The U.S. Air Force and its international allies have scheduled a meeting Norway for next month to discuss efforts in cooperative research, development, testing and evaluation of space technologies for joint military operations, Space News reported Friday.Debra Werner writes Roberta Ewart, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s chief scientist, noted the new program will require the service branch to seek an approval for a unique type of memorandum of understanding from the State Department to lay out a program’s objective.
The Air Force will also no longer have to ask the State Department to endorse additional technical projects once the memorandum gets approved and foreign military agencies that propose technical projects will have to provide partners with a technical project agreement.
Cooperative research programs have already been proposed such as the Rapid Space Capabilities and Air Force Research Laboratory’s Microsatellite Military Utility to focus on combat support technologies and miniature satellites respectively.
