Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt, Air National Guard director, will conduct an internal review over the next year to get an “honest assessment” from his senior leaders as he prepares the Air Guard for the demands of the future. The driving question will be whether the Air Guard is really ready for 2025. “We have got to start shaping that force today, to provide the force that this country needs” by then, he said. That’s not going to be an easy task given the fiscally austere budget environment and declining Guard assets. For example, the Air Guard has 30 percent less airlift today compared to 2005 when it responded to Hurricane Katrina, he noted. Despite the challenges, Wyatt remains optimistic. “It will get worse before it gets better,” he said. However, he added, “The country can afford us before it can afford some other things that [it] is looking at,” he said. (NGB report by Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke)
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.
