Asked what he needs in order to deliver future long-range strike, General Keys’ pithy reply—which generated much laughter from the AFA audience—was “money.” The more expansive answer was this: He wants something that is “responsive, persistent, and precise.” To be “responsive,” the system does not have to be a super-fast, hypersonic aircraft, he added. It could be a subsonic but hyper-stealthy platform that orbits over a target area “invisibly” until it gets the order to release a certain type of weapon. That kind of system, said Keys, would be truly responsive because it would be just a “bomb’s time-of-flight away” from inflicting damage. “I think it looks like a B-2 or a B-3,” he said, and, “in my personal view, unmanned.”
The Space Force is looking for industry feedback on its plans to create a new “Mission Development Zone” at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., to support launch providers with space for additional payload processing capacity, test and assembly facilities, and potentially rocket and spacecraft manufacturing infrastructure.