One of the Air Force’s leading space situational awareness projects, the space based space surveillance satellite, is complete and is now ready to ship to the launch site, Gary Payton, the Air Force’s deputy undersecretary for space programs, said Thursday. Speaking with reporters during a Space Foundation symposium in Colorado, Payton said work on the SBSS pathfinder satellite concluded at Ball Aerospace’s clean room facilities and all testing of the spacecraft has wrapped up. Ball is part of the Boeing-led industry team supplying the satellite. “This is an acquisition success in space,” Payton said, highlighting the fact that the SBSS project has come in on budget and on schedule. Project engineers are now waiting on the resolution of a few “potential technical issues” associated with the SBSS launch vehicle, an Orbital Sciences Minotaur rocket. In February, NASA lost its Orbital Carbon Observatory satellite when the fairing on the host Orbital-built Taurus launch vehicle, which shares components with the Minotaur, failed to release the satellite. Payton said the Air Force wants to be sure that there are no potential issues with the Minotaur before launch. SBSS, which will monitor objects in geosynchronous orbit from its own position in low Earth orbit, will be a much-welcomed boost to the Air Force’s suite of sensors for monitoring activities in space. It will replace the now-retired visible sensor on the Midcourse Space Experiment as the only space-based space monitoring sensor.
Pentagon Releases Cost of Living, BAH Rates for 2026
Dec. 30, 2025
The Pentagon will pay cost of living allowances to 127,000 service members in the continental U.S. in 2026, an increase of 66,000 members in 2025. Airmen and Guardians across the U.S. will also receive an average increase of 4.2 percent for their Basic Housing Allowance, compared to the 5.4 percent…
