Airmen assigned to the 8th Fighter Wing at Kunsan AB, South Korea, participated in a final field evaluation of the new one-piece fire suit known as the Joint Firefighter’s Integrated Response Ensemble Mod, or J-FIRE. Members of the 8th Civil Engineer Squadron’s explosive ordnance disposal flight and emergency management flight, along with personnel from the 8th Medical Operations Squadron’s bioenvironmental engineering flight, tested the suit’s design, fit, and fabric during the July 22 evaluation, according to a wing release. J-FIRE is designed to provide firefighters with thermal protection and also shield them from the effects of chemical and biological agents during firefighting operations.
NASA, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance are all preparing to launch their next-gen rockets from Florida’s Space Coast, two of them before the year is out. One is expected to liberate the U.S. launch enterprise from its reliance on Russian-made RD-180 engines, while all three rockets could eventually carry astronaut crews.