Boeing recently produced the 250,000th Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit, announced the company. JDAM kit production began in 1998 at the company’s facility in St. Charles, Mo.; currently, Boeing builds more than 40 kits each day, according to the company’s Aug. 20 release. “It’s been an honor to produce JDAM for the US Air Force, US Navy, and America’s allies these past 15 years,” said Debbie Rub, Boeing’s global strike general manager. The JDAM kits convert unguided 500-pound, 1,000-pound, and 2000-pound gravity bombs into near-precision weapons. The US military has used these munitions extensively in combat in places like Afghanistan. “The JDAM remains a valuable asset to warfighters around the world,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Jansson, the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons. (See also The JDAM Revolution from Air Force Magazine’s archives.)
The Air Force is moving forward with a new, algorithm-driven system to help U.S. Northern Command better detect airborne threats. NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which are tasked with protecting the homeland from attack, depend on a slew of radars and other data systems to monitor U.S.…