Little Rock AFB, Ark., received its fifth C-130H updated with modern avionics, announced contractor Boeing on July 19. Arriving at Little Rock on July 17, this C-130H is the second aircraft that technicians at Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia have upgraded under the Boeing-led C-130 Avionics Modernization Program. They supplied the first to Little Rock in January, while Boeing workers modified the first three of these airplanes. The avionics upgrade’s integrated systems and other improvements “increase crews’ efficiency and situational awareness,” said Mahesh Reddy, Boeing’s C-130 AMP program director. They also enable “a common fleet configuration that reduces maintenance costs over the lifetime of the platform by addressing parts obsolescence,” he said. The Air Force planned to upgrade 221 C-130H models under C-130 AMP, but more recently has proposed canceling the initiative—due to higher service-wide priorities and shrinking budgets—and investing in less ambitious communications and navigation improvements to these C-130 types.
The Space Force recently awarded SpaceX $739 million to launch nine missions for the Space Development Agency and National Reconnaissance Office over the next three years. Five of the awarded launches will be to build out SDA’s constellation of missile warning and tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit.
