Pentagon working with Congress on unclassified space strategy

By Sandra Erwin, Published by SpaceNews, 15 February 2023 Congress directed DoD and the director of national intelligence to “make publicly available a strategy regarding defending and protecting on-orbit satellites” WASHINGTON — The Defense Department’s space policy office is drafting a congressionally mandated report explaining how the U.S. will defend

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Astranis wins Space Force contract to integrate military satcom on commercial payload

By Sandra Erwin, Published by SpaceNews, 14 February 2023 The $4.5 million SBIR Phase 3 contract has $6 million option for an on-orbit demonstration WASHINGTON – Astranis Space Technologies won a $4.5 million contract to integrate a U.S. military communications waveform on one of the company’s satellite communications payloads, the

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The Air Force Research Laboratory is now exploring cislunar space, which is expected to get more congested as more firms and countries invest in space travel to the moon. Their Cislunar Highway Patrol (CHPS) will experiment with space domain awareness beyond Geosynchronous Earth Orbit. AFRL courtesy image

Galactic dissonance for the Space Force

By Matthew Jenkins, Published by The Space Review, 13 February 2023 In the early days of airpower, foresighted theorists like Billy Mitchell petitioned hard to demonstrate the value that airpower could bring to the warfighting abilities of the United States. Ardently campaigning, Mitchell got permission from Congress to illustrate this

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Space Development Agency renames constellation to reflect focus on U.S. warfighter

By Sandra Erwin, Published by SpaceNews, 23 January 2023 SDA said the rebranding does not reflect any change to the mission WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency is renaming its planned network of military satellites “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture,” the agency announced Jan. 23. SDA, a former Defense Department agency

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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launches classified mission for US Space Force

By Mike Wall, Published by Space.com, 16 January 2023 The USSF-67 mission carried a military communications satellite and five smaller payloads to orbit. SpaceX's powerful Falcon Heavy rocket now has five flights under its belt. A Falcon Heavy launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Sunday (Jan.

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Lawmakers chart ‘middle course’ on space-based missile warning funding

By Courtney Albon, Published by DefenseNews, 13 January 2023 WASHINGTON — When U.S. Space Force leaders proposed a new missile warning and tracking architecture last year in the service’s budget request, they called it a bridging strategy — a way to maintain existing capabilities until new ones are fielded. “We

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