The Air Force has awarded ATK Mission Research of Santa Barbara, Calif., a $26.1 million contract to establish a space threat assessment testbed at the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee. This ground test capability is slated to be completed and functional in early 2013. “STAT will create a realistic space environment to perform developmental and early operational testing of space hardware for the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office, and other agencies against man-made threats and naturally occurring environmental phenomena,” said Col. Art Huber, AEDC commander. STAT will also lay the foundation for near real-time connectivity to a satellite operations center, enabling integrated system testing, training, tactics, techniques, and procedures development, said Lance Baxter, the project’s technical director. “It is a significant step towards the development of an important new national capability,” he said. The contract was awarded Oct. 22. (Includes AEDC report by Philip Lorenz III)
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…