Congress has expressed “concern” about the ability of the Air Force and industry to “manage expensive and complicated satellite programs such as Space Radar.” Lawmakers wrote in the 2006 defense spending bill that there is “broad agreement” that USAF should, in a word, slowdown. As with TSAT, they want “greater emphasis on maturing technologies” and, even, more work on “existing radar assets (such as airborne surrogates).” They didn’t kill Space Radar (once called Space-Based Radar), just cut it sharply and asked for a spending plan.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.