Air and Space Forces — U.S. Space Force’s acting acquisition executive, Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, said: “We have a strong, motivated force, but there have been an incredible amount of pressures on them in this past year. … We are in a situation where we barely have enouch acquirers to do all the work that we have now.”

Reuters — Marlon Sorge, Aerospace’s executive director of the Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies (CORDS), says the easiest way for operators to ensure they don’t fall foul of the FCC’s 2022 rule that satellites de-orbit within 5 years, is to adhere to the de-orbiting parameters from the start of the design process.

Via Satellite — A recent study found that roughly half of the traffic from Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellites is still unencrypted. One of Aerospace’s cybersecurity experts, Brandon Bailey, said, “We have too much trust built into our architectures, into that trusted link between the ground and the spacecraft.”

SpaceNews — Blue Origin says it has passed a key development milestone for its Blue Ring spacecraft, a maneuverable in-orbit transport vehicle designed for national security missions and backed by Pentagon funding.

Air and Space Forces Magazine — Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman released a new document, whichs sums up U.S. Space Force’s current status and all of Saltzman’s efforts to solidify the Space Force’s identity as a warfighting service.

Aviation Week — The spacecraft, nicknamed Blue and Gold — the colors of UC Berkeley, which is overseeing the mission — will reach Mars in Sept. 2027. The identical satellites, built by Rocket Lab, are designed to work in tandem, with one in the solar wind environment around Mars, while the other makes simultaneous measurements of the thin Martian atmosphere.

Aviation Week — The U.S. Space Force is overhauling its training systems and doctrines. The Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) merges virtual environments with live ranges to ready personnel for on-orbit conflict.

SpaceNews — Project Kuiper has shed its seven-year-old code name, emerging as “Amazon Leo” as the company nears the start of initial broadband services from the low Earth orbit constellation next year.

The Defense Post — Called Meadowlands and the Remote Modular Terminal (RMT), the systems join the older Counter Communications System. Unlikethat larger system, the new jammers are smaller, more mobile, and can be controlled remotely from anywhere in the world.

Less than two weeks after acting NASA Administrator and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy publicly announced that he plans to “open up the contract” for getting American astronauts back to the surface of the Moon, SpaceX is making a case for why they should lead the way.