The Space Based Space Surveillance system has passed its critical design review on schedule, according to a Boeing release. The Air Force SBSS program manager, Lt. Col. Steven Nussmiller called the feat a “great team effort” that ensures a “well defined and achievable” road to launch—slated for December 2008.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…