The Air Force hasn’t stopped cold on the Joint Unmanned Combat Aircraft System, which is being taken over exclusively by the Navy per the Quadrennial Defense Review and 2007 defense budget proposal. “The Air Force is completing its work on refueling unmanned vehicles,” noted Air Force Secretary Wynne on Wednesday. He added, “That’s really the area that makes it more interesting for us.” The Navy, he continued, likely will proceed to a competition between the X-45 and X-47 concepts and develop the winning aircraft. Wynne believes that if it works, “the Air Force could show back up on their doorstep” and buy some.
SDA Outlines Missile Tracking Satellite Plan
April 16, 2021
The Defense Department's Space Development Agency wants to blanket Earth with a constellation of low-cost, open-architecture data-relay and missile-tracking satellites whose sheer numbers, along with their 1,000-kilometer-high orbits, would theoretically thwart some modes of interference—but not all. With all going according to plan so far, SDA expects to launch five…