Theresa Hitchens is the Senior reporter, Space at Breaking Defense. The former Defense News editor was a senior research associate at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). Before that, she spent six years in Geneva, Switzerland as director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).
A sci-fi geek, voracious reader, enthusiastic cook, dabbler in poetry, Theresa is also the proud mom of a wonderful young man by the name of Nicholas.
In his first Commander's Note of 2026, Gen. Chance Saltzman urges close collaboration between the Space Force acquisition and operational corps to speed delivery of new capabilities.
Meanwhile, the Air Force Research Laboratory is gearing up to launch its experimental cislunar monitoring satellite, called Oracle Prime, next year.
Do more with less: streamline workflows, reduce duplication, invest upfront to save long-term.
The upgrade to be performed under then new contract would allow Lockheed Martin's AEP ground system to replace RTX's long-troubled OCX program for future GPS IIIF birds.
The service's new Objective Force plan calls for demonstrating on-orbit refueling and fielding operational "space tugs" by 2030.
Awards will be issued “fairly shortly” for the first operational satellites that can track aircraft and from space, according to Air Force Secretary Troy Meink.
The Space Force's projections of its needs for orbital warfare and electronic warfare are only included in the classified version of the new Objective Force plan, but Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman confirmed that the service wants new kit for orbital warfare.
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant said SSC is working to hire "several hundreds" of personnel to rebuild its decimated acquisition corps.
Planet in a March 9 notice to its customers, obtained by Breaking Defense, explained that the company would be instituting a 14-day delay on release of imagery not just of Iran, but also of nearby military bases, the Gulf States and "existing conflict zones."
Missile warning and tracking programs, and the emerging Space Data Network being developed to ferry space sensor data to shooters on the ground, in the air and at sea are among the programs seeing huge increases.
The service has tapped 14 firms to compete for rolling task orders through April 2036 under the Andromeda program, formerly known as RG-XX.
As missions stretch farther and comms grow less reliable, predictive software could become the edge that keeps missions afloat.
The Secure World Foundation's annual report also identified a trend towards bodyguard satellites that shadow and defend high-value military and intelligence satellites from adversary attack.
The moves by a few Chinese satellites in GEO show patterns of activity that suggest potential military and intelligence missions, the CSIS study asserts.
Everything you need to know about the record setting fiscal 2027 defense budget request.
It is unclear whether Gurpartap "GP" Sandhoo will keep his role as SDA acting director under a double-hat, but one industry source said that is the most likely solution at least in the near term.