understood facets of the American defense apparatus, and as such, there’s also a great deal of confusion regarding the defensive weapon systems designed to engage them. Russia’s S-300 and S-400 air defense platforms, for instance, are often touted […]

After a decade of delayed and reduced budgets, one of the few elements of President Trump’s campaign and ensuing administration that has garnered little criticism from the other side of the political fence has been his efforts to bring the American defense apparatus back to a passable state of readiness. Multiple bipartisan reports have confirmed […]

The head of Russia’s Roscosmos told the media over the weekend that his agency has a mission on the books that aims to find out once and for all if the United States really did put men on the moon in the 1960s and 70s — though it seems likely that the former deputy prime […]