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VP Mike Pence details plan to ramp up Space Force

Vice President Pence
Vice President Mike Pence outlines the Trump administration’s plans for raising the profile of space defense, leading to the establishment of the Department of the Space Force, during a Pentagon address. (White House / DOD via YouTube)

The Trump administration is taking immediate steps to raise the profile of the Defense Department’s space operations, and asking Congress to create the Department of the Space Force as a separate military branch by 2020.

“The time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces, to prepare for the next battlefield where America’s best and bravest will be called to deter and defeat a new generation of threats to our people, to our nation,” Vice President Mike Pence said today during a speech at the Pentagon. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force.”

But the plan doesn’t mean new platoons of space troops will be patrolling the heavens anytime soon. Instead, the four-step plan calls for consolidating and beefing up satellite defense operations that are already being done under the aegis of the U.S. Air Force and other government entities.

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Fat Albert rejoins the Blue Angels air show

Fat Albert
Fat Albert buzzes the Space Needle during 2015’s Seafair air show. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

Hey, hey, hey … it’s Fat Albert, in the skies over Seattle: We’re not talking about the jumbo-sized character created by comedian Bill Cosby back in the day, but the C-130T transport plane that’s back in its place among the Navy’s Blue Angels for Seafair Weekend’s Boeing Air Show.

Fat Albert may not be as sleek as the six F/A-18 Hornets that will be executing fancy aerobatic moves over Lake Washington this weekend. But as far as Marine Maj. Mark Montgomery is concerned, that just means there’s more to love.

“These planes are kind of like a pickup truck,” said Montgomery, who pilots Fat Albert as it travels from air show to air show. “They do everything, and they’re very reliable.”

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Tanker troubles bedevil Boeing financial report

Boeing KC-46 tanker
Boeing’s KC-46 tanker uses a boom to refuel an F-16 fighter jet. (Boeing Photo)

Second-quarter financial results that show higher revenue and earnings per share would typically please investors, but not for Boeing.

Instead, Boeing’s shares declined by as much as 3 percent after the results were announced. The price recovered to close at $355.92, representing a 0.6 percent loss on a trading day that was generally positive.

Investors were “rattled” by a $426 million charge against revenue due to cost overruns in Boeing’s KC-46 tanker program for the Air Force, Leeham News’ Dan Catchpole wrote. That assessment was seconded by other analysts.

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Boeing wins $3.9B for new-look Air Force One jets

Air Force One
President Donald Trump salutes officials and military officers in April 2018 after disembarking from Air Force One in Key West, Fla. (White House Photo / Shealah Craighead)

The White House has confirmed that Boeing won a firm, fixed-price contract from the U.S. Air Force to deliver two Air Force One presidential jets for $3.9 billion, more than a year and a half after a purported price tag of $4 billion became a sore point for then-President-Elect Donald Trump.

And Trump says these will be jets of a different color.

In today’s statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the contract was formally awarded on July 17. The statement also claimed that the deal represented a savings of more than $1.4 billion when compared with an initial proposal for a $5.3 billion cost-plus contract.

“President Donald J. Trump has emphasized the need to minimize the cost of replacing the two existing Air Force One aircraft,” the statement read. “Yesterday’s action meets that objective and reflects the president’s commitment to our military and to protecting taxpayer dollars.”

In reality, the price for the Air Force One replacement project has been squishy.

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Rocket engine scores a ’10’ in test for space plane

AR-22 engine firing
Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR-22 rocket engine fires during a test at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. (NASA / DARPA Photo)

A rocket engine built from spare space shuttle parts — and the team behind the engine — passed a grueling 10-day, 10-firing test that sets the stage for Boeing’s Phantom Express military space plane.

“We scored a perfect 10 last week,” Jeff Haynes, Aerojet Rocketdyne’s program manager for the AR-22 engine, told reporters today during a teleconference.

The hydrogen-fueled AR-22 is largely based on the RS-25 engine that was used on the space shuttle and will be used on NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System. “We’ve upgraded the ‘brain’ for this derivative mission,” using an advanced controller, Haynes said.

Aerojet, Boeing and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, set up the 240-hour test between June 26 and July 6 to see whether the AR-22 could be turned around rapidly enough for a 100-second, full-throttle firing every day. The bottom line? It can.

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Air Force contract marks a first for Falcon Heavy

Falcon Heavy launch
An automated camera documents the Falcon Heavy rocket’s first ascent from Kennedy Space Center in February with SpaceX’s hangar in the foreground. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $130 million firm-fixed-price contract to SpaceX for the launch of its classified AFSPC-52 satellite on a Falcon Heavy rocket.

It’s the first national security contract won for SpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket, which had its first test flight in February. AFSPC-52 is tue to lift off in 2020 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The launch will support the Air Force Space Command’s “mission of delivering resilient and affordable space capabilities to our nation while maintaining assured access to space,” Lt. Gen. John Thompson, Air Force program executive officer for space and commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, said today in a news release.

In an emailed statement, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said her company was “honored by the Air Force’s selection of Falcon Heavy to launch the competitively awarded AFSPC-52 mission.”

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Trump directs Pentagon to create Space Force

Trump and Pence
President Donald Trump speaks at a White House meeting of the National Space Council, with Vice President Mike Pence standing beside him and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao sitting in the background. (White House / NASA via YouTube)

President Donald Trump today directed the Department of Defense to create a Space Force as the sixth branch of the U.S. military, alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

“We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal,” Trump said at a White House meeting of the National Space Council. “It is going to be something so important.”

He called on Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to carry out the assignment — and Dunford, a member of the council, accepted the job on the spot.

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Tethers Unlimited delivers tiny satellite transmitter

SWIFT-KTX transmitter
The SWIFT-KTX transmitter helps tiny satellites deliver big data. (Tethers Unlimited Photo)

Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited says it’s delivered the first flight unit of a K-band radio transmitter that’s designed for use on CubeSat satellites as small as a loaf of bread.

The SWIFT-KTX transmitter builds upon Tethers Unlimited’s software-defined radio platform to transmit data at rates exceeding 100 megabits per second, the company said today in a news release. That rate is roughly on par with typical cable connection speeds.

Tethers Unlimited developed the transmitter under a Small Business Innovation Research contract from the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command. The company said the first flight unit was delivered to a confidential customer.

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Experts study ways to patrol the final frontier

X-37B landing
Workers in protective suits check out the Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle after its touchdown at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in May 2017. (U.S. Air Force Photo)

Two months after President Donald Trump said the United States may create a new military branch to focus on national security space activities, Politico is reporting that CNA Corp., a federally funded research and development center, is studying ways to make it so.

But will it be a separate Space Force, like the Air Force? A Space Corps, like the Marine Corps (which is overseen by the Department of the Navy)? Or something else?

George Nield, former head of the Federal Aviation Administration’s commercial space transportation office, leans toward the idea of a hybrid civilian/military Space Guard, analogous to the Coast Guard.

During peacetime, the Space Guard could monitor safety issues related to commercial space activities. But during wartime, it would be integrated under the Department of Defense. Such an arrangement would fill a gap in policing the final frontier, Nield said.

“There is, today, no single department or agency that is charged with holistically managing U.S. interests in space,” he said last weekend at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference.

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Paul Allen marks Memorial Day in a deep-sea way

Lexington shipwreck
An image captured by a remotely operated vehcile from the R/V Petrel shows the barrel of a 5-inch gun on the USS Lexington. (Image courtesy of Paul G. Allen. Copyright Navigea Ltd.)

It’s traditional to revisit the gravesites of America’s fallen warriors on Memorial Day, but billionaire philanthropist Paul Allen is adding a non-traditional twist.

Today the co-founder of Microsoft is highlighting the work that he’s funded over the past couple of years to document the wrecks of historic warships — and not only U.S. ships, but naval vessels that flew the flags of Japan, Italy and Australia.

A newly unveiled website celebrates the exploits of the Petrel, Allen’s research ship, and its remotely operated vehicle. But more importantly, it celebrates the sacrifices made by the crews of such venerable ships as the USS Indianapolis, the USS Lexington, the USS Juneau and the USS Helena.

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