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This Week in Government Tech Media – September 21, 2026

By Brad Bass /

Without question, the trending topic across government tech media last week related to military technology in space – boosted by a couple of major conferences focused on the subject. And no surprise, AI was also broadly covered, with much of the discussion happening on Capitol Hill. Read on for more details:

Star Wars?

A “bombshell” announcement at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference resulted in multiple articles across the government tech media landscape and beyond last week. Our roundup below will give you details and links to that coverage as well as other reports from the conference and related articles:

  • The biggest splash made at the conference: Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told attendees that the U.S. Space Force has launched “space control weapons” into orbit, the first public acknowledgement from a U.S. government official that America has deployed weapon systems to circle the earth, according to an article on those remarks by Michael Marrow in Breaking Defense.
  • Mikayla Easley quoted Meink’s keynote address in DefenseScoop, in which he stated: “Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist. This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary actions.” 
  • During a media roundtable following the address, Mienk declined to discuss the type of weapons deployed or whether they had been tested, saying that providing such details would undermine the purpose of the announcement, Jamie Whitney wrote in Military & Aerospace Electronics.
  • In his address, Meink also said that launches of the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indication (SB-AMTI) constellation would begin this month, Frank Wolfe noted in Via Satellite.
  • In the following day’s keynote speech, the Space Force’s top officer Gen. Douglas Schiess told attendees that the advance of Chinese and Russian anti-satellite capabilities led the United States to admit it has weapons in space, according to coverage by Thomas Novelly for Defense One.
  • Schiess also used his keynote to discuss his plans to reinforce the U.S. Space Force’s combat power by focusing on improvements to the service’s culture, acquisition and force integration, as reported by Jane Edwards in ExecutiveGov.
  • Also at the conference, Novelly covered an address by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, in which he said U.S. forces must be ready for war near or possibly even on the moon, a rhetorical leap that comes as service leaders are still wrestling with the legal frameworks surrounding its newly revealed orbital weapons.
  • Novelly’s colleague Lauren C. Williams spoke to Erich Hernandez-Baquero, the Space Force’s top buyer, who said the service’s modernization efforts could slow if Congress doesn’t pass a full budget at the end of the year.
  • Carten Cordell of GovCIO Media reported on remarks at the conference by Lt. Gen. David Miller, the Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs and requirements, noting that the service is reshaping its satellites, operations and force structure as it prepares to fight in an increasingly contested space domain. 
  • The Air & Space Forces Association event was not the only military space conference last week. Sandra Erwin of Space News covered remarks from the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference in Hawaii by U.S. Space Command leader Gen. Stephen Whiting, who said the U.S. military has expanded its ability to track objects in orbit but still needs to better connect that information to command systems and weapons as it prepares for the possibility of combat in space. 
  • Also reporting from Maui, Theresa Hitchens of Breaking Defense wrote that the Space Force is planning to develop new prototype software designed to automate the integration of commercial and military space tracking data to provide more timely and more accurate information. 
  • In other Space Force news last week, Anastasia Obis noted in Federal News Network that the service is looking to hire service members from throughout the Defense Department with backgrounds in cyber, intelligence, acquisition and engineering.

Lawmakers Urge AI Action

The news from Capitol Hill centered on recognition among lawmakers that they need to take action on setting AI guardrails. But despite that recognition, real progress appeared scant. Here is some of that coverage:

  • Federal News Network’s Terry Gerton interviewed Loren Duggan of Bloomberg Government on how a packed election calendar is limiting what lawmakers can accomplish with regard to action on AI legislation.
  • Even so, Lisbeth Perez of MeriTalk reported that a bipartisan group of 10 House lawmakers is urging congressional leaders to quickly advance legislation establishing AI guardrails following recent incidents involving advanced AI models that they said have implications for economic and national security. 
  • In a letter to House leaders, the lawmakers warned that recent incident disclosures about AI models escaping their testing environments from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta have “profound implications for economic and national security,” according to a piece by Madison Alder in FedScoop.
  • House Democrats urged Speaker Mike Johnson to either shorten or outright cancel their upcoming recess, citing the need to quickly move on AI regulation, according to an article by Alexandra Kelley in Nextgov/FCW. 
  • Kelley’s colleague Edward Graham wrote that House lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation that would require the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report to Congress detailing how AI is being used “to acquire, analyze, query, disseminate or otherwise access information” collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
  • In other AI-related news from the Hill, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told House Financial Services Committee lawmakers that the “best way to guarantee safety” is for AI creators to be held “liable for what they build and generate,” Matt Bracken noted in FedScoop.
  • Natalie Oliverio reported in Federal Times on a hearing before a congressional human rights commission last week in which witnesses said human approval may not be enough to ensure manual control over AI-enabled decisions as AI takes on a greater role in military target identification and recommendations, and in turn, compresses time available to intervene.
  • At the state level, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new bills last week creating a framework for independent third-party audits of AI systems, according to a report by Sophia Fox-Sowell in StateScoop.

Upcoming Industry Events

The number of industry events in the D.C. area seems to be on the upswing this week. Here’s our weekly summary of some that you might want to check out:

If you would like your event included in this list, please fill out this form.

That’s it for this week’s roundup. If you haven’t already, please subscribe on LinkedIn or via the form below. And of course, don’t hesitate to share this with your colleagues. Come back next week for more government tech media news!