Airmen with Air Force Space Command’s 1st Space Operations Squadron at Schriever AFB, Colo., picked up responsibility for the latest Global Positioning System satellite—GPS IIR-M 15 launched Sept. 25 aboard a Delta II from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.—after booster separation. The 1st SOPS airmen plan to guide it into permanent orbit, where it will circle the Earth every 12 hours, before they hand it over next week to its permanent minders with the 2nd Space Operations Squadron, also at Schriever.
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…