Thirty-five civil engineers from the New York Air National Guard’s 107th Airlift Wing at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station are set to depart this week for Australia to help set up a US radar system for space surveillance, announced the unit on Monday. These guardsmen will spend three weeks at the Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station in Western Australia in support of Air Force Space Command. They will renovate a building and construct a new antenna support structure for the C-band radar that the United States is relocating from Antigua, according to the wing’s April 14 release. “This is an excellent training opportunity for our civil engineer[s] and it also allows our airmen to put their skills to work to meet national security objectives,” said Col. John Higgins, 107th AW commander. The radar is due to be in place later this year. Its new location will give the United States a better means of tracking space debris and satellites orbiting the Earth’s southern hemisphere.
Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd III met with his counterparts from Australia, Japan and the Philippines to discuss bolstering defense ties on May 2. The discussion included plans for joint F-35 exercises with Japan and Australia in the coming years.