Brian Arnold, vice president of strategic systems for Raytheon, said Friday at AFA’s Los Angeles Space Symposium that during the current run of successful space launches, there also have been no failures of satellites on orbit. Arnold, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who had commanded Space and Missile Systems Center, noted that space acquisition has rightly been criticized for past failures to meet cost and schedule requirements, which result in so-called Nunn-McCurdy breaches. Once the systems are operational, however, he said that they perform magnificently and often for years more than their expected design lives.
The use of a military counter-drone laser on the southwest border this week—which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas—will be a “case study” on the complex web of authorities needed to employ such weapons near civilian areas and the consequences of agencies…
