The completion by Electronic Systems Center of a five-year, $70-million program to replace 110 weather sensing systems around the globe means the Air Force will need fewer observers and can stop trying to patch nearly 40-year-old mechanisms. Chuck Paone reports that ESC worked with Coastal Environmental Systems of Seattle, Wash., to install the FMQ-19, which is a collection of weather sensors that collect data, putting it into a common format and transferring it to a base weather unit. They installed the last one at the airfield of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing in Southwest Asia earlier this month.
SDA’s Next Phase of Data Transport Satellites on Hold
June 30, 2025
The long-term future of one of the Space Development Agency’s two satellite constellations is on hold as officials study the options for replacing a planned “data transport layer” with one or more commercial solutions. President Trump’s proposed 2026 defense budget...