The Air Force released the request for proposals for the next phase of the Space Fence radar program: engineering and manufacturing development and production and deployment. Service acquisition officials want bids in by Nov. 14, according to the solicitation documents, which they posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website on Oct 4. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have been maturing their respective Space Fence designs under Air Force sponsorship. The RFP’s release comes about a week after the Air Force announced plans to base the first Space Fence site on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands, with initial operations commencing in Fiscal 2017. A subsequent second site is notionally planned for western Australia. The Space Fence will be part of the Air Force’s overall space surveillance network and will feature an S-band radar system that the service wants to be capable of detecting, tracking, identifying, and characterizing space objects in low and medium Earth orbits.
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.