An MQ-1 Predator crashed in southern Turkey early Wednesday morning, the Air Force said. The remotely piloted aircraft impacted in an unpopulated area around 1:40 a.m. local time on Feb. 3, according to the press release. Turkish state-run media said the aircraft crashed shortly after leaving Incirlik Air Base, the Associated Press reported. An investigation is underway to determine what caused the crash, but the initial assessment points to mechanical failure. No one was injured in the incident, and the US and Turkey have control of the crash site. The US has lost at least five Predators supporting Operation Inherent Resolve since March 2015. Officials said the last Predator crash, in January, was due to technical failure.
The Space Force is playing midwife to a new ecosystem of commercial satellite constellations providing alternatives to the service’s own Global Positioning Service from much closer to the Earth, making their signals more accurate and harder to jam.