The Air Force and Navy have been discussing ways to integrate their respective abilities to process, exploit, and disseminate the huge volumes of sensor data that they are taking in, the sea service’s head of intelligence and information dominance, Vice Adm. David Dorsett, told reporters Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Dorsett expressed his admiration for USAF’s Distributed Ground System, which is “very robust,” and said the Navy needs to “mature” its own capability. He said he’s been talking to Air Force counterparts about “how we can leverage off each other” in the PED arena, and said that after “several months” of discussions, a decision may be coming soon, after the two service chiefs have a chance to meet about it. The agreement would follow the two services’ deal to share basing, training, and support for the USAF Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft and Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance System, which uses an almost identical aircraft. “In some cases, I think we might be able to do it; [in] other cases, we may still remain [within our own] service. We don’t know the answer to that yet,” he explained.
The Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
