Congress Slashes Pentagon Space Projects

It’s kind of hilarious, when you think about it. At the same time the New York Times is chasing its tail about weapons in orbit, Congress is slashing the Pentagon’s eternally-mismanaged space programs.
“Brushing aside the recent claim by a senior U.S. Air Force officer that all is well with the military space acquisition system, a congressional defense oversight committee made good on threats to rein in the service’s top two satellite development programs,” reports C4ISR Journal’s Jeremy Singer.
In marking up their version of the 2006 Defense Authorization Act, members of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee sent a strong message that they beg to beg to differ with the April 5 assertion by Gen. Lance Lord, commander of Air Force Space Command, that the space acquisition system is not broken and that those who think otherwise should “get over it.“
The panel slashed the Air Force’s funding request for the Space Radar surveillance satellites and the Transformational Satellite Communications System (T-Sat), directing the service to restructure both efforts. The panel recommended providing $436 million of the $836 million request for T-Sat and $100 million of the $226 million request for the Space Radar.

May 26th, 2005 | Space | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.