Air Force Defends TSAT Contract: Air Force Brig. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, program director for the military’s joint satellite communications office, defended the service’s award of a contract for the management operations portion of the Transformational Communications Satellite, even though Congress did slash TSAT funding in the 2006 defense budget and urged the Air Force to consider putting some TSAT capabilities on other satellites, as a more cost-efficient approach. According to Reuters news service, Pawlikowski said, “The need to integrate the space segment is going to exist regardless of what the space system looks like.”
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.
