CAPITOL HILL: Sen. John McCain came out swinging about the Russian RD-180 rocket engine during a Senate Armed Service strategic forces hearing. McCain began yesterday by asking Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James if she knew that a company called Amross was making millions of dollars of profits from the sale of the Russian rocket engines to the…
By Colin ClarkB-21, hypersonics and more: How digital development is driving industry innovation
Technological advancements are key to keeping pace with customer demands and evolving threat landscapes.
WASHINGTON: The US Army has the most disruptive space technology right now. So says the head of Air Force Space Command, Gen. John Hyten. Hyten was asked about the technology in the space domain at breakfast this morning by my colleague Mark Thompson of Time magazine. Now in the good old days, the head of Space…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: If anyone at the White House had hoped the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee would be more compliant than his predecessor, the defense bill out today should end their illusions. Sure, Rep. Mac Thornberry has consulted closely with the Pentagon and his ranking member on issues like acquisition reform. But Thornberry’s draft…
By Colin Clark
UPDATED: HASC StratForces Moves To “Protect” Space Control; Designates Space An MFP WASHINGTON: When the United States government writ large — the military and the Intelligence Community — thinks something is important enough to spend $5 billion in new money from existing sources that’s a strategic commitment and is worth paying very close attention to. The…
By Colin Clark
COLORADO SPRINGS: The United States has tripled its spending on offensive space control and “active defense” weaponry since 2013 in the last two years. It plans to spend “a majority” of $150-plus million pool of funding on them over the next five years, part of a broad and fast-moving shift in US space priorities. The relevant budget line rose from $9.5…
By Colin Clark
COLORADO SPRINGS: Citing “increasing threats” against America’s satellites, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said here today that the US military “must be able to respond in an integrated, coordinated fashion” to attacks on US space assets and he used the charged term “space control” in making his argument. “While we rely heavily on space capabilities,…
By Colin Clark
COLORADO SPRINGS: We’ve known for some time that China conducted an anti-satellite test July 23 last year, but we learned today that that test was “successful” even if it didn’t destroy anything. China has successfully placed low earth orbit satellites at risk, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond told an overflow audience at the annual…
By Colin Clark
Why cloud modernization is critical to multi-domain operations
JADC2 is a forcing function, driving digital transformation of network infrastructure.
NEWSEUM: After more than a year of saying that the United States is losing its relative edge in military technology to China and Russia, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer upped the ante today and said that the top American advantage — space — “is particularly bad” because both Russia and China are fielding a suite of anti-satellite capabilities.…
By Colin Clark
CAPITOL HILL: The space community harbors many incredibly bright people, including a very few who are willing to say what they really think in public. A full house at the Capitol Hill Club was treated last week to a bravura performance of straight talk by Dave Madden, executive director of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center.…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Nomination hearings are never just about the nominee. But today’s Senate lovefest for Ash Carter was remarkably dominated by two men who weren’t in the room: President Obama — in whose defense Carter was actually pretty tepid — and King Abdullah II of Jordan. The Obama White House has simultaneously “micromanag[ed]” the military and…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED: Heritage’s Dean Cheng Says US May Gain Insight Into PRC Space Organizations WASHINGTON: China has taken the unprecedented step of asking Air Force Space Command to share information about possible satellite and satellite debris collisions. The United States had been sharing so-called conjunction warnings with China through the State Department, but no one knew…
By Colin Clark WASHINGTON: When the Air Force issued a Request for Information about an engine to replace the RD-180 it began to look as if they were serious about committing to build the first new rocket engine in decades. But we also received two new RD-180 engines from Russia the same day as the RFI went out, the United…
By Colin Clark
[UPDATED: WorldView-3 launched successfully Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California at 11:30 am Pacific time, 2:30 pm Eastern] When DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite soars skyward tomorrow – weather permitting – most attention will naturally be on the parts that go up. But the bus-sized imagery collection satellite is just the high-tech tip of an…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Joan Johnson Freese, a member of our Board of Contributors and professor at the Naval War College, is an expert on space, Strategic Command and several other topics dealt with below. She doesn’t think the creation of Cyber Command is a great idea. Read on to find why. The Editor. Analysis of the Peloponnesian War…
By Joan Johnson-Freese