Pentagon creates drone office under deputy secretary

An active-duty Air Force major was arrested Wednesday after protesting alone on the House steps and calling for the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump.

Capitol Police said that Maj. Jason Watson was arrested at about 1:15 p.m. for demonstrating on the House steps without a sitting member of Congress. Watson, who has served more than 20 years in the military, stood in uniform holding a sign that read, “Impeach Convict Remove.”

Police said Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, first escorted Watson to the bottom of the steps, then left the area. Officers then arrested Watson under 22-1307, crowding, obstructing and incommoding.

“When the Member of Congress left the area, our officers gave the man lawful orders to stop the illegal demonstration, or he would be arrested,” a Capitol Police spokesperson said. “The man refused our lawful orders.”

Video posted by Removal Coalition founder Jessica Denson showed Watson standing on the steps for about a minute before officers approached him. After a third approach, he placed his sign down and was arrested and escorted away.

Before the protest, Watson spoke at a news conference with Green, Denson, constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, Defenders of Our Republic, and About Face Veterans. Denson said Watson is on leave from his post as a logistics readiness officer in Poland and approached the Removal Coalition in February to organize the event.

In his remarks, Watson said Trump and Vice President JD Vance should be impeached and removed, citing what he described as constitutional violations, including military action abroad, immigration enforcement, and other administration actions.

A spokesperson for Green declined to comment on whether the congressman knew Watson would be arrested after he was no longer being escorted on the steps. Green was the only House member to vote to impeach Trump during his second term; the House tabled the resolution 237-140.

Capitol Police said Watson was not being held. A Spotfund page for his legal defense had raised nearly $70,000 as of Thursday afternoon. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An Air Force commander for medical services at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia was removed from her post this week, according to Air Force officials.

The base did not provide a more specific reason for Allen’s removal beyond citing a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.

Col. Michael Blowers, deputy command surgeon at Air Combat Command, assumed responsibility for the group until a new commander is selected.

Before taking command at Langley-Eustis, Allen led the 436th Medical Group at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. She also served as chief of the Medical Readiness Division and chief of the Air Force Medical Operations Center, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Joint Base Langley-Eustis houses Air Combat Command, one of the Air Force’s 10 major commands. The base has 1,150 assigned aircraft, 35 wings, and 1,470 units across 248 locations.

The 633rd Medical Group has five squadrons and 1,400 personnel. It provides outpatient, specialty, and emergency care, and operates an outpatient surgical center.

The unit also supports up to 29,000 active-duty service members and their families, as well as 426,000 TRICARE beneficiaries in the Hampton Roads region.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has consolidated most Pentagon drone and autonomous systems programs under a new office that will report to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.

According to a June 29 memo made public Wednesday, the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems will serve as “the single joint integrator for all unmanned and autonomous system programs” across the department. Its director, who has not been named, will oversee how the military develops, buys, fields, and sustains unmanned systems in the air, on land, and at sea.

The office will cover small drones in aircraft groups 1 through 3, unmanned boats, ground robots, counter-drone systems, and related artificial intelligence and swarming software. Unmanned underwater vehicles will be managed jointly with the Pentagon’s submarine portfolio manager.

Its authority will not extend to major defense acquisition programs, which follow a separate legal approval process. That leaves programs such as the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft, and the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray, MQ-4C Triton, and medium unmanned surface vessel under the military services.

Two existing organizations will move under the new office: Joint Interagency Task Force 401, which will expand from countering small aerial drones to unmanned threats in all domains, and the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, which focuses on large-scale production of low-cost drones. The memo said neither organization’s staff nor positions will be relocated.

The Defense Innovation Unit was also named the single point of contact with commercial technology firms for the new portfolio.

The office will serve as milestone decision authority for covered programs and will rank behind only Hegseth and Feinberg on drone acquisition matters. It will also be able to act as the lead contracting authority, direct funding shifts through the Pentagon comptroller, and block systems from being fielded.

The memo also centralized congressional engagement, requiring Pentagon components to clear drone-related plans with the office before contacting lawmakers. It exempted the office’s programs and personnel from hiring freezes and workforce reductions. Once a director is named, hiring is to begin within 30 days, an organizational plan is due within 60 days, and a list of transferred programs is due within 90 days.

The reorganization followed Hegseth’s broader push to speed weapons delivery. A Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday found the Pentagon’s independent testing office, which Hegseth cut from 126 civilian jobs to 30 last year, now oversees 15 of about 110 active programs on one fast-track acquisition pathway, Defense News reported.

Ursa Major said it is expanding from propulsion into missile development, with a focus on 3D-printed solid rocket motors and liquid-fueled hypersonic systems.

Chief Executive Officer Chris Spagnoletti said the company unveiled its Havoc hypersonic missile in early 2026 as part of a broader effort to address U.S. munitions shortfalls. He said Havoc uses a 3D-printed propulsion system and is intended to be lower-cost and adaptable for air, ground, or vertical launch.

The Colorado-based company said it has produced hundreds of engines and motors and logged more than 135,000 seconds of hot-fire testing in less than a decade. It uses additive manufacturing, including metal printing, in both liquid rocket engines and solid rocket motors.

Co-founder Nick Doucette said Ursa Major applied its manufacturing approach to solid rocket motors after identifying bottlenecks in traditional production, particularly the metal tube structures used in motors. The company said its modular production lines can switch between motors from 2 inches to 22 inches in diameter without major retooling.

Ursa Major said it is producing solid rocket motors in Berthoud, Colorado, and expanding higher-volume production in Galeton, Colorado. Doucette said the company has made several hundred 2.75-inch motors for testing and development for the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System, or APKWS, produced by BAE Systems. In 2024, the company won a Naval Energetics Systems and Technologies program contract tied to the Mk104 dual-thrust motor used in the Navy’s Standard Missile 2 and SM-6.

In hypersonics, Doucette said Ursa Major’s Hadley engine has flown 10 times on Stratolaunch’s Talon A testbed. He said the company later developed Draper, a 4,000-pound-thrust engine that uses hydrogen peroxide and rocket fuel instead of liquid oxygen, allowing longer storage and tactical use.

Ursa Major then developed Havoc in-house after deciding not to rely on an outside airframe partner, Doucette said. He said the company moved from concept to a flight-ready vehicle in about six months through work with the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The company said it has twice ground-launched a “Havoc Block 0” demonstrator under the Affordable Rapid Missile Demonstrator program. Spagnoletti said the next goal is a boosted hypersonic flight demonstration in 2027.

Ursa Major also operates a 3D-printing facility in Youngstown, Ohio, with final assembly and testing in Berthoud.