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.”
The Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
