Air and Space Forces — The U.S. Space Force’s attempt to cancel the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Polar program, appears to be a show of confidence that LEO and MEO Resilient Missile Warning/Missile Tracking satellites are a more viable alternative.

Aerospace’s Sam Wilson, director for strategy and national security for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy, joined The Downlink Podcast to discuss the U.S. Space Force’s proposed budget.

SpaceNews — NASA is reserving a small amount of space on a Mars telecommunications spacecraft for science, which could include one or more cubesats.

SpaceCom — Aerospace’s Lori Gordon, Systems Director for Space Enterprise Evolution Directorate, writes about the opportunities, challenges, and strategic next steps for Orbital Data Centers.

SpaceNews — The U.S. Space Force is sharply increasing its demand for heavy-lift launches, with an additional 25 missions are being forecast for 2027-2029.

SpaceNews — NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is now scheduled for launch in early September, ahead of schedule.

Aviation Week — “There’s at least 40 different companies that have expressed interest in some element of the DiskSat,” Debra Emmons, VP and CTO at Aerospace. “Some are space companies thinking about doing spacecraft manufacturing at scale. Others are thinking about it as a host platform for their payloads or mission operators.”

Air and Space Forces Magazine — Col. Erich Hernandez-Baquero retired from the Air Force after 27 years of service, then held a number of space-related positions within the intelligence community before joining Raytheon in 2021.

Breaking Defense — The U.S. Space Force not plan to fund future iterations of a data relay constellation managed by the Space Development Agency (SDA), officials revealed, opting instead to build out a new constellation dubbed the “backbone” of the service’s budding Space Data Network (SDN).

Breaking Defense — Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, senior advisor to Air Force Secretary Troy Mink for space acquisition, made the announcement at Space Symposium.