An Ariane V rocket lifting off from Kourou, French Guiana, boosts into orbit the SES-2 communications satellite, which hosts USAF’s first payload on a commercial satellite. The experimental Air Force payload, dubbed Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP), also is the first wide-field-of- view infrared staring payload in space.
A decade and a half after awarding a contract for a new ground control system to manage its GPS satellites, the Pentagon has finally gotten its hands on the thing. The Space Force officially took ownership of the GPS Next Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, the service announced this week.…