Defense News:
WASHINGTON — While the past year has been filled with talk of doing more to develop missile defense sensors for space, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s fiscal 2019 budget showed no signs of a plan to ramp up the effort as threats grow more complex.
But despite the absence of funding in the FY19 budget request, there are military leaders pushing back on the feet-dragging when it comes to getting after space-based sensors.
“There is a lot of [skepticism] about the technical feasibility and the cost, and those are valid concerns, those aren’t unrealistic concerns. We should always be worried about that,” Gen. John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, told reporters at an Association of the U.S. Army event on missile defense. “It has caused the department to continue to look at it and say: ’We are not quite ready, we need to study it a little more.’ But I think we are ready now.”