WASHINGTON: When Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall used his Sept. 20 keynote speech at the annual Air Force Association conference to claim that China is developing the ability to launch “global strikes from space” against US targets, it raised more than a few eyebrows and sent military analysts scrambling. After all, the decision to bring up […]
"I'm not satisfied with the pace," Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. "We're making some progress on the technology; I would like to see it be better."
Not giving airmen the tech they need is "like having an excellent sniper and handing him a knife that hasn't been sharpened in a while," Air Force Chief Information Officer Lauren Barrett Knausenberger said.
"The notion is, you have an embarrassment of riches, and you're falling behind on speed and magnitude. This is what is sometimes called Schumpeter's Gale. The notion is, it's not about the competition -- it's about you," said Jeffrey DeGraff, of the University of Michigan.
"We've entered into the next big phase, what we call 'CDR season,'" Greg Manuel, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman's Strategic Deterrent Systems division, told Breaking Defense.
"[The electromagnetic spectrum is] like the oxygen that surrounds us right now. You don't have a choice. You are in it," the Air Force's director of EMS superiority said.
Last time around the US announced a big change without consulting allies. This time a top Air Force official doesn't foresee "huge movement," but promised a heads up.
A contract for one of three companies is "imminent," per top Air Force officials.
Nuclear propulsion for space-bound rockets wasn’t science fiction even in the 1960s, and 60 years later multiple programs are rediscovering this promising technology.
The Army units involved operate a payload for the Wideband Global SATCOM system; the Navy's are connected to the Mobile User Objective System sats.
The head of Pacific Air Force said he had no objections to India buying Russia's S-400 system "in the current environment." But -- and this is a big but -- he said India's action "will perhaps affect a future purchase by India, if they were interested in purchasing other defense equipment from us. But that's out of my lane, and I don't really talk about that, because it's tomorrow stuff."
Acquiring the Wedgetail "gives us a path" while the service awaits a space-based capability, Air Force Chief of Staff CQ Brown said, as "an option to be able to get the capability much faster than if we were to start a new start from scratch."
Diversifying space architectures and the need for interoperability is driving a shift to dynamic, flexible, software-based infrastructure.
"The win for the research lab, and for our acquirers is that we get to see the cutting edge technologies that are out there," said AFRL Director Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle.