Lockheed Martin and EADS Astrium recently concluded they could work together to ensure interoperability between the US Global Positioning System III satellites and the European Galileo navigation satellite program. The two companies will perform systems engineering and technical assistance tasks for each other covering interoperability, integrity, and optimization of joint constellation performance. They also plan to offer reciprocal bids on hardware and software within policy and export constraints.
The U.S. could lose its ability to effectively operate in space without action to lower the number of objects in low Earth orbit, top U.S. generals said. Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson said his biggest concern was not debris from objects currently in orbit but the…