Sequestration and the contracting chaos attending it represent a “double whammy,” said Air Force Secretary Michael Donley on Friday. Speaking with reporters at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., Donley observed that the sequester is “making a lot of work” for finance, contracting, and accounting personnel. But if it happens, “we’re going to reduce the workforce” in finance through layoffs, furloughs, and other civilian personnel actions, he said. “Our ability to get that work done is reduced,” said Donley. “The closer we get” to the sequester, “the more we appreciate the second-, third-, fourth-order effects of multiple changes in plans and programs,” he said. “There’s no part of our Air Force—or the Army, Navy, or anyone else in this enterprise—that’s not affected by the scope and depth of these reductions,” he said.
The Space Force wants to launch hundreds of satellites in the coming years—and use contractor spacecraft to sweep them out of orbit later. The service’s Space Development Agency and the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit announced a trio of preliminary contracts for their Deorbit-as-a-Service project on Aug. 14, to Firefly Aerospace,…