Adm. Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs Chairman, on Wednesday called on China to help the US and its allies counter growing security challenges created by North Korea’s aggression. “Now is the time for Beijing to step up . . . and help guide the North, and indeed, the entire region, toward a better future,” he said during a joint news conference in Seoul, South Korea, with Gen. Han Min-goo, South Korean military chairman. Mullen said North Korea’s “relentlessness and reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons . . . destabilizes the entire region.” Late last month, US and South Korean naval forces exercised in the Yellow Sea following North Korea’s unprovoked artillery attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. The Air Force also dispatched JSTARS ground-surveillance aircraft to the area. (AFPS report by Donna Miles)
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.