The Space and Missile Systems Center was part of a lively conversation between the commanders of Air Force Materiel Command and Air Force Space Command during the four-star forum at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Wednesday. Although Air Force Materiel Command boss Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger has been “a strong proponent to bring SMC back into AFMC,” AFSPC chief Gen. John Hyten said he is “fundamentally opposed to moving [it] back” primarily for two reasons. First, half of the work SMC does is what the Air Force would consider operations, while the other half is engineering, said Hyten. “I don’t know how you break [those pieces] out of SMC,” he said. Second, when SMC was under AFMC until early last decade, the Air Force “had two space commands,” one at Los Angeles AFB, Calif., and the other at Peterson AFB, Colo., he said. That caused “huge problems in decision-making,” argued Hyten. During that time, the Air Force had a slew of launch failures, he reminded. The process “was broken horribly,” but now it’s “fixed and it works efficiently,” said Hyten.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
