What are the chances of “Building a Multinational Global Navigation Satellite System”? It may not have the answer, but RAND analysts, in a new paper, note some possible benefits, such as “increased performance in accuracy.” For decades, the US Air Force’s Global Position System has been the preeminent navigation and timing system, used by military and civilian customers around the world. Free to customers. In advancing its own GPS-type system—Galileo—Europe is about to upset the apple cart. RAND says that the coexistence of the two poses “technical, geopolitical, regulatory, national security, and economic issues.”
A combined Navy and Air Force program is seeking to build a smaller version of a ubiquitous air-to-air missile that could give advanced aircraft, such as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, greater magazine depth in a high-end fight.