The Space Development Agency has selected three contractors to build 54 satellites—48 for missile warning/missile tracking (MW/MT) and six for missile defense—in deals worth a combined $2.5 billion, the agency announced Jan. 16. L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, and Sierra Space will all build 16 MW/MT satellites ...
Space
Space Force Gen. Stephen N. Whiting became the new head of U.S. Space Command on Jan. 10, succeeding Army Gen. James Dickinson during a change of command ceremony at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo. In his speech as commander, Whiting pledged to foster partnerships with ...
The Space Development Agency (SDA) awarded a contract worth approximately $515 million to California-based Rocket Lab for 18 satellites that will help form the Tranche 2 Transport Layer (T2TL) of its massive low-Earth orbit constellation.
The Space Force held its first-ever “Red Skies” exercise last month—48 years after the first-ever Air Force “Red Flag”—simulating orbital combat and putting Guardians to the test.
Space Force leaders have become increasingly vocal about the need for responsible counterspace capabilities: weapons and operations that can hold enemies' space assets at risk to deter conflict. And it’s not just words—within the past year, the service has activated several units key to the ...
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a retired Air Force brigadier general and ISR pilot, has raised concerns about the service’s budget and the rate at which it is retiring aircraft in the past. Now, he’s hoping a new force design study he pushed for will articulate the ...
After multiple scrubbed launches, the Space Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle returned to orbit Dec. 28, riding a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The launch of the secretive reusable space plane came two weeks after China launched its own mysterious spacecraft, “Shenlong,” ...
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office, charged with quickly delivering cutting-edge, often-classified technologies for the Space Force, has made key progress in its push to modernize the aging system used to control U.S. government satellites, its director revealed last week. Additionally, the secretive organization deployed “threat ...
A new report by the Center for Strategic & International Studies writes that unique phenomena occurring at hypersonic speeds could make hypersonic weapons easier to detect and track on hyperspectral or radiofrequency sensors.