When asked at the Tuesday Pentagon press briefing (see above) if the boxed Minuteman ICBM nose cones and helicopter batteries were “similar in physical appearance,” Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne replied, “Once you set them side by side, no.” The dimensions of a nose cone cylindrical shipping container are 32.5 inches x 18.5 inches, compared to the battery’s rectangular shipping container at 14 inches x 9.5 inches x five inches. One intrepid reporter actually asked why the Air Force was at the briefing and not the Defense Logistics Agency which had stored and shipped the missile parts to Taiwan, but Pentagon policy chief Ryan Henry deflected that by saying the ongoing investigation would assign accountability. Later in the briefing, Wynne noted that DLA had placed the classified missile components in unclassified storage, adding: “They should have gone to the classified storage. There is a classified storage there.” However, he then stated that “what happened between arrival and departure” at the DLA facility in Utah “is for Admiral Donald to surmise.”
RTX, parent of Raytheon, Collins and Pratt & Whitney, is getting out of the space prime business and focusing on its "strengths" as a maker of space sensors, buses, and components, company COO Chris Calio said during an earnings call.