Boeing will supply the Air Force with nearly 2,700 additional Small Diameter Bombs and approximately 380 BRU-61 bomb carriages under a $106 million contract award for Lot 7 production announced Tuesday. The company says it will start delivering this equipment in January 2012. With this award, the Air Force has now ordered a total of 12,379 SDB Increment I munitions and 2,059 carriages from Boeing since 2003. So far, the company says it has delivered approximately 7,000 of these 250-pound-class bombs and 1,200 carriages. The Air Force has employed the SDB I in combat. Debbie Rub, vice president of Boeing’s Missiles and Unmanned Airborne Systems, noted in the company’s release how the SDB I has evolved “from a long-range standoff weapon into a weapon that also minimizes flight time to target—a capability that is ideal for close air support in today’s ever-changing battlefield.”
After years of describing to lawmakers and Pentagon leaders the nature of that threat and the key role spacepower plays in deterring conflict in the domain and enabling the rest of the joint force, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters during AFA’s Warfare Symposium here that the message appears to…