The Pentagon announced Wednesday at 5 p.m. that the Army and Air Force had picked the L-3 Communications team’s C-27J Spartan as the Joint Cargo Aircraft. The team includes L-3, Alenia North America, Boeing, and Global Military Aircraft Systems. The contract calls for purchase of up to 78 aircraft at an estimated cost of $2.04 billion. The team will manufacture the aircraft at Alenia’s plant in Italy and perform additional work at L-3’s Waco, Tex., facility. The Army issued the contract, but lawmakers have questioned whether the Air Force should take exclusive control of the intra-theater airlift mission.
The Department of the Air Force's new space acquisition chief said he will seek to expand the types of orbits used by the Space Force's future satellite constellations in the interest of improving their resilience. At the same time, he would aim to acquire smaller satellites that can be produced…