US Northern Command has dispatched personnel from various bases to Texas and Louisiana to prepare for possible landfall by Hurricane Dean, a major storm that appeared to be gaining even more strength. NORTHCOM sent a 17-person team from its Standing Joint Force Headquarters-North at Peterson AFB, Colo., and an eight-person Joint Patient Movement Team from Scott AFB, Ill., headed to Texas. A Joint Interagency Air-Ground Coordination Team from Tyndall AFB, Fla., is in Austin to help FEMA with aeromedical evacuation and search and rescue efforts. And, the 43rd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Pope AFB, N.C., sent 40 airmen to Brownsville, Tex., via a C-17 flying out of Charleston AFB, S.C., to set up a Mobile Aeromedical Staging Facility. As for tracking Dean: airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron—the “Hurricane Hunters”—flew a WC-130J into the storm to support the National Hurricane Center, and recorded sustained winds increasing to 125 miles per hour.
The Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
