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ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, MARYLAND — Flanked by two fighter jets and in front of a giant American flag, President Trump on Friday signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that officially created the Space Force, the sixth and first new military branch since 1947. “For the first time since Truman, we will create a brand new American military service,” Trump said. “You will witness the birth of the Space Force. That’s a big moment and we’re all here for it.”

Recently retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast gave a lecture last month that seems to further signal that the next major battlefield will be outer space. While military leadership rattling the space sabers is nothing new, Kwast’s lecture included comments that heavily hint at the possibility that the United States military and its industry partners may have already developed next-generation technologies that have the potential to drastically change the aerospace field, and human civilization, forever. Is this mere posturing or could we actually be on the verge of making science fiction a reality? *snip* Kwast delivered a...

A bipartisan defense budget agreement will authorize the creation of the Space Force. The Space Force will be, like the Army or Air Force, a distinct military service under the Pentagon. The service will take over space functions from existing services, wielding them into a single independent branch overseen by a Chief of Space Operations. It’s really happening. A bipartisan budget agreement for 2020 will see the creation of a new branch of the military specifically oriented towards space. The United States Space Force will be the first new service branch in more than 60 years, tasked to ensure America’s...

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla., June 25 (UPI) -- SpaceX's third-ever Falcon Heavy rocket launched early Tuesday from Florida, carrying 24 satellites in a complex government mission from Kennedy Space Center. It was the first time the military used the world's most powerful rocket, the first nighttime launch for the Falcon Heavy and the first time such a government mission used two SpaceX boosters that have been flown before. The space company also made history by catching one half of the rocket nose cone -- or fairing -- in a net on a fishing boat at sea, as the fairings fell...

President Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive-4 (SPD-4) today (Feb. 19), ordering the Pentagon to establish the Space Force as the sixth branch of the United States military, to go along with the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. But the Space Force still has a big hoop to jump through: Congress must approve the creation of any new military branch. The main goal of the Space Force is to secure and extend American dominance of the space domain, Trump and other White House officials have said. Such reasoning has drawn opposition from various quarters. "President Trump has...

China said Wednesday it opposed the "weaponisation" of space as it criticised US President Donald Trump's orders to create a new command centre for controlling military space operations. "China has consistently proposed the peaceful usage of space, and opposes the weaponisation of space and a space arms race," said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a press briefing. "We oppose even further turning space into the new battleground," she added. On Tuesday, Trump ordered the creation of "Space Command", a new organisational structure within the Pentagon that will have overall control of military space operations. SpaceCom, as it will...

In a Dec. 6 memo titled, "Space Development Agency Study Team Direction and Tasking," Griffin directed Fred Kennedy, director of DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, to lead a study team and come up with recommendations for the "implementation of the Space Development Agency. … The study team will "inventory the DoD space-based command-and-control capabilities, identify critical gaps, deficiencies and inefficiencies in our existing architectures and develop an agile responsive threat-driven architecture, associated infrastructure requirements and an acquisition construct," Griffin wrote. The decision to assign this task to Kennedy is not surprising given his space expertise and track record attracting commercial space...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell speaks to audiences around the world and gets lots of questions. During  at the Air Force Association's annual symposium, Shotwell was thrown a question she said she had never heard before: "Would SpaceX launch military weapons?" "I've never been asked that question," Shotwell said somewhat surprised. Her response: "If it's for the defense of this country, yes, I think we would." The room packed with Air Force service members and military contractors burst into applause. They seemed impressed that SpaceX is one of the world's coolest companies and also...

USSF: The newest branch of the U.S. military, the United States Space Force, became a reality on Thursday with an announcement by Vice President Mike Pence to an audience at the Pentagon. U.S.S.F. becomes the sixth military branch of service, the first one created since the U.S. Army Air Corps became the Air Force shortly after World War II. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force,” Pence announced, noting that during the last great war, America rose to meet substantial military challenges posed by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Part of meeting — and defeating —...

WASHINGTON — If and when a new military branch for space gets off the ground, its ranks would be dominated by airmen. But Army soldiers also would have a role by virtue of much they rely on military satellites in peacetime or in war. More than 70 percent of the Army's major weapons and equipment need satellites to function. About 2,220 active-duty soldiers, reservists and civilians make up the "space forces" under the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command headquartered at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. "We are the biggest users of space," said Brig. Gen. Tim Lawson,...

The announcement that President Donald Trump wanted to create a “Space Force” that would serve as a co-equal branch of the Armed Forces brought a wide range of reactions. Some experts believed we needed it to defend U.S. interests above the clouds, including protecting our satellites and preventing orbital bombardment by China or Russia. Others posited it as a dangerous step toward the irrevocable militarization of space. And some said it didn’t matter, either because the unilateral expansion of the armed forces is beyond the scope of presidential power, or because Trump says he’s going to do a lot of...

Last week President Trump announced he would be initiating the creation of the “Space Corps” as a sixth branch within the armed forces of the United States. It soon became subject to “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” and other science fiction themed memes that scorched across the Internet and remains a complex and tentative policy proposal within itself.Nonetheless, it is a strong reminder of both how the Trump Administration has revitalized much of our country’s space programs and the increasing economic and national security need for doing so.President Trump’s announcement follows his directive last year to reconvene the National Space Council,...

Russia has pledged severe repercussions if President Donald Trump’s order to set up a new, space-oriented military branch violates a treaty banning nuclear weapons in the cosmos. Trump said this week he will establish a sixth branch of the military named the “Space Force,” pending budgetary approval from the U.S. Congress. The idea could require the U.S. to withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction but not conventional arms in space. Viktor Bondarev, head of the Committee on Defense and Security of Russia's upper parliamentary house, told the state-run RIA...

Here's a first look at the ranks and insignia designs of the new 6th military branch, the United States Space Force. The ranks are right out of Star Trek's Starfleet Command.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that he has ordered the creation of a new military branch, adding the "Space Force" to the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. "It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space. Very importantly I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces, that is a big statement," Trump said at a meeting of the National Space Council on Monday. "We are going to...

<p>WASHINGTON — Trump announces he’s directing Pentagon to create ‘space force’ as independent service branch.</p> <p>Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</p>

Russia are claiming their new MiG-41 will be able to reach space and even potentially operate without a pilot, according to the CEO of the MiG corporation working on the project. The new fighter will, the company say, be a spiritual successor of MiG-31, MiG Corporation CEO Ilya Tarasenko stated, shedding some light on the interceptor under development. “The development is at the stage of finalizing the image of the plane. It will be a gradual transition from MiG-31 to PAK DA” Tarasenko said in an interview on Russian TV. The jet, he said, will not be just a modernisation...

The US military's X-37B space plane landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, ending its record-breaking 718-day orbit with a sonic boom during its first landing in Florida. The US Air Force has two X-37B Orbital Test Vehicles, which it calls its newest and most advanced reentry spacecraft. At 29 feet long and with a 14-foot wingspan, the planes are about one-quarter of the size of NASA's now retired space shuttles and have a cargo bay about the size of a pick-up truck's. The first X-37 program started in 1999, and the X-37B first flew in April 2010,...

At the end of 2016, the Russian Defense Ministry will receive the first delivery of the renewed NK-32 engines for the Tu-160M2 strategic missile-carrying bombers. According to the developers, the new engine will help the plane fly up to the stratosphere at an altitude of 60,000 feet. "The new NK-32 version can work not only as a reactive plane engine but also as a rocket engine. Thanks to this, the Tu-160M2 will be able to cruise at a height where no enemy anti-aircraft system can strike it," a source in the Russian defense industry said. The modernized plane's first flight...

A U.S. Air Force robotic space plane continues to maneuver in Earth orbit, according to the latest observations from skywatchers. The reusable space drone has been carrying out tasks using a suite of classified sensors and may be nearing its mission's end, according to comments from Air Force officials. The spacecraft is the Air Force's X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle 1, which launched on its maiden flight on April 22 atop an Atlas 5 rocket.