Pacific Air Forces’ new humanitarian assistance rapid response team arrived by C-17 in Padang, Indonesia, Oct. 5 to provide medical treatment to local residents after a devastating earthquake struck Indonesia Sept. 30. The 69-member HAART brought about 200,000 pounds of medical supplies and contingency-response equipment with them. Already on Oct. 7, Air Force medics were treating patients in the mobile field hospital that the team erected, helping more than 70 people in just the first eight hours. The HAART’s presence is alleviating the burden on the local hospitals, three of four of which were severely damaged in the earthquake. HAART is a new construct for PACAF. In September, the team was deployed for five days to Micronesian island state of Chuuk for a five-day validation exercise. (Padang report by SSgt. Veronica Pierce)
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…