The Air Force poured a bucket of cold water on a supposed major policy shift on satellite use. The Wall Street Journal last week reported that the Bush Administration wanted to combine national security and civilian payloads on single, large satellite platforms as a money-saving measure. According to Lt. Col. Karen Finn, the Air Force’s spokesman on space matters, that report was dead wrong. She said officials who talked with the Journal discussed joint use—Pentagon and CIA—of one space system, the Space Radar. “We were talking about a very specific system,” Finn emphasized, adding that an overall shift in satellite policy “was not talked about.”
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.