Congress Gives U.S. Air Force Half of T-Sat Budget Request

摘要

The 2006 defense budget Congress sent to U.S. President George W. Bush in December gave the Pentagon only about half of the money it wanted for a new generation of laser-linked communications satellites. In the report accompanying the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act, Congress also directed the U.S. Air Force to focus on maturing die needed technology for the program, the Transformational Satellite (T-Sat) Communications System, rather than pursuing it as a formal acquisition effort. The Defense Appropriations Conference Report for 2006 also made $120 million of the $436 million in funding it provided for T-Sat contingent on the Defense Department's completion of an analysis that examines whether additional satellites from other programs such as the Wideband Gapfiller or the Advanced Extra High Frequency (AEHF) satellites will be needed prior to the first T-Sat launch. The Air Force had requested $836 million for T-Sat in 2006.