The Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center has awarded four $500,000 contracts to study replacement systems for its Space Based Environmental Monitoring mission, which performs space-based cloud characterization and produces theater weather imagery. Electro Optical Vista, Millennium Space Systems, Orbital ATK, and Raytheon will provide concept reports to SMC by the end of Fiscal 2019. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program constellation currently supports the SBEM mission, providing “essential environmental sensing data to the warfighter,” but it deployed in 1962 and needs updating. Each study is expected to lay out “new long-term solutions” for the SBEM mission, and the Air Force will use the results to inform a decision about a follow-on program. “The weather mission is of critical importance to national security,” said Stephen Pluntze, deputy director of SMC’s Remote Sensing Systems Directorate, according to a press release. “We made it a point to reach out to small business, academia, research institutions, and established industry partners to drive innovative solutions while remaining focused on cost savings.”
Space Force to Test New Insignia Next Month
Feb. 25, 2021
Space Force troops will try out new rank insignia for the first time next month, as the service looks to shake up the traditional chevron design it inherited from the Air Force. “We’re excited about that, to get feedback and figure out what that insignia looks like, and new uniforms…