Space

Reflecting on a momentous year in defense and shifting focus to what challenges may occur in 2023

Reflecting on a momentous year in defense and shifting focus to what challenges may occur in 2023
Reflecting on a momentous year in defense and shifting focus to what challenges may occur in 2023

European defense spending, space governance and more is reviewed in our latest eBook: Year in Review & Looking Ahead. Gain insight into what happened on a global scale over the past year and be better prepared to address whatever comes next. View eBook here.

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Space Force chief: FY24 budget funds digital training as part of readiness push

Space Force chief: FY24 budget funds digital training as part of readiness push
Space Force chief: FY24 budget funds digital training as part of readiness push

“I can’t give you the specific numbers yet, but we are investing in developing what I’m loosely calling an operational test and training infrastructure,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters at a roundtable today.

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SAR-satellite startup Capella Space creates ‘federal’ unit for US government sales

SAR-satellite startup Capella Space creates ‘federal’ unit for US government sales
SAR-satellite startup Capella Space creates ‘federal’ unit for US government sales

“There is significant value in unclassified, shareable SAR imagery. And we’ve seen that in Ukraine. And so I think that has changed people’s minds quite a bit which has given a lot of momentum to … how government thinks about future procurements,” Capella CEO Payam Banazadeh told Breaking Defense.

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LeoLab’s newest space tracking radar expands Indo-Pacific coverage

LeoLab’s newest space tracking radar expands Indo-Pacific coverage
LeoLab’s newest space tracking radar expands Indo-Pacific coverage

“More geographic coverage helps revisit rates, so we see satellites more frequently. Which is quite critical,” LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley told Breaking Defense.

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NASA funding DRACO nuclear thermal rocket engine under deal with DARPA

NASA funding DRACO nuclear thermal rocket engine under deal with DARPA
NASA funding DRACO nuclear thermal rocket engine under deal with DARPA

“When people like to question the validity or usefulness of this engine, I point them to Wernher von Braun,” said Tabitha Dodson, DRACO program manager at DARPA, “because this was more or less his idea.”

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Viasat sees Marine’s ‘SATCOM as a service’ buy as harbinger of change

Viasat sees Marine’s ‘SATCOM as a service’ buy as harbinger of change
Viasat sees Marine’s ‘SATCOM as a service’ buy as harbinger of change

Commercial SATCOM providers have long urged DoD and the services to move from buying bandwidth in fits and starts using short-term contracts to service-style contracts that resemble a civilian’s average mobile phone or cable TV/Internet plan.

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‘Worst thing in the world’: Space acquisition leaders target satellite ground system gaps

‘Worst thing in the world’: Space acquisition leaders target satellite ground system gaps
‘Worst thing in the world’: Space acquisition leaders target satellite ground system gaps

“These albatrosses [have been] dragging the department down for decades. This is the year we are going to get these programs delivered,” said Frank Calvelli, space acquisition head.

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Rocket Lab’s Electron lifts off at last from US soil

Rocket Lab’s Electron lifts off at last from US soil
Rocket Lab’s Electron lifts off at last from US soil

“Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2 is designed to serve the responsive space needs of commercial, civil, defense, and national security customers, supporting up to 12 missions per year,” the company said.

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EXCLUSIVE: Commerce’s draft space traffic management service goes beyond DoD’s baseline

EXCLUSIVE: Commerce’s draft space traffic management service goes beyond DoD’s baseline
EXCLUSIVE: Commerce’s draft space traffic management service goes beyond DoD’s baseline

Industry representatives meeting with Commerce Deputy Secretary Don Graves on Tuesday “stressed the need for [Commerce] to work quickly to field the new capabilities — ideally by buying and redistributing existing commercial products — in order to maintain leadership in the face of competing SSA offerings from the EU and China,” a Commerce official told Breaking Defense today.

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USAF to begin Minuteman III silo conversion to house Sentinel ICBM by decade’s end

USAF to begin Minuteman III silo conversion to house Sentinel ICBM by decade’s end
USAF to begin Minuteman III silo conversion to house Sentinel ICBM by decade’s end

The scale of the silo conversion effort is something the Air Force nuclear complex hasn’t seen in “over 50 or 60 years,” Lt. Gen. James Dawkins, deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said today.

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Space Development Agency’s satellite plan gets new name, but focus on speed stays

Space Development Agency’s satellite plan gets new name, but focus on speed stays
Space Development Agency’s satellite plan gets new name, but focus on speed stays

The name change for SDA’s seven-layer network of satellite and ground systems was approved by both Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and space acquisition czar Frank Calvelli, and is designed to better reflect the network’s actual mission, SDA Director Derek Tournear told Breaking Defense.

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Pentagon’s annual weapon test report reverses classification, details major program challenges

Pentagon’s annual weapon test report reverses classification, details major program challenges
Pentagon’s annual weapon test report reverses classification, details major program challenges

The report, without “controlled unclassified information” redactions, discusses concerns with major weapons programs from ships to planes to hypersonic missiles.

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SDA hopes SABRE sensors can slash missile testing costs by ‘millions’

SDA hopes SABRE sensors can slash missile testing costs by ‘millions’
SDA hopes SABRE sensors can slash missile testing costs by ‘millions’

SDA already has a lot of interest from the Army and DoD’s testing community in its Space-Based Telemetry Monitoring, Electronic Support, and Alternative Navigation (SABRE) project.

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Space Force chief sets ‘lines of effort’ for service success

Space Force chief sets ‘lines of effort’ for service success
Space Force chief sets ‘lines of effort’ for service success

“A capable and resilient weapon system will be operationally ineffective if its personnel, expertise, tactical employment, and sustainment are insufficient for the mission,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman says in his first commander’s note on fielding combat-ready space forces.

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