Despite praise for its new block approach toward new space acquisition efforts, the Air Force is getting little benefit of the doubt from Congress. The Government Accountability Office this summer noted that USAF’s block approach represented “good steps,” the Congressional watchdog gave the Transformational Communications Satellite program a shaky grade. And, Senate appropriators have taken the same view of the next generation Global Positioning System III program. Earlier this year, the House version of the 2008 spending bill left TSAT funding at the Administration request of $763.6 million, but Senate appropriators would cut TSAT by $200 million. On the GPS III, the Senate Appropriations Committee cut the President’s request by $150 million, down to $437.2 million. The House had only cut GPS III by $70 million. The full Senate has yet to complete the 2008 spending bill and probably won’t before the end of the fiscal year.
NORTHCOM’s Budget Priority: Longer Warning Time
April 14, 2021
Gen. Glen D. VanHerck's top priorities in the upcoming budget are domain awareness in the form of farther-seeing over-the-horizon radars, followed by submarine detection capabilities and joint all-domain command and control, the commander of U.S. Northern Command told members of the House Armed Services Committee on April 14. Before building…