This week’s tour of Malmstrom AFB, Mont., by DOD officials has produced no definitive answer as to whether the base will pick up a new mission being sought by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.). The Great Falls Tribune reports that seven officials from US Strategic Command and the National Guard Bureau looked over the facility Tuesday before proceeding to Helena for a chat with state National Guard officials. The Tribune also notes that lips were sealed as to what type of mission, now described as “classified.”
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.
