The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold its first official hearing on President Trump’s Space Force proposal April 11, the committee announced Thursday.
Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, and U.S. Strategic Command Commander Gen. John Hyten are all scheduled to appear.
The panel is expected to face skeptics from both political parties debating whether a new Space Force would improve the Pentagon’s space operations and better compete with Russia and China, The Hill reported.
The Space Force proposal has been raised in several House and Senate Armed Services committees, but this week’s hearing will be the first on the issue.
“A coherent space strategy is an integral part of our National Defense Strategy,” Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said in a statement. “I look forward to hearing from Pentagon leadership about what they see as the necessary capabilities of a space force, the costs and benefits associated with their solutions, and what our full range of options are.”
Air Force photo by Wayne Clark
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