Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The British Army has suspended the use of its controversial new Ajax armored fighting vehicles after dozens of soldiers became ill after riding in them. The U.K. Ministry of Defense confirmed that “around 30 personnel presented noise and vibration symptoms” following an exercise involving the tracked vehicles.
An Ajax vehicle being tested at the Armored Trials and Development Unit (ATDU) facility at Bovington in southwest England. Crown Copyright
The Ministry of Defense said that the Army immediately put a two-week pause on using Ajax, following Exercise Iron Fist conducted on Salisbury Plain over the weekend. The ministry added that the “vast majority” of the soldiers affected “have now been medically cleared and are continuing on duty.” Others, however, “continue to receive expert medical care.” The statements were provided to Sky News by a Ministry of Defense spokesperson. Reportedly, the affected soldiers spent between 10 and 15 hours in the vehicles.
The decision was made by Luke Pollard, the defense procurement minister, and will now see a safety investigation carried out on the armored fighting vehicles. In the meantime, the Ministry of Defense said that “a small amount of testing of the vehicle will continue, in order to ensure that any issues can be identified and resolved.”
Speaking at Rusi, Luke Pollard said that safety was a “top priority” for the MoD and that’s why he ordered training be paused on Ajax until the military can establish the cause of the issues. He said he declared the vehicles safe earlier this month based on written evidence…
Perhaps most troubling is the fact that these kinds of issues are by no means new for the vehicle.
In the summer, soldiers were hospitalized after suffering hearing and other injuries caused by loud noise and vibrations inside the vehicles.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that a “small number” of soldiers had reported noise and vibration issues after trials that involved three variants of the tracked vehicle.
#1 Another wave of Ajax noise & vibration (N&V) chatter has followed IOC. I’m not going to weigh in on either side, but here’s how we might spot if N&V issues are real or rumour – an off-the-cuff thread. pic.twitter.com/OIqEy22Vkt
However, a ministry spokesperson also told Deborah Haynes of Sky News that, following an investigation, “no systemic issues were found.”
Also in November, defense procurement minister Pollard said that “After all the problems [Ajax] may have had in the past, we have put those to bed now.”
Pollard was speaking as the Ministry of Defense announced the initial operating capability (IOC) for Ajax. This milestone required a squadron of 27 vehicles ready to deploy on operations from a pool of 50. By this point, 165 of the vehicles had been delivered from a total of 589 on order, in six different versions (Atlas armored recovery vehicle, Apollo armored repair vehicle, Ares armored personnel carrier, Ajax reconnaissance vehicle, Athena command post vehicle, and Argus engineering vehicle).
Ajax is a disaster.
It’s incredible that the platform was signed off for Initial Operating Capability given the ongoing issues with injuries to vehicle crews.
Coupled with the lack of clarity about how Ares and Athena will be used by the Infantry, our armoured capability is in… pic.twitter.com/7jJYr6bYiT
The nature of the noise and vibration problem was already well known by that point.
In 2021, the Ministry of Defense published a review that revealed that, for almost two years, senior officers and ministry officials were aware of problems with the vehicles that put troops at risk.
The same review noted that, although the potential for hearing damage had been identified in December 2018, it wasn’t until November 2020 that trials were suspended for the first time. A year later, more than 300 soldiers had been offered hearing tests, and 17 of them were still receiving specialist treatment.
An Ajax vehicle test-firing its main armament, the 40mm Cased Cannon. Crown Copyright
As well as these problems, the Ajax program has seen serious delays.
At one point, IOC was expected in 2017. In June 2021, the Ministry of Defense said that, although IOC had been delayed by another year, it had “90 percent confidence” that it would be declared in September 2021. Ultimately, the Army would have to wait until November 2025 for that milestone.
The summer of 2021 also saw a damning report into Ajax from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British defense and security think tank.
That report described it as a program in crisis, highlighting the vehicle’s excessive noise and vibration and asking what it said were the two fundamental questions about Ajax: “Whether the vehicle can be fixed, and whether it is worth saving.”
Crown Copyright
The RUSI report also provided more details on how the noise and vibration issues manifest themselves.
Taking noise first, RUSI reported that the main problem was due to the integration of the Bowman headsets for the crew radios. These headsets picked up the engine noise from what “has long been recognized as a noisy vehicle” and put the sound directly into the crews’ ears. While that problem can clearly be fixed with different headsets, it does raise alarming questions about how these noise tests were carried out.
Second and more worrying is the vibration issue, which is at least partly derived from problems with quality control in the fabrication of the vehicle hulls by General Dynamics Land Systems UK (GDLUK). The vibration not only leads to significant crew discomfort but also has other effects: “Preventing the main armament from stabilizing on the move, damaging the electronic systems that make Ajax a step-change in capability, and leading to a high rate of component failure, with the idler and rear road wheels shearing off with concerning regularity.”
If the future of the Ajax program was questionable in 2021, it is even more precarious now.
An Ajax vehicle passes a water obstacle during testing at Bovington. Crown Copyright
What is clear is that the British Army badly needs modern armored fighting vehicles.
The Ajax is the first new tracked armored fighting vehicle for the Army in almost 30 years. Some of the equipment it’s replacing, like the FV432 armored personnel carrier dates back to the 1960s.
Armed with a 40mm main gun, the Ajax is based on the ASCOD 2 armored fighting vehicles used by Spain and Austria and was selected by the United Kingdom in 2010 as the winner of the Future Rapid Effect System contract.
Ajax was never based on a “proven design” – it was based on Pizarro II which had been cancelled in Spain a couple of years before UK selection as a result of the Global Finacial Crisis. In effect, it wasn’t even based on a paper design. And then saw over 1400 design changes… https://t.co/RzmGQmdZ9K
The GDLUK proposal fought off competition from the rival CV90 offered by BAE Systems.
That saddest thing about this is that in a sane world the CV90 in UK service would be getting its major mid-life upgrade about now and we’d be planning for its replacement. https://t.co/wMlEF42WkM
The service’s most modern tracked infantry fighting vehicle, the Warrior, entered service in 1988. In 2021, the Ministry of Defense announced its intention to replace the Warrior with the Boxer, an 8×8 wheeled armored personnel carrier, which would appear to make the introduction of a new tracked IFV all the more urgent.
On the other hand, the decision to give up the Warrior shows that armored infantry is no longer a core capability within the British Army.
As the RUSI report states:
“If grouped within the Heavy Brigade Combat Teams alongside Challenger 3, Ajax cannot deliver infantry to the objective and cannot perform the divisional reconnaissance function. Alternatively, if made part of the Deep Recce Strike Brigade Combat Team, Ajax will struggle to be sustained operating independently. Ajax’s inability to peer-to-peer recover also makes it a poor independent unit, while its weight, complexity, and size make it hard to deploy with lighter forces, despite the British Army seeking to operate further afield with greater frequency.”
With a total program cost of £5.5 billion (around $7.3 billion), this is a huge investment for a vehicle the importance of which within the British Army is somewhat unclear, and which still has unresolved issues that can threaten the health of soldiers. That price tag also doesn’t consider the costs of any future technical fixes to the vehicle.
As it stands, the British Army will use Ajax primarily as a reconnaissance vehicle, a mission that it doesn’t appear immediately suited to, based on its considerable size and weight. The situation would have been different if the Army had planned to retain the Warrior IFV. After all, when Ajax was first drafted, it was expected to work in support of Warrior.
Since the Ajax program was launched, drones have also significantly reshaped the battlefield. Not only do drones offer a cheaper, more survivable, and more flexible way of conducting reconnaissance, including from standoff distances, but the presence of attack drones adds a new dimension of threat to vehicles like Ajax.
⚙️ There will be a huge amount of pressure to move from Ajax to a raft of pet-favourite IFV’s for Armoured Infantry.
We must resist knee-jerk reactions. A series of entirely sensible short term decision making is part of the reason the Army is where it is. We need a longer term,… https://t.co/f596X0A4qSpic.twitter.com/WX8F8yc8S3
Although the Ministry of Defense says that Ajax’s armor is designed to protect against at least some kinds of kamikaze drones, it also admits that the vehicles have yet to be fitted with electronic countermeasures to defeat such threats.
This would seem to be a prerequisite for any kind of operational capability, which makes it all the more puzzling that the Ministry of Defense is already talking about deploying Ajax as part of a future British Army presence in Ukraine, provided there is a ceasefire and an agreement covering such a force.
“When we have the ability to deploy incredibly capable platforms like Ajax and the brilliant men and women trained to use it to its fullest effect,” Pollard told Sky News, “there’s a clear opportunity for us to be able to enhance NATO’s capabilities on the eastern flank and any coalition of the willing deployment potentially in the future.”
U.K. Minister of State for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard and the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.K. General Valerie Zaluzhnyi follow Ukrainian soldiers as they clear a trench during training. Crown Copyright
Before that happens, the longstanding problems related to vehicle noise and vibration will have to be resolved, and a comprehensive counter-drone system will need to be installed. But with the latest pause on its use, it’s increasingly questionable if the Ajax program will survive long enough for that to happen.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
For the second time in a week, Japanese fighters scrambled to intercept a suspected Chinese drone flying near the island of Yonaguni. The events come amid growing tensions between the Asian neighbors and highlight the increasing strategic importance of Japan’s southernmost island, which has seen an expanded presence of Japanese and U.S. forces.
Located just 70 miles east of Taiwan, Yonaguni is an increasingly important part of the allied effort to defend the so-called first island chain from Chinese aggression. It is roughly seven miles long and three miles across at its widest point, it has two small ports and an airfield. It’s where Japan wants to set up an air defense system. It’s also where the U.S. Marine Corps recently set up a forward arming and refueling point (FARP), its first that close to the breakaway Chinese nation.
Yonaguni Island, which features two ports and an airfield. (Google Earth) The island sits right across from Taiwan, deep inside China’s anti-access bubble. (Google Earth)
Amid all this tumult, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with leaders of both nations today and Monday to discuss the future of Taiwan, among other issues. We’ll address that more later in this story.
“On November 24…we confirmed that an estimated Chinese unmanned aerial vehicle had passed between Yonaguni Island and Taiwan, and in response,” the Japanese Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated on X. “We scrambled fighter jets from the Air Self-Defense Force’s Southwest Air Defense Force to intercept it.”
Once detected, the suspected drone flew south for about 250 miles, then cut east for about another 100 miles before returning along the same route, according to a map published by the Japanese MoD, which provided no additional details about the incident.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense reported a Chinese drone and a helicopter traveled along a similar route on Monday, but it is unclear if the two incidents are related.
11 sorties of PLA aircraft and 5 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 3 out of 11 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s southwestern and eastern ADIZ. We have monitored the situation and responded. pic.twitter.com/qaLP5xJIGp
— 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, ROC(Taiwan) 🇹🇼 (@MoNDefense) November 25, 2025
Chinese drone flights are fairly routine along this path around Taiwan and during major drills, the skies see a heavier presence of Chinese military aviation assets. However, tensions have increased between the two nations with a long history of sometimes violent enmity. In particular, Beijing is enraged by Tokyo’s announcement that it will place surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) on Yonaguni and Japan considers any attack on Taiwan an existential threat. China has made no secret about wanting to subsume Taiwan, by force if necessary, a concern we have frequently addressed.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Yonaguni on Sunday, Japan’s defense minister said his country is moving forward with plans to deploy an unspecified number of air defense systems on the island.
“The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Shinjiro Koizumi explained. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.”
The information space has been all abuzz about #Japan‘s Minister of Defense Shinjiro #Koizumi visiting #Yonaguni this past weekend and affirming the intent to deploy Chū-SAMs (medium range surface-to-air missiles) to the island.
In January, former Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, Bloomberg News noted.
The medium-range Chu-SAM was first introduced in 2003, according to the U.S. Army, and its missiles can hit aerial targets up to roughly 30 miles away.
“The SAM’s vehicle chassis is based on the Kato Works Ltd/Mitsubishi Heavy Industries NK series heavy crane truck,” the Army explained. “It uses a state-of-the-art active electronically scanned array radar.”
The Chu-SAM system includes a command center, radar unit, launcher, and transloader, with each unit equipped with six missiles that travel at Mach 2.5, the Army noted, adding that it “can track up to 100 targets simultaneously and target 12 at the same time, engaging fighter jets, helicopters, and cruise missiles.”
Given its stated range, the Chu-SAM system can engage aerial targets roughly halfway between Yonaguni and Taiwan’s east coast (likely even farther in reality), an area Chinese aviation assets are likely to fly should it plan to invade the island nation.
Once again, this could be just one system, Japan also has the U.S. Patriot system, as well.
Japan’s Chu-SAM air defense system. (U.S. Army)
Koizumi’s comments about the Chu-SAM raised hackles in Beijing.
“Japan’s deployment of offensive weapons in the southwest Islands close to China’s Taiwan region is a deliberate move that breeds regional tensions and stokes military confrontation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters on Monday. “Given Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous remarks on Taiwan, this move is extremely dangerous and should put Japan’s neighboring countries and the international community on high alert.”
Mao was referencing another Chinese point of contention.
The newly elected Japanese Prime Minister recently stated that a Chinese military blockade of Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening” situation, thereby enabling “collective defense” alongside U.S. military forces, Newsweek reported.
“It was the first time such an explicit remark had been made by a sitting prime minister of Japan, which like the United States has long been deliberately vague as to whether it would intervene militarily in the event of an attack on Taiwan,” NBC News posited.
As this turmoil unfolded, a Chinese company released a video simulating an attack on Japanese ships and other targets using its newly introduced YKJ-1000 hypersonic missile. Although it isn’t clear if the timing is related, it is another indicator of the increasingly bellicose messaging between the two neighbors.
🇯🇵🇨🇳 China responds to Japan’s deployment of medium-range missiles on Yonaguni Island!
The Chinese company “Linkun Tianxin” has released a promo video of the hypersonic missile “Yukongzi-1000” (YKJ-1000).
“No U.S. Marine CH-53E has ever before landed that far southwest in Japan, nor has a FARP ever been established there,” Maj. Patrick X. Kelly, executive officer of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH) 462, said in a statement. “This evolution not only validated that MAG’s [Marine Aircraft Group 36] organic heavy-lift assault support helicopters, in support of its adjacent units and our JGSDF [Japan Ground Self-Defense Force] partners, can generate tempo anywhere the commander should choose, but also served as a huge leap forward in our relations between the U.S. Marines and the JGSDF.”
“FARPs significantly extend MAG-36’s operational reach,” said Col. Lee W. Hemming, commanding officer of MAG-36. “Our ability to rapidly establish and disassemble these sites in austere environments enhances our capacity to respond to, and support, disaster relief and other critical operations throughout the region – particularly in conjunction with our Japanese Self-Defense Forces partners. This collaborative FARP capability underscores our commitment to regional security and humanitarian assistance.”
U.S. Marines with Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members establish a forward arming refueling point on Yonaguni, Japan, Oct. 27, 2025. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ryan Sotodavila) Lance Cpl. Ryan Sotodavila
Given its proximity to Taiwan, Yonaguni also makes sense as a forward staging area for standoff weapons to strike Chinese targets, including ships, and advanced radars to track their movement, if Japan decides to go that route. Marine Corps doctrine calls for troops to be staged in China’s weapons engagement zone ahead of any conflict, and more islands in the region will likely become increasingly armed, but none are as close to Taiwan as this one.
Marines from 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, fire a rocket from an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System during an exercise at Camp Pendleton, California, Sept. 22, 2023. (Lance Cpl. Keegan Jones/Marine Corps)
Another Marine weapons system that might even make more sense for Yonaguni is Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) armed with Naval Strike Missiles (NSMs). In previous reporting, we noted that these highly mobile missile systems have been deployed to Luzon in the Philippines. The NSM is well suited for fighting in the littorals. With the baseline NSM’s range of around 110 nautical miles, placing these systems on Yonaguni would hold Chinese vessels operating near the northern part and the backside of Taiwan at risk. They can also strike fixed targets on land. NMESIS is highly mobile on land, making its launchers very hard to target at distance by adversary forces.
NMESIS firing NSMs during an exercise. (USMC)
While weapons like NMESIS on Yonaguni could pose a real threat to Chinese forces trying to take the island, getting them there in the case of a Chinese move on Taiwan will likely be a great challenge. The idea would be to have them there permanently or rush them there at the start of a crisis, before the shooting begins. This would work as a deterrent to keep the fighting from starting, as well as tactical capability once the fighting begins.
Still, Beijing has a very large arsenal of missiles, aircraft and ships on hand and in development that could rain fire on Yonaguni. Any U.S. logistic missions having to push materiel forward in a time of crisis to the island would be traveling deep within China’s anti-access bubble, as well, which may be entirely unsurvivable. So, once things light off, if weapons are fired from the island, or even preemptive action by China, could widen the conflict significantly, and any forces on the island could be cutoff and under fire.
As previously mentioned, amid the boiling tensions, Trump spoke with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Takaichi on Monday.
“Taiwan’s return to China is an important component of the post-war international order,” Xi told Trump, according to an official account of the conversation by China’s state media. For his part, Trump affirmed that the U.S. “understands the importance of the Taiwan issue to China,” Chinese media said.
“Takaichi said Trump briefed her on his overnight phone call with China’s Xi and the current state of U.S.-China relations,” according to The Associated Press. “She said that she and Trump also discussed strengthening the Japan-U.S. alliance and ‘development and challenges that the Indo-Pacific region is faced with.’”
“We confirmed the close coordination between Japan and the United States,” the Japanese leader added, declining to give any other details of her talks with Trump, citing diplomatic protocol.
Regardless of diplomatic platitudes, when it comes to Yonaguni Island, moving surface-to-air missiles there is largely a defensive overture. It’s also the first step in providing protection for additional assets, should Japan choose to allow their deployment. But for now, it certainly has gotten Beijing’s attention.
Stories will long be told about what Gazans have endured these last couple of years, and movies will be part of that unburdening. This spring, Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi believed she would be unveiling a uniquely dignified portrait of one Palestinian woman’s experience when the Cannes Film Festival accepted her documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” which comprised her year of spirited video chats with positive-minded 25-year-old photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. The day after the Cannes news, Hassona and her family were killed by an Israeli missile.
It’s not unheard of for a completed movie to become something entirely different overnight. But what’s quietly miraculous about “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” considering its added tragic weight, is what the force of Hassona’s personality and Farsi’s filmmaking choices still manage to do: speak to what’s ineffably beautiful about our human capacity for hope and connection.
In her opening narration, Farsi explains how she’d been looking for a way into Gaza to understand it beyond the media reports. Physically, that proved impossible, but through a refugee friend, she was connected to Hassona in April 2024. In their first video call, which Farsi, then in Cairo, recorded with a separate smartphone, Hassona’s beaming face immediately dispels any notion that all Palestinians must exist in a defeated state amid relentless bombing. Asked how she feels, Hassona — who had just witnessed a huge explosion the day prior — says, “I feel proud.” With unforced lightness, she assures Farsi that they will continue to live their lives and laugh, that they are “special people.” She knows every day is about actively not letting themselves get used to it. The documentary’s title is Hassona’s description of what she does when she leaves her house.
You believe her. That high-wattage smile registers as whatever the opposite of a bomb is. But it’s also easy to notice Farsi’s ingrained cynicism about the state of things, having once been imprisoned as a teenage dissident during the years following her country’s Islamic Revolution, now in exile. In her voice-over, Farsi describes meeting Hassona as if encountering a mirror, realizing “how much both our lives are conditioned by walls and wars.”
Farsi threads in many of Hassona’s photographs. The images of daily life amid destruction and rubble — children, bicyclists, workers, laundry drying from high floors in a half-destroyed building — hint at an inextinguishable flame carrying on through a campaign of death.
Though Farsi knows how to ask for details about her life in Gaza, the vibe isn’t one of interviews conducted to make a film, but a genuine curiosity and warmth, the ebb and flow of real interaction captured whenever possible. Meanwhile, war, politics and failed leadership can be glimpsed in brief interludes of news reports on Farsi’s television. But they’re always cut short, as if to say: I’d rather hear from my friend who’s living it.
Hassona’s face becomes so familiar to us, we can tell when her cheery disposition is hard to maintain. But her energy and hope never feel like depletable resources. “I want to be in a normal place!” she blurts out in one of their last conversations, almost as if she were a musical protagonist about to break into song. But Hassona never got more than a first act.
Farsi doesn’t draw the ending out: just sparsely worded text after witnessing their final chat, followed by a video Hassona had taken rolling through her devastated city, somehow grounded in a palpable, undying everydayness. You’ll feel loss, but the afterimage of this singular woman’s belief in finding light is what will burn.
‘Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk’
In Arabic and English, with subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday, Nov. 14 at Laemmle Monica Film Center, Laemmle Glendale
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
A special operations team is pinned down in a valley deep inside contested territory. Ammo is running low, and close air support is nonexistent. Extraction forces are still hours out. The operatives have kept the enemy at bay, but their ability to do so is dwindling with every round they fire. Their stocks of 40mm grenades have long been exhausted; now their rifles will soon run dry too. The sky cracks with a sonic boom, which echoes across the valley, and fighting pauses for a split second as fighters on both sides look up. Soon after, the shooting resumes, but out of the blinding sun comes a capsule stuffed with ammunition hanging on a parachute and flying right toward the special operations team.
Help has arrived… From orbit.
The above is a scene that sounds like it’s ripped right out of a Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare video game, but one company is working to make it a reality.
California-based space startup Inversion has unveiled its design for a fully reusable, lifting-body spacecraft named Arc. The spacecraft is intended to deliver critical cargo from space to any point on Earth within an hour, landing on water, snow or soil with a precision of around 50 feet, the company says. The concept, aimed squarely at the defense sector, reflects longstanding U.S. military interest in using space-based systems to rapidly move cargo around the globe to meet commanders’ urgent needs.
Arc is a new kind of spacecraft.
Not quite a capsule, not quite a spaceplane. It’s based off of a lifting body design – ideal for its mission to deliver cargo from orbit to anywhere on Earth in under an hour. pic.twitter.com/KHD6v5Kcs4
The mission concept involves the Arc spacecraft being launched into low Earth orbit atop a rocket. Arc then remains in orbit until its cargo is required to be delivered. At that point, the spacecraft uses a deorbit engine to re-enter the atmosphere, moving at very high speed. Arc uses small thrusters and large trailing-edge maneuvering flaps to adjust its position and speed during its fiery reentry, through the atmosphere, until it approaches the ‘drop zone.’
Once it has reached a lower altitude, Arc slows down and lands using its actively controlled parachute system. This is also able to fine-tune the spacecraft’s path back to Earth. The parachute ensures a soft landing, meaning that Arc can then be reused. The entire mission is uncrewed, with the Arc being commanded by autonomous control systems.
Arc depicted reentering the atmosphere. (Inversion)
Interestingly, Inversion’s plan to field a spacecraft that’s able to put a cargo at any place on Earth within an hour has parallels with an ambition laid out by U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), back in 2020. TRANSCOM provides transportation services and solutions to all branches of the armed forces, as well as various other defense and governmental organizations.
Concept artwork shows the Arc spacecraft in orbit. Inversion
Speaking back then, U.S. Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, TRANSCOM’s commander, said: “Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour. Think about that speed associated with the movement of transportation of cargo… There is a lot of potential here…”
At that point, TRANSCOM had begun a partnership with both SpaceX and Exploration Architecture Corporation (XArc) to pursue space-based rapid delivery concepts. SpaceX has since been working with the Air Force and Space Force on the ‘Rocket Cargo’ program, which seeks to quickly deliver cargo anywhere on Earth that can support a vertical landing.
Part of the Arc vehicle’s thermal protection system. Inversion
It should be noted, however, that the sizes of payloads that Arc will be able to deliver are much smaller than those outlined by Lyons. The spacecraft itself will measure only around eight feet by four feet.
The C-17 has a maximum payload of around 82 tons, although normal payloads are around 60 tons or less. Arc is reportedly planned to have a cargo of just 500 pounds. Still, small cargoes often require very big logistics. As we have noted in a prior piece:
“Even the Navy has said in the past that when ships encounter problems as a result of logistics-related issues that leave them partially mission capable or non-mission capable, 90 percent of the time this can be resolved by the delivery of a component weighing 50 pounds or less.“
Nevertheless, Inversion clearly sees a niche for the very high-speed delivery of what it describes as “mission-enabling cargo.”
A test of the parachute-recovery system for Arc. Inversion
Inversion doesn’t provide any specific examples of the kinds of cargoes that might be delivered by Arc, beyond “equipment, food, or other mission cargo.” Conceivably, key cargo could comprise time-sensitive equipment and ammunition needed at forward operating locations. Since these spacecraft would be pre-launched, they would likely be filled with a range of generic cargoes that are generally time-sensitive. Then, they would be deorbited on demand.
Today, other small autonomous resupply systems have been used in combat, like the paragliding Snow Goose, and others are in development or limited use now. But these systems fly exclusively within the atmosphere and are much slower, more vulnerable, and require regional basing or an aerial delivery platform to launch them from relatively nearby.
Snow Goose resupply vehicle in use in Iraq. (DoD)
Bearing in mind the considerable cost of a space launch, these cargoes would presumably only be delivered in the most critical scenarios, the kinds where only a high-cost rapid transport would suffice.
Arc depicted in orbit. (Inversion) Inversion
Such a capability would appear to have particular relevance in the context of future contingencies in the Indo-Pacific theater. With a growing expectation that this region will see a future high-end conflict involving the U.S. military, the ability to call upon space-based systems, like Arc, to quickly bring critical supplies to the area could be of high value — provided, once again, that the technology can be mastered.
Since Arc is reusable, that would go some way to making it more cost-efficient, when the vehicle can be recovered. Inversion also proposes putting several Arc vehicles into orbit at the same time (it’s unclear if these would be transported by the same or different rockets). The result has been described as something like a series of “constellations” with a variety of contingency cargoes that could be tailored to different customers and operational theaters.
The structure of the Arc spacecraft makes extensive use of composite materials. Inversion
Another advantage compared to other space-based cargo-delivery concepts is the fact that Arc uses a parachute landing system.
Arc can, in theory, deliver cargo to any place on the planet, including remote regions, disaster zones, or hard-to-access theaters of war. Other orbital delivery concepts, such as suborbital VTOL rockets, have needed at least some kind of infrastructure to support the cargo-recovery part of the mission, but Arc should do away with that requirement, at least for small cargoes.
U.S. Air Force concept artwork shows how a cargo rocket might be used to enable rapid delivery of aircraft-size payloads for agile global logistics — in this example, for urgent humanitarian assistance and disaster response. U.S. Air Force illustration/Randy Palmer
Last month, Inversion conducted precision drop-testing to prove the actively controlled parachute system that ensures that Arc will be able to put its cargoes where they are needed.
The company now says it wants to conduct a first mission with Arc as early as next year, which seems highly ambitious.
On the other hand, the startup does have some valuable experience from its Ray spacecraft, Inversion’s first, which was launched in January of this year as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-12 mission. This test mission helped prove technologies, including solar panels, propulsion, and separation systems, which will be incorporated into Arc.
Another view of the parachute recovery system that Arc will use to return to Earth. Inversion
For the time being, Inversion is focused solely on Arc’s military potential, although there would clearly be specific commercial applications as well. There is also the question of the possibility of adapting Arc as a reusable and recoverable satellite or even orbital supply vehicle. Meanwhile, the company has spoken confidently of producing hundreds of examples of the spacecraft every year.
Before that happens, and presuming military customers are forthcoming, Inversion will need to prove that its concept of space-based cargo deliveries can be cost-effective. There will also be various other regulatory issues to overcome, bearing in mind that this is an altogether new kind of transportation system.
Concept artwork shows the Arc spacecraft below its parachute. Inversion
Despite multiple dead ends and abortive programs, the idea of using some kind of space-based solution for rapid transport across the globe is one that won’t go away. Potentially, with its much smaller cargo loads, reusable spacecraft, and parachute-landing system, Inversion’s de-orbit on-demand cargo concept could be the one that finally breaks the mold.
Gabby Logan has been a mainstay of the BBC Sport presenting team for many years, but she was given a reality check by her daughter when she tried to push her into certain sports
15:42, 04 Nov 2025Updated 15:43, 04 Nov 2025
Gabby’s daughter was determined to follow her own path(Image: Kate Green, Getty Images)
Few individuals could be better suited to front BBC Sport than self-proclaimed sports fanatic Gabby Logan.
Gabby, who competed for Wales in rhythmic gymnastics at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, has remained a familiar face for decades through her contributions to ITV and BBC, presenting World Cups, Olympic Games, Six Nations and countless other sporting occasions.
Following Gary Lineker’s exit from the corporation’s premier football programme, Match of the Day, she has joined the presenting roster tipped to succeed him. However, Gabby was decisively “put in her place” by her daughter Lois when she tried to guide her towards the sports she herself was most passionate about.
She explained to The Telegraph: “I always used to say to Lois, when she first got into horses at the age of nine: ‘Oh, if you played golf, I would play with you every night. If you played tennis, I’d play with you all the time.’
“And she’s like: ‘Mummy, those are your dreams, not mine.’ So I was very much put in my place… I used to tell Clare Balding that I’d had her love child.”
Gabby’s Clare Balding reference proved rather fitting.
Now aged 20, Lois works as a show jumper and recently took part in her first horse race as a jockey.
Lois’s twin brother Reuben has also inherited the family’s athletic streak, featuring as a back-row forward for Sale Sharks.
As a mum, Gabby admits she finds it challenging watching both her children pursue physically demanding and potentially dangerous sports. “They’ve not made it easy for me, have they?” she quipped.
“Or for Kenny, in terms of a nice, sedate sport – something a little less frenetic and potentially fraught with danger.
“Still, for me it was important that they had a passion and did something they wanted to do in life, and they both love sport.”
Reuben may have regretted his choice to go into professional rugby on one particular occasion, though.
One of his regular gym sessions at the club turned into a toe-curlingly embarrassing experience when one of his mum’s podcasts was played over the PA system.
It happened to be the episode in which Gabby, 50, was discussing changes in her sex life since her husband – former rugby international Kenny Logan – had his prostate removed following a cancer diagnosis in 2022.
Gabby has been outspoken about reconnecting with intimacy after menopause. She told The Sun: “Taking HRT saw my libido returning. I started with a very small dose of oestrogen and testosterone gels, and progesterone in tablet form. I noticed massive changes within a few weeks. It was a lovely feeling – like myself again.
“My libido came back within about a week. I felt a massive improvement there, and that was important to me and also to Kenny. Once I was on HRT and my libido returned, our sex life was back on track – even to the extent of having daytime sex. There are plus points to becoming empty nesters!”
Sometimes you have to sacrifice having great statistics to lead your team to victory. That’s what 5-foot-8 running back Journee Tonga has done for Leuzinger this season.
A year ago, he rushed for 2,267 yards and 29 touchdowns. This season, to help Leuzinger win the Bay League championship, go 9-1 and earn a Division 2 playoff matchup against unbeaten Crean Lutheran on Friday, Tonga has been doing everything, from playing quarterback to slot.
“He’s been our Swiss Army Knife,” coach Jason Miller said.
A hand injury to starting quarterback Russell Sekona forced Tonga into a wildcat formation to fill in. Sekona will find out this week if he can return.
If that happens, Tonga will be providing help with his running and catching skills.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
US tariffs are hitting African exports hard. Now, governments and businesses must devise a Plan B to expand trade and grow their economies.
US President Donald Trump is not an Africa enthusiast; he has mocked Lesotho as a place “nobody has ever heard of ” and has never set foot on the continent.
In July, however, Africans were hopeful that Trump was mellowing. At a summit in Washington with the presidents of five African nations, he announced a shift from “aid to trade” in US efforts to strengthen ties with the continent.
Pivoting US-Africa relations toward trade and investment to foster self-reliance and mutual prosperity and move away from traditional aid dependency was critical, Trump said. He had already dismantled USAID, the principal US foreign aid agency, leaving a trail of negative social effects on the continent.
Many took this seeming pledge to expand trade with skepticism. And a few weeks later, Trump unveiled the Reciprocal Tariff Rate, sending shockwaves across 22 African nations suddenly slapped with duties ranging from 15% to 30%, that started on August 7.
South Africa, Algeria, and Libya were the worst hit, their tariffs set at 30%, while Tunisia got a rate of 25%. Tiny Lesotho and crisis-ridden Chad and Equatorial Guinea were not spared as their new rates hit 15%.
Bintu Zahara Sakor, a doctoral researcher at Norway’s Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), notes the contraction of promising more trade with Africa and then imposing punitive tariffs that are bound to be damaging to the continent.
“Diversification could empower Africa to dictate its trade narratives.”
Zahara Sakor, PRIO
“This mixed messaging creates uncertainty for African businesses and investors,” she says. The endgame is stifling the very trade the US purports to promote.
The Biggest Economies In The Crosshairs
While targeting only about half of the continent’s countries, two of its biggest economies, South Africa (30%) and Nigeria (15%), are on the list. Most of the others are grappling with extreme poverty and challenges of job creation. Among them is Botswana (15%), whose economy is in a recession.
By the numbers, African exports to the US are not substantial, accounting for only 1.5% of the continent’s collective GDP. Africa’s $34 billion of exports to the US are a mere 1.2% of total US imports and a drop in the ocean when juxtaposed with Washington’s $3.2 trillion global trade volume.
But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. For the past 25 years, US-Africa trade relations were defined primarily by duty-free access under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). With his new tariff schedule, Trump has discarded AGOA, damaging the prospects for future exports cutting across automobiles, machinery, textiles, apparel, minerals, and agricultural products, among others.
“What we are witnessing under Trump is US imperialism,” argues Patrick Bond, professor of sociology at South Africa’s University of Johannesburg. The damages the tariffs inflict on the continent will be immense, he predicts.
Case in point is South Africa. The US is its second-largest trading partner after China, and its agricultural and automobile manufacturing industries bear the brunt of the tariffs. According to data from NAAMSA, South Africa’s auto industry lobbying group, the US is the third-largest destination for the country’s auto exports. South Africa shipped approximately $1.9 billion worth of vehicles to the US market in 2024, accounting for 6.5% of total exports. Owing to tariffs, however, auto exports have plummeted by an average of 60% this year.
South Africa is warning that a staggering 100,000 jobs are at risk from the new duties, devastating for a country with a 33% unemployment rate and where crime is among the highest globally. The only bright spot is the exemption of platinum, gold, and other minerals, which will continue to be zero-rated.
The situation is worse in Lesotho, which ranks among the poorest nations in the world with youth joblessness at 48%. The government has declared a “state of disaster,” reckoning the US tariffs will devastate the textile and apparels industry, which employs 40,000 people.
Lesotho is one of Africa’s largest garment exporters to the US, thanks to the AGOA. In 2024, it exported goods worth a cumulative $237.2 million to the US market, 75% of that garment exports. The industry accounts for roughly 20% of GDP.
Devising A Plan B
Trump’s tariffs call for “swift policy responses” to safeguard the continent’s long-term economic prospects, Sakor urges. The AGOA was set to expire on September 30; while Congress holds the power to renew it, the current administration is not concealing its aversion to the pact. With the new tariffs, the era of regional duty-free market access under the AGOA is over. In its place, Washington wants a shift toward bilateral deals that extract concessions like market access for US goods or alignment on geopolitical issues.
“US-Africa trade relations may become more fragmented and conditional, focusing on select ‘friendly’ nations with lower tariffs or new free trade agreements [FTAs],” Sakor says. Countries like Morocco, which has a binding FTA with the US, and Kenya, which is currently negotiating one, were among those spared the backlash.
Bintu Zahara Sakor, a doctoral researcher at PRIO
With the US playing hard ball, Africa is at a point where it must devise a Plan B for future trade policy. One starting point could be deepening intra-Africa trade by accelerating implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
On paper, AfCFTA has the potential to boost intracontinental trade to 53% from around 18% currently, growing the manufacturing sector by $1 trillion, generating income worth $470 billion, and creating a whopping 14 million jobs by 2035, according to the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
Six years after the agreement was signed, however, the continent has yet to record any tangible benefits. Last year, trade was valued at $208 billion, a 7.7% increase from 2024, according to Afreximbank. Compounding the difficulties are disintegrating regional economic community blocs and rising non-tariff barriers.
“AfCFTA is encouraging in theory, but has not yet delivered mutually advantageous market opportunities,” observes Bond. For this reason, Africa could be forced onto a different course of action: strengthening trade ties with China while exploring opportunities in other global markets.
Over the past 25 years, China has risen to become Africa’s largest trading partner. Last year, trade with the people’s republic was valued at $294.3 billion, a staggering increase from $13.9 billion in 2000, according to Chinese government data. The amount dwarfs US-Africa twoway trade, which was valued at $104.9 billion in 2024.
Chinese engagement has been a mixed blessing. Beijing has flooded Africa with cheap goods, rendering nascent industries uncompetitive. This, combined with the lessons of Washington’s volatile behavior, suggests that the continent needs to cultivate balanced and reciprocal agreements with multiple trading partners.
“Diversification could empower Africa to dictate its trade narrative,” Sakor says, arguing that this is critical if the continent is to foster sustainable growth outside of unilateral preferences like AGOA. The European Union, Russia, India, Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East are some of the markets that offer Africa opportunities for deeper trade ties, Sakor notes.
Africa must decide whether to accept the higher US tariffs as the cost of doing business, build its ties further with China and Russia, or take a more diverse approach. The latter two, obviously, would only alienate the continent further from Washington.
