The Senate Appropriations Committee on Aug. 2 passed its version of the Fiscal 2013 defense spending bill by a vote of 30 to zero, announced the committee. This clears the way for the full Senate to take up the legislation. The committee adopted the July 31 mark-up of its defense panel that met the President’s spending request by providing $604.5 billion for the Pentagon next fiscal year. That total includes $511.2 billion for the Pentagon’s base activities and $93.3 billion to fund the war in Afghanistan and other overseas contingency operations, according to the committee’s bill summary. Of note, the bill retains the defense panel’s language that calls on the Air Force to take a “strategic pause” in making force structure adjustments next fiscal year.
For the last few years, through a little-known program called Kronos, the Space Force has been consolidating and modernizing its suite of legacy systems that provide operators with intelligence tools and command-and-control capabilities in an increasingly contested space environment. Now, USSF is reaching out to commercial firms to prototype and…
