Space Alert

The National Space Council plans to make six recommendations regarding Defense Department space reorganization during today's meeting, a source told Inside Defense today.

The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center is proposing the use of new rapid prototyping authorities to develop a follow-on to the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite constellation.

The Air Force underfunded its Space-Based Infrared System follow-on effort by about $1.6 billion in its fiscal year 2019 budget request and may seek to recover that difference in FY-20, according to a draft of the program's funding requirements.

The Air Force announced Wednesday it has awarded more than $2.2 billion in other transaction agreements to Northrop Grumman, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin to develop launch vehicles to compete for future national security space launches.

Despite some indication that the House Armed Services Committee may be headed toward partisan division on the proposal to create a new Space Force within the Defense Department, the committee's two strongest proponents of reorganization said today they are hopeful the conversation can remain apolitical.

A prominent defense budget analyst said today the Air Force’s $13 billion cost estimate for a new Space Force is not “conservative” as Secretary Heather Wilson has suggested, and even went as far as to label the service’s guesswork as “malicious compliance” that could stoke opposition on Capitol Hill.

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The Air Force estimates establishing a new space service would cost $12.9 billion from fiscal years 2020 to 2025 and require an additional 13,000 personnel, according to a new memo obtained by Inside Defense.

Getting commanders to recognize the utility of cyber, space and other assets is one of the most important parts of moving toward multidomain operations, according to Army officials.

The Pentagon's technology chief, who worked on the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1980s, says past cost estimates of space-based missile defense interceptors are overblown, as he believes a constellation of 1,000 interceptors could cost $20 billion.