Blue Origin Commits to Return to Flight This Year

The House’s annual defense authorization bill would eliminate the two offices within the Pentagon designed to speed up space acquisition. The chair’s version [https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/fy27_ndaa_chairmans_mark_-_final.pdf] of the House FY27 National Defense Authorization Act would axe the Space Development Agency (SDA) and Space Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO). The bill is far from a done deal. Members of the House Armed Services Committee will meet on Thursday to mark up the bill, which will also need to be considered and approved by the full House and Senate.  On the chopping block: SDA was established in 2019 as an independent agency. Since then, it’s been working to quickly field commercially built satellites in tranches to boost comms, tracking, and missile-defense capabilities for the military. The office most recently launched Tranche 1 of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture transport layer in October, before announcing in March a strategic pause for launching missions while the office worked out some kinks. Keep reading [https://payloadspace.com/ndaa-would-cut-sda-rco-offices/]