The Air Force Weather Agency has turned over its former Special Support Operations Flight to Air Force Special Operations Command. Initially the unit will operate as Det. 1 to the 623rd Air and Space Operations Center at Hurlburt Field, Fla., and will move over the next several months from Offutt AFB, Neb., to Hurlburt. Toward the end of Fiscal 2009, it will also emerge as a squadron, the 23rd Weather Squadron. The unit’s primary mission will remain the same—to provide environmental products to deployed special operations forces. The squadron will be part of 23rd Air Force, AFSOC’s warfighting headquarters established earlier this year at Hurlburt. “This makes lines of command and control much cleaner with special operations forces tasking special operations forces for weather support,” said Lt. Col. Bryan Adams, 623rd AOC weather specialty team chief. And, he noted, that the unit would “be a key component” in upgrading airmen under the Air Force’s recently created specialty code for special operations weathermen. (AFWA report by Ryan Hansen)
NASA, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance are all preparing to launch their next-gen rockets from Florida’s Space Coast, two of them before the year is out. One is expected to liberate the U.S. launch enterprise from its reliance on Russian-made RD-180 engines, while all three rockets could eventually carry astronaut crews.