Space Alert

The Pentagon's under secretary of defense for research and engineering today rejected reports of turmoil at the fledgling Space Development Agency, attributing management changes and a lack of congressional buy-in to the standard disruption that comes with establishing any new organization.

The Air Force plans to take an incremental approach to fill a $623 million funding gap in the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program, according to a top space acquisition official.

While Congress appears poised to authorize some version of a Space Force or Space Corps, experts say the key to that new organization’s impact is in how the plan is implemented -- and one of the biggest challenges will be aligning capabilities owned by separate services under one organizing element.

The Defense Department says the Space Development Agency's early efforts to study options for a future space architecture are now delayed after congressional lawmakers denied a $15 million reprogramming request to kick-start that work.

Air Force Space Command is working to boost its test and training range infrastructure and is eyeing the creation of a new Space Test and Training Group in the next five to 10 years.

SpaceX is pushing back on Air Force attempts to have the company's recent lawsuit dismissed, claiming in a document filed this week with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that the court has jurisdiction to hear the case.

Although the Pentagon did not ask for reprogramming authority for a key Air Force missile warning program in its recent omnibus request, the director of the Air Force's space acquisition programs confirmed today the service still intends to send a separate reprogramming to Congress in order to keep the program on schedule.

The Air Force is requesting the U.S. Court of Federal Claims dismiss SpaceX's recent protest of the service’s launch vehicle development competition, arguing the court does not have jurisdiction to consider the case.

House and Senate lawmakers disagree on how the Air Force should proceed with competition for future national security space launches, as shown by newly released Senate policy language.