Orlando, February 18, 2010—Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz in January said he didn’t think the F-35 program would suffer a Nunn-McCurdy breach. (Defense Secretary Bob Gates said more recently he wasn’t certain either.) That law says a program must be restructured if cost or schedule falls seriously out of hand. Now, though, Schwartz said an F-35 Nunn-McCurdy breach is “a possibility; maybe even likely.” What changed in the last few weeks? “I now know more than I did then,” Schwartz asserted.
The Space Development Agency is set to launch 21 Tranche 1 data transport satellites on Oct. 5—its fourth Tranche 1 mission since last fall and the first to carry Northrop Grumman-built satellites.