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Year in review: Top stories from 2020

By Defense News staff

Dec 21, 2020

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The U.S. Air Force confirmed to Defense News that it secretly designed, built and flew at least one prototype of its enigmatic next-generation fighter jet. With the program still in its infancy, the rollout and successful first flight of a demonstrator was not expected for years. (U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory)

After a year of speculation about what would happen to Turkey’s F-35s after the country was ousted from the Joint Strike Fighter program in 2019, the Pentagon announced plans to buy eight F-35A jets, originally built by Lockheed Martin for Turkey, as part of a $862 million contract modification. The deal also contained an additional six F-35As built for the U.S. Air Force and modifications that will bring the Turkish jets in line with the U.S. configuration. (dardanellas/Getty Images)

The U.S. Navy's fleet was hit with two high-profile fires. A series of explosions and a 1,200-degree inferno damaged 11 of the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard’s 14 decks, according to a summary of the damage by the U.S. Navy’s top officer. The fire on the Bonhomme Richard broke out the morning of July 12 while it was pierside in San Diego, California, undergoing maintenance. The service will not repair the ship over costs. And on July 17, the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge caught fire. The incident started when a spark from welding landed on nearby material, which was then quickly put out by the fire watch. (U.S. Navy)

Defense Secretary Mark Esper holds a news conference at the Pentagon, June 3, 2020. — Bonnie Kristian, a fellow at Defense Priorities, wrote a commentary on Defense News in March that attracted a lot of attention from readers. She argued that then-U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper was right to support withdrawing American troops from the Middle East and Africa in a pivot toward great power relations. But she was concerned that a move toward conflict with China would be dangerously unwise, instead calling for diplomacy, mutual economic benefit and peace. (Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders/U.S. Defense Department)

An issue that risks damage to the F-35’s tail section if the aircraft needs to maintain supersonic speeds is not worth fixing and will instead be addressed by changing the operating parameters, the F-35 Joint Program Office told Defense News in April. The deficiency means that at extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability. The problem may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts. (Samuel King Jr./U.S. Air Force)

The Pentagon in March issued three contracts to start design work on mobile, small nuclear reactors, as part of a two-step plan toward achieving nuclear power for American forces at home and abroad. Under "Project Pele," the department awarded contracts to BWX Technologies Inc. of Virginia for $13.5 million; Westinghouse Government Services of Washington, D.C., for $11.9 million; and X-energy LLC of Maryland for $14.3 million to begin a two-year engineering design competition for a small nuclear microreactor designed to potentially be forward deployed with forces outside the continental United States. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

An announcement about the U.S. Navy’s first stealth destroyer, the Zumwalt, attracted the attention of a lot of readers this year. A source with knowledge of the program told Defense News in March that the warship was on track to have its combat system installation completed and delivered shortly. It marked the end of a long journey for the ship that was commissioned in 2016 without a working combat system. In October, it test-fired an SM-2 missile out of its MK 57 Vertical Launching System. However, its future remains uncertain, as the service hasn’t found a use for the Advanced Gun System. In late 2016, the service canceled its Long Range Land Attack Projectile, which cost about $1 million per round, and has struggled to come up with a replacement round for the gun. (U.S. Navy)

Secretive aircraft, tension with Turkey and warship problems: Here are the top stories from the year. (And click here to see what made the 2019 list!)

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US Navy’s top officer reveals grim new details of the damage to Bonhomme Richard

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Esper’s dark vision for US-China conflict makes war more likely

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The Pentagon will have to live with limits on F-35’s supersonic flights

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Pentagon awards contracts to design mobile nuclear reactor

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Indonesia says it wants to buy Austria’s entire Typhoon fighter fleet

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