HASC calls on Pentagon for “near- and long-term plans and options to ensure resilience” of the nuclear command, control and communications network, including requirements for survivability and protection of the supply chain.

“I don’t trust the Air Force, on its own, given its existing structure to properly prioritize space,” Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith says.

House Democrats release a 2020 defense policy bill that requires the Pentagon to write plenty of reports, but eases away from the HASC Chairman’s earlier remarks on nuclear modernization.

Successful OmegaA test keeps the program on the path towards a 2021 first launch and a crack at the Air Force’s hotly contested national security launch program. 

SASC wants the Air Force and DoD “to come back to the oversight committee every single month” to explain how they are standing up the new Space Force — if it is finally approved by Congress.

CSIS’s Todd Harrison, who supports the proposal, says his odds on the Space Force being fully approved by Congress this year are currently “slightly less than 50 percent.”

HASC Chairman Adam Smith issued a letter formally denying the request: “DoD is attempting to circumvent Congress and the American people’s opposition to using taxpayer money for the construction of an unnecessary wall, and the military is paying the cost.”

The day before Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahn appears before the HASC, Chairman Smith hammers White House Space Force.

The Trump Pentagon budget is “dead on arrival,” a top defense House Democrat says. And a Republican colleague rips budget gimmicks in the 2020 request.

Two top Democrats blasted the proposal, calling it a “blatant attempt to make a mockery of the federal budget process.”