Little known fact: airlifting the shuttle from California to Florida on top of a Boeing 747 is no cakewalk. For one, it requires constant weather data updated as the flight crew maneuvers around precipitation and high winds. Providing that service for Discovery next week will be three 45th Space Wing weathermen: Capt. M Mike McAleenan, TSgt. James Jones, and SSgt. Chris Lozzi.
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.