Air Force Space Command plans to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Midcourse Space Experiment satellite on April 24 at Peterson AFB, Colo., and locations around the country that have participated in the delivery and operation of the MSX satellite—the Missile Defense Agency, Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University, MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, and Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Lab. Originally a Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (now called MDA) project with a design life of five years, AFSPC took it over in October 2000 after realizing it had space surveillance capabilities. The program is now AFSPC’s only space based surveillance asset that provides full metric and space object identification coverage of the geosynchronous belt, regardless of weather conditions.
The Pentagon plans to use U.S. Air Force C-17s and C-130s to deport 5,400 people currently detained by Customs and Border Protection, officials announced Jan. 22, the first act in President Donald Trump’s sweeping promise to crack down on undocumented immigrants and increase border security.