The White House is lifting sanctions it imposed on Turkey about one week ago, after Turkey agreed to a “permanent” ceasefire in Syria but can now reach deeper into areas previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters, President Donald Trump announced Oct. 23. The limited sanctions, which Trump enacted in an Oct. 14 executive order, targeted Turkish steel and assets held by some of the country’s leaders. Trump said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan informed him that Turkey was stopping its military incursion into northeast Syria, the day after Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached a decision to jointly patrol the area along the Turkish-Syrian border—which, until recently, the US and Turkey did together. “The sanctions will be lifted unless something happens that we're not happy with,” Trump said. Read the full story by Brian Everstine.

The $34 billion contract covering production Lots 12-14 of the F-35 fighter—encompassing some 478 aircraft—should be announced in the next two weeks, Lockheed Martin officials reported in a quarterly earnings call Oct. 22. “We’re now going through some housekeeping on the ‘block buy’ and hopefully we have that definitized in the next week or two,” said Kenneth Possenriede, Lockheed’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. Non-US partners are combining their purchases across several years in a “block buy” to raise production rates in order to achieve volume efficiencies and lower costs. Read the full story by John A. Tirpak.

The Air Force’s KC-46 program has officially moved the new tanker into its initial operational test and evaluation phase, a delayed step that will certify whether the plane can handle its key missions. “IOT&E will test the KC-46’s effectiveness, suitability, and mission capability toward accomplishing its three primary mission sets: aerial refueling, cargo/passenger operations, and aeromedical evacuation,” the service said in an Oct. 23 statement. Read the full story by Brian Everstine and John A. Tirpak.

The Pentagon is rolling out an experimentation and prototyping campaign that will look at using 5G networks to provide augmented and virtual reality tools for mission planning and training, to manage warehouses and military logistics, and to learn more about sharing parts of the wireless spectrum with other users. A draft request for proposals that use new commercial technologies to further military network objectives is due out in November, with the final version expected in December—though that could be derailed if Congress does not pass a 2020 defense spending bill. Officials are choosing projects that will also benefit commercial industry, which is leading the push toward 5G networks that are expected to be faster and more secure. The initiative comes as the Air Force is taking its own steps to spread 5G to bases one region at a time. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

Lockheed Martin’s first in-orbit GPS III satellite on Oct. 21 successfully connected to its operational control system, known as the Contingency Operations Program (COps), according to the Air Force and the company. The initial GPS III satellite launched into space in December 2018, after which Lockheed continued work to mature COps and begin testing it in real-life circumstances. COps will command and control the improved GPS III satellites and their older counterparts until Raytheon’s Next-Generation Operational Control System comes online in the next few years. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

The Air Force has changed the questionnaire airmen must complete before a physical fitness exam to ensure the service knows whether an airman has the condition known as “sickle cell trait,” after multiple airmen recently died during physical training. Three PT-related deaths have occurred in about six months, and SCT is linked to some of those cases, according to Military.com, which first reported the changes. Airmen are required to complete the Fitness Screening Questionnaire at least seven days before a fitness assessment “to ensure airmen who have medical conditions receive proper medical review/clearance prior to conducting their fitness assessment,” USAF spokeswoman Capt. Carrie Volpe said. The FSQ is a two-page survey that lists questions about how an airman felt before the test, including chest discomfort, shortness of breath, and blackouts. It now includes other medical problems like sickle cell trait, asthma, and heart disease. Airmen must now verify that they know whether they have SCT, and if so, that they completed at least two counseling sessions with a health care provider and watched an educational video. The Air Force is also considering two additional changes to “increase safety and reduce anxiety” around the PT test, but those changes have not yet been released, Volpe said. —Brian Everstine