The Space & Missile Systems Center has reaffirmed its choice of NSTXL to manage the public-private Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC), rejecting allegations by The Washington Post.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. and Theresa HitchensPTS is not a satellite per se, rather it is envisioned as a payload that could be carried by US military, commercial or even allied satellites.
By Theresa HitchensNow transferred from the Air Force to the nascent Space Force — whose acquisition responsibilities remain unclear — SMC says it can play a central role in future all-service Multi-Domain Operations.
By Theresa Hitchens“I’ve never gotten a briefing from the Space Development Agency,” Roper said, “so I don’t know what their plan, I don’t know what they’re intending.”
By Theresa HitchensAerospace was able to build and test both sats within 16 months, and launch them after only 18 months — a fraction of the average seven to eight years it traditionally has taken the service.
By Theresa HitchensSMC’s new SSA Marketplace will be open for business in fourth quarter 2020 or first quarter 2021.
By Theresa HitchensLarge networks of small, cheap satellites derived from commercial technology would be harder for China or Russia to kill than a handful of expensive, exquisite military-unique birds. But who gets to build it?
By Theresa HitchensNavy Research Lab’s LARADO (Laser-sheet Anomaly Resolution and Debris Observation) project conjures images of a Wild West cattle drive, and in a way that is apropos as space scientists have long been attempting to wrangle better estimates of the population of on-orbit debris.
By Theresa HitchensThe scope of the Space Force appears to be growing, with a new Air Force memo spelling out all of the offices that will fall under the proposed new command.
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: If Chinese and Russian spies have been doing their jobs well, they might well have been able to compromise some of America’s most important satellites, including the missile launch detection birds known as SBIRS. A report out today from the Pentagon’s Inspector General says that Air Force Space Command’s failure to safeguard its supply chain…
By Colin ClarkThe “separate but equal” sixth service (don’t forget the Coast Guard) will be created in stages, because, as Pence finally admitted publicly, it “requires Congressional action.” And, as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Paul Selva, admitted today, if Congress passed the relevant laws in a year that would “unprecedented.”
By Colin Clark
Creation of the Space Development Agency was “disconnected from the threat and the needs of the warfighter,” say Wilson, thus “highly unlikely to survive serious scrutiny.”
By Heather Wilson