Aerospace News

A 20-minute documentary film that covers the criticality of space to our national security, the economy, and our daily lives. It describes Space Force mission areas, locations, and personnel. Produced by Air Force Television Pentagon (SAF/PA)

The Space Force accepted the upgrade to the Space-Based Infrared System last week, the service announced today, which serves to boost missile warning capabilities.

Abandoned satellites, rocket parts, and other debris have been accumulating in outer space for the last seven decades. Without global action to track and reduce it, this clutter could cause lasting damage and endanger the technology we depend on.

WASHINGTON — In a significant departure from traditional defense procurement practices, the U.S. Space Force is moving to replace its specialized military satellites used for geostationary surveillance with systems built and operated by commercial vendors, a shift aimed at expanding supplier diversity and tapping into the private sector’s capabilities.

SpaceNews — Texas, Florida, and Ohio are among the states vying to move NASA’s headquarters from its current location in Washington, D.C. NASA officials said that they are looking at ways to spread out functions that are currently at headquarters to various field centers.

Aviation Week — Planet Labs said it plans to use Anthropic’s Claude large language model (LLM) to analyze its imagery data. Claude’s reasoning and pattern-recognition abilities will be used to analyze Planet’s daily scan of Earth and to help analysts ask questions of the satellite data.

Aviation Week — NROL-174 was deployed with a Minotaur IV rocket, which marks the first time in nearly 15 years that a rocket in this configuration supported an NRO payload from Vandenberg. It was originally built as a Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and then modified for launch.

Under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 procurement strategy, the Space Force adopted a tiered approach to mission assurance. This shift creates opportunities for companies with medium-lift rockets that don’t qualify for more restrictive Lane 2, but can still meet the needs of lower-mass NSSL missions.

Defense One — New Pentagon priorities are forcing the Space Force to find ways to cut 8 percent from its budget. However, the service will play a crucial role in the development of the Trump administration’s next-gen missile shield effort, Golden Dome, which will rely on the service’s sensors in space to detect and track hypersonic and ballistic missiles.

In its first-ever Space Warfighting framework, Space Force outlines the activities and considerations to fight in space to achieve superiority in the domain, including orbital strike, space link interdiction, and terrestrial strike.