House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers tells Breaking Defense that Guard advocates should not “waste their time” lobbying against the move.
By Michael Marrow and Valerie InsinnaGray Eagle is the low-cost, low-risk answer to Army modernization
Gray Eagle STOL and Gray Eagle 25M are the best options for Army aviation as it assesses where to move from its current inflection point.
“On their aircraft and their ground units, they’ll be able to talk directly to us with Link 16 to our Tranche 0 satellites that are on orbit now,” Derek Tournear said at the 2024 Space Symposium.
By Michael Marrow
Victus Haze is the second iteration of the Space Force’s Tactically Responsive Space-3 (TacRS-3) mission to launch a prototype satellite within 24 hours of a “go” order, but also is designed to quickly perform an up-close on-orbit inspection of a (simulated) threatening spacecraft.
By Aaron Mehta
“It’s a unique situation. There’s absolutely no intention to make any other changes, moving things out of the Guard,” said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.
By Valerie Insinna
NGA chief Frank Whitworth defended his agency’s role in Ground Moving Target Indicator operations to Breaking Defense, as sources say there’s tension behind the scenes.
By Theresa Hitchens
The strategy notes that contracts with commercial space providers could, if deemed necessary, “enable prioritization of Department requirements and capability needs over other commercial clients in specific situations.”
By Theresa Hitchens
Modernizing military simulation with open systems architecture
Best-of-breed common models and architecture enable virtual training and testing with the same data in a cyber-resilient posture.
The report from the Secure World Foundation also notes the “dismal” state of cybersecurity for space systems infrastructure.
By Michael Marrow
Among the unclassified programs listed, the Space Force could use an additional $160 million to establish a “working capital fund” to be used for purchasing commercial satellite communications.
By Lee Ferran and Valerie Insinna
More than a dozen sources tell Breaking Defense that tensions between the NGA and Space Force are rising on commercial ISR, with White House officials watching closely.
By Theresa Hitchens
The bipartisan spending package, released early this morning, increases defense funding by $27 billion over the previous year’s enacted budget and includes a number of key provisions the department had requested.
By Valerie Insinna, Ashley Roque, Michael Marrow and Theresa Hitchens
The executive branch is “still talking through exactly what the scope and scale” of any new NRO program would be, but the “intent” is to “more cost effectively leverage” commercial capabilities “over the longer term,” said NRO’s head of commercial programs Pete Muend.
By Theresa Hitchens
“This will be a modified mission from the Victus Nox mission,” David Ryan, space portfolio manager at the Defense Innovation Unit said, noting that “there are two parts of the mission, and DIU is working on a single part with Space Safari.”
By Theresa Hitchens
Troy Meink, NRO principal deputy director, explained that the decline in launch costs is one of two critical factors in allowing NRO to begin to diversify its on-orbit force structure to include both “large and small satellites” using multiple orbital domains.
By Theresa Hitchens
In this op-ed, Francis M. McGinn, the head of the National Guard Association, blasts an Air Force proposal to transfer National Guard units performing space missions to the Space Force.
By Francis M. McGinn