Northrop Grumman completed Block 20 upgrades to the E-8C Joint STARS. With the entire fleet of ground surveillance aircraft operating at the same “open systems” configuration, Northrop says the Air Force can make future hardware and software upgrades at a lower cost. The upgrade also increases mission effectiveness.
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.