“We need our industry partners on board,” with the new budget plan, said Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz on Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. He asked industry to get behind the service’s new budget proposal and help make it work by keeping program costs down and schedules on track. There can be “no bonuses for . . . cost creep,” said Schwartz, but the Air Force will also do its part by keeping requirements stable. “That’s my job,” he said. While he said the current budget request—which places the Pentagon on a course to reduce its spending by $487 billion through Fiscal 2021—is “manageable,” deeper cuts “would send us back to the drawing board” on national strategy. The 2011 Budget Control Act’s looming sequestration clause—with more steep spending cuts—would be “indiscriminate salami slicing” that would be devastating to Air Force plans and attempts to remain capable at a smaller size, argued Schwartz.
The Space Force has tapped Boeing to build up to four new satellites for the critical nuclear command, control, and communications mission. The contract award, announced by Space Systems Command July 3, is valued at $2.8 billion for the first two satellites, with an option for two more, as part…