The Air Force Research Lab has set May 5 for the launch of Tactical Satellite-3 (TacSat-3) from NASA’s Wallops Island facility in Virginia. Launch of the less than 880-pound satellite on its year-long experimental mission had been delayed more than once as program officials worked through repairs to some of its components. TacSat-3 carries three experiments: Raytheon’s ARTEMIS hyperspectral imager, the Office of Naval Research’s satellite communications package, and AFRL’s space avionics experiment. (Kirtland AFB, N.M. report by Michael Kleiman)
The Air Force kicked off one of its biggest exercises this week with the latest edition of Bamboo Eagle, featuring combined virtual and live training scenarios focused on test the command-and-control “nervous system” leaders need to operate on a complex joint battlefield spread over vast distances.



