Little Tantalizes in U.S. Air Force Budget

摘要

If the space industry is looking for something to get excited about, it won't find it in the U.S. Air Force's 2015 budget request. Touted by Air Force officials as a first step toward revamping the current constellation architecture, which many see as vulnerable to attack, the plan mostly stretches out existing programs, in part because satellites are lasting longer on orbit than expected. That's a logical thing to do when budgets are tight, but there's little indication that more than a fraction of the resulting cost savings are being invested in new or improved space capabilities. The request does include a long-overdue funding wedge - $40 million in 2015 - for a new military weather satellite system, which is encouraging. It appears as though the effort will focus on developing and launching a satellite with just enough capability to plug the gaps as the Air Force increases its reliance on external data sources, including civilian weather satellites.