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Category: US Space Force

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  • With new contracts, SpaceX will become the US military’s top launch provider

    The US Space Force announced Friday it selected SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin for $13.7 billion in contracts to deliver the Pentagon’s most critical military to orbit into the early 2030s.

    These missions will launch the government’s heaviest national security satellites, like the National Reconnaissance Office’s large bus-sized spy platforms, and deploy them into bespoke orbits. These types of launches often demand heavy-lift rockets with long-duration upper stages that can cruise through space for six or more hours.

    The contracts awarded Friday are part of the next phase of the military’s space launch program once dominated by United Launch Alliance, the 50-50 joint venture between legacy defense contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

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  • Maybe Trump should go back to calling his missile shield the Iron Dome

    The US Space Force celebrated its fifth birthday last year, when it boasted an annual budget of $29 billion, about 3.5 percent of the Pentagon’s overall funding level.

    On March 15, President Donald Trump signed a stopgap spending bill that set the Space Force’s budget for fiscal year 2025 at $28.7 billion. This was the first cut to the Space Force’s budget since Trump created the military’s newest service branch in 2019.

    Gen. Chance Saltzman, the top general in the Space Force, worries that the budget crunch will hamstring the military’s ability to match China’s fast-growing space architecture. The Space Force is charged with developing and operating satellites, ground systems, and weapons that the Pentagon could use to track and target enemy forces on the ground and in space.

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  • With Vulcan’s certification, Space Force is no longer solely reliant on SpaceX

    The US Space Force on Wednesday announced that it has certified United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket to conduct national security missions.

    “Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security,” said Brig. Gen. Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, in a news release. “Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency, and flexibility needed by our nation’s most critical space-based systems.”

    The formal announcement closes a yearslong process that has seen multiple delays in the development of the Vulcan rocket, as well as two anomalies in recent years that were a further setback to certification.

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  • What is space war-fighting? The Space Force’s top general has some thoughts.

    DENVER—The US Space Force lacks the full range of space weapons China and Russia are adding to their arsenals, and military leaders say it’s time to close the gap.

    Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, told reporters at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium last week that he wants to have more options to present to national leaders if an adversary threatens the US fleet of national security satellites used for surveillance, communication, navigation, missile warning, and perhaps soon, missile defense.

    In prepared remarks, Saltzman outlined in new detail why the Space Force should be able to go on the offense in an era of orbital warfare. Later, in a roundtable meeting with reporters, he briefly touched on the how.

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