The fifth GPS IIF satellite arrived at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., for its anticipated launch into orbit in October, announced Boeing on Tuesday. A C-17 carried GPS IIF-5 from Boeing’s satellite manufacturing facility in El Segundo, Calif., to the cape last month, states the company’s Sept. 17 release. A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket is slated to carry the navigation satellite into space. GPS-IIF-4 began operations on orbit earlier this year.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.