Starry Skies Network

Looking back on what we were shown — and what was not shown — during our unprecedented press tour of North Korea’s space facilities, I realize that both these aspects of reality had lessons for us. The very absence of some expected features of the trip strongly indicated the presence of important features of North Korea.

The top two senators from the Senate Armed Services Committee are calling for the U.S. Air Force to halt talks worth up to $15 billion with its top rocket provider owing to insufficient pricing data and management insight for the service to make “informed decisions” for crafting a new buy strategy for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV).

After 30 years and 135 missions, it’s curtains for NASA’s Space Shuttle. The Shuttle Atlantis blasted off on Friday for one last rendezvous with the International Space Station, bringing to an end the current era of impressive — but pricey and dangerous — manned spaceflight. But never fear! America’s space arsenal might be down four giant Shuttles, but there’s still plenty of U.S. government hardware orbiting the Earth, much of it top secret.

When most people think of electronic wiring and cabling systems, they think of the pre-assembled, plug-and-play cables packaged with home electronic systems.
One local company custom designs and builds those systems everyday — but not for home use.
Tri-Tek Electronics Inc. often works on many top-secret, mission-critical projects for the military and aerospace industries.

The US has raised concerns over the significant expansion of China’s space operations, saying Washington wants to set rules and have a dialogue with Beijing on the use of space.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and missile warning satellite are ready for their planned blastoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 2:14 p.m. Friday.

The Navy SEALs who conducted the daring raid that killed Osama bin Laden are called the quiet professionals.
No one outside their tightly guarded world knows who they are, and that’s the way they want it, rejecting hero-laden publicity for the anonymity the dangerous work requires.

Helicopters flying U.S. commandos to Osama bin Laden’s compound were guided through Pakistani airspace by Navstar GPS satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport is preparing for another Minotaur rocket launch down on Wallops Island, Va., the fourth since 2006.
The 70-foot rocket will carry an ORS-1 satellite for the Pentagon. It’s designed to provide “multi-spectral” imaging for combatants on the ground.

Senior Pentagon officials are sounding concern over China’s development of weapons designed to shoot down satellites or jam communication signals.

The wonderfully sort-of-secret X-37B is back on terra firma after a long stay in space. Very little information beyond its appearance, dimensions and the fact that the Air Force is deploying it is known about the vehicle, which looks a lot like a mini space shuttle. The vehicle can stay in orbit for at least nine months.

An unmanned U.S. military mini-shuttle launched from Cape Canaveral in April coasted to an automated touchdown this morning in California.
The first X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV-1, landed at 4:16 a.m. EST (1:16 a.m. Pacific) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, concluding a more than 220-day classified mission.

The landing window for the U.S. military X-37B space plane opens Friday, but officials are mum about the timing of specific opportunities to return the craft to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Transparency. Openness. International cooperation. These are some of the principles the United States should embrace in order to “safeguard U.S. satellites and protect space,” according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Problem is, one of America’s latest and greatest space gizmos runs afoul of those noble ideas.

A faulty ordnance line is being replaced at a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station today, work that will clear the way for the planned Friday night launch of a powerful Delta IV rocket.

The Asian space race is moving along slowly, but steadily – and China is in the lead, with technology that could give it a military advantage over the US.

The launch of a Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base tentatively has been delayed 48 hours due to a problem related to the space booster.

Former Hartinger award recipients joined Airmen, Oct. 21, at Air Force Space Command for an opportunity to discuss “The Future: Way ahead in a competitive, resource-constrained environment…lessons learned.”

Satellites are very expensive. The sensors on them are very expensive. Launching satellites is very expensive. One way the government has considered saving some of those launch and satellite costs is by piggybacking its sensors on commercial satellites. Known as hosted payloads, such packages have attracted considerable interest from the government for the last few years.