Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, commander of US Transportation Command, told coalition forces at Bagram AB, Afghanistan, last week that the kind of fight going on in Operation Enduring Freedom “cannot be effectively prosecuted from main operating bases.” Schwartz explained that such a “distributed fight” requires airlift, noting that it’s being provided from bases in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey, as well as Europe and the US. Whether the cargo is troops, food, water, ammunition, or medical evacuees, said Schwartz, “My impression is that the team is effectively supporting the folks that need it—the shooters.”
The Space Force wants to launch hundreds of satellites in the coming years—and use contractor spacecraft to sweep them out of orbit later. The service’s Space Development Agency and the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit announced a trio of preliminary contracts for their Deorbit-as-a-Service project on Aug. 14, to Firefly Aerospace,…