Friday, May 3, 2024
Key Issues Budget 'parity' Summer CUAS demo EW in Ukraine
Courtney Albon was senior editor for aviation and space at Inside Defense until December 2021. She covered the Air Force since 2012, reporting largely on space programs and fighter aircraft acquisition, development and budget from inside Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and from military installations around the United States. Courtney previously worked as a general assignment reporter at The Ashland Times-Gazette in Ashland, OH, covering education and local government. She graduated from American University in 2008, where she studied journalism and sociology.
As the Air Force Research Laboratory and U.S. Transportation Command work with industry to better understand how the Defense Department might leverage a future commercial space cargo transport capability, one of the primary imperatives has been to ensure DOD is the first customer in line when companies begin to offer it.
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers today announced the creation of the Space Force Caucus, which will be focused on advocating for the new service and educating lawmakers and staffers about the military service on its objectives and priorities.
The Space Force's chief operating officer said today he expects the restrictions imposed by Congress' continuing resolution to slow the standup of new field commands and impede the growth of the service's civilian workforce.
The Space Development Agency has released a formal proposal seeking a launch provider for its first tranche of 28 transport and tracking satellites, which are set to take off between September 2022 and March 2023.
A key contractual milestone for the KC-46 tanker program expected to be achieved this summer has been pushed to mid-2021 due to supplier qualification delays, Inside Defense has learned.
The Central District Court of California has dismissed SpaceX's lawsuit against the Air Force, ordering the case to be vacated in a new judgment issued last week.
The Space Development Agency today announced awards to L3Harris and SpaceX to develop missile tracking and detection satellites for the first tranche of the agency's tracking layer.
The Space Force expects to stand up its new acquisition command in 2021 -- a schedule target that should give the service time to determine a transition plan for Army and Navy space capabilities and to ensure it's taking the right approach to combining a number of organizations under a single command.
Boeing on Thursday received a $298 million contract to develop a satellite payload prototype as part of the Space Force's Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications program.
The Pentagon's acquisition chief said today she believes the "root cause" of problems with the KC-46 tanker is linked to the program's fixed-price contract.
The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin have reached a handshake agreement on compensation for issues related to the company's F-35 spare parts delivery -- a deal that, when finalized, will require the company to return about $70.5 million.
The Air Force this week completed its initial round of adversary air contracts, awarding Advanced Tactical Advantage Co. a contract worth up to $92 million to provide live adversary air training to F-22 and F-35 pilots at Eglin Air Force Base, FL.
The Space Force announced today it has reached an agreement with SpaceX to launch two future GPS III missions with previously flown boosters -- the first National Security Space Launch missions to fly with a re-used first stage.
An experimental positioning navigation and timing capability being developed by L3Harris and the Air Force Research Laboratory could offer options to mitigate the impact of GPS signal interference -- including the projected disruption from Ligado Network's controversial plan to field a fifth-generation wireless network in the L-band.
The Air Force is planning formal studies to consider options for a future autonomous tanking architecture that could include a mix of small, remotely piloted refueling aircraft and larger, more survivable tankers.
The Space Force and NASA signed a memorandum of understanding this week reaffirming their partnership and committing to continued collaboration in space launch, operations and research.
The Space Force this week awarded Northrop Grumman a sole-source $298 million contract for the rapid prototyping phase of its Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications program.
Boeing expects to be on contract for the first block of KC-46 modernization work by the first quarter of 2021 -- the first phase of a 10-year, $5.7 billion post-production contract the Air Force awarded the company last year.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown told reporters today congressional proposals to set minimum aircraft inventory requirements put constraints on the service's ability to make necessary force structure changes to meet the requirements of the National Defense Strategy.
As the Space Force prepares for the likelihood of a continuing resolution, the service chief Gen. John Raymond said this week he's concerned about programmatic impacts, operations and maintenance shortfalls and the transfer of space accounts from the Air Force to the Space Force.